July at the BLM Grand Junction Field Office provided more fun work experiences and opportunities than the ongoing search for the Colorado Hookless Cactus in the North Desert. I was able to join about 20 office employees on a field trip to Pine Ridge, an area near DeBeque where a 40,000 acre fire raged in 2012, the largest my office has dealt with. The purpose of the trip was for everyone to see how fire rehabilitation efforts were working, despite some initial complications, such as the fire happening at the end of a fiscal year so they were not able to chain and re-seed as soon as they hoped to. And then there was little rain for about a year for what they did seed, but things are looking okay for most areas with a few areas dominated by Bromus tectorum, of course. The first thing they seeded was a manufactured sterile grass to just stabilize the soil and prevent erosion (they had a big problem after the fire of ash and soil eroding into nearby water supplies) and even though it was supposed to be sterile it is still around a little bit… They did not re-seed any forbs so it was good to see some globemallow and others popping up on their own!
We have ventured beyond the desert to some creek beds and canyons to search for Sclerocactus glaucus and were rewarded one day with seeing wild horses! They were beautiful but I felt a little bad because as soon as they saw us they immediately froze and didn’t twitch an ear or flick a tail while we snacked nearby for 20 minutes. Eventually the mother and colt continued grazing but the others didn’t dare move at all until we left.
Wild Horses
We also got to help the office hydrologist do a stream health assessment in the Dominguez Escalante National Conservation Area. We did macroinvertebrate sampling and discharge and flow rate monitoring. The water was high from monsoonal rains and it felt soooo good!
Macroinvertebrate sampling
macroinvertebrate sampling
Flow rate and discharge monitoring
I took last week off to visit my fiance who is working in Jackson, Wyoming and my mom drove from NC to meet me there. We went to Yellowstone and Teton National Parks and saw these guys pretty close up (it was scary when one tourist started whistling at the grizzly bear….):
Elk
Grizzly bear
Elk
Baby bison
My mom and I then continued on a little road trip to visit Ouray, Telluride, Mount Evans (where I saw bristlecone pines over 1,000 years old!), Denver, Rocky Mountain National Park, Eagle, and Glenwood Springs. I especially loved RMNP because above the treeline was cloudy and misty and reminded me so much of Ireland and Scotland, and I also finally saw a moose!
Back to work this week!
Lindsey B,
BLM GJFO, Colorado