Hey everyone! 

Wow, can you believe it’s already the end of August? I sure can’t! As CLM interns, this past month has undeniably given Marta and I the chance to work hard and play even harder.

August 2^nd:

Spent the day hiking, botanizing and relaxing at glacial Wildhorse Lake. I’d been saving this trip for a while so that I could catch all the magnificent alpine wildflowers at the peak of their blooming period. Took me about three hours to get down to the lake, not because it was a mile long, switch-back heavy, daunting 1,000+ ft. drop down a rugged rock face into the alpine basin, but because I kept stopping in awe every time I saw a spurt of bright red, yellow, orange, blue, pink, or white flowers shooting out from all directions of the trail. After dipping my feet into the lake and taking a nice rest, I

decided it was time for me to go on a little adventure. I was initially headed straight to a smaller lake down further into the gorge until I heard what sounded like the rush of a small waterfall. I traveled up that way and I swear, I had not seen something as beautiful as that area of the creek–with its pink penstemon, yellow sunflowers, black sedges, blue bells and purple daisies–in a long time. Then, when I didn’t think life could get any better, I began noticing all the extraordinarily lovely grasses (all around me of course) holding this place together! After my time spent with the stunning bromes, poas
 and wheatgrasses I scrambled over a huge boulder patch (soooo FUN!) to get to that smaller lake up ahead.

 

 

 

 

August 5^th-7^th:

Marta and I headed down to (the BLM owned and managed) historic Riddle Brothers Ranch complex located in the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area. We were to stay overnight at the Riddle Brothers Ranch (BLM Administration site) for the next couple days so that each morning we could easily access the nearby Rooster Comb Research Natural Area and get to work right away without having to drive hours to and fro. As I’m sure most of my fellow CLM interns have come to find out, according to the Bureau of Land Management, “Research Natural Areas (RNAs) are areas that are part of a national network of reserved areas under various ownerships which contain important ecological and scientific values and are managed for minimum human disturbance”. Our job was to spend the next couple days identifying as many plant species in the Rooster Comb RNA as possible. Hearing the calming flow of the Little Blitzen River to the left, right and sometimes below us while we (wrapped in summer’s warmth) identified the many new grasses, sedges,forbs and shrubs all around us was pure bliss!

 

Rest of August:

Since our return from Riddle Brother’s Ranch, Marta and I have been getting closer and closer to finishing up what is left of our fire monitoring when it comes to going out in the field to the different plot sites and collecting data. Since the beginning, Marta, good ol’ Randy and I have had a blast laughing, learning about each other, and familiarizing ourselves with the flora and fauna of a number of diverse ecosystems (such as the shrubland-steppes, high deserts, wetlands, alkaline flats, aspen groves, hot springs, juniper woodlands and alpine tundra’s of eastern Oregon). Lately, we have been working in the office; inputting field data into excel spreadsheets, creating a multitude of graphs representative of our findings and uploading/organizing all the photo point pictures we have taken at each plot site this summer. Yesterday, I happily determined the potential vegetation types of each plot’s ecological site with the use of ARCmap 10.2 and entered that information into the excel data sheets. Oh, how I have missed GIS!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Annnnnnd did I mention…….

 

This last weekend (Aug. 15^th-16^th) Marta and I went on a 17.5 mile (two day) backpacking trip around the stunning Strawberry Mountain Wilderness and aaay dios mio!! We summited Strawberry Mountain, camped at Little Strawberry Lake, spent time at near a strikingly gorgeous waterfall and visited Strawberry Lake, Slide Lake and Little Slide Lake! It was so incredibly STUPENDOUS (ha that one’s for you Marta!), physically challenging and overall one of the best times I have ever had in the outside world—one that I will never forget!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ariana Gloria-Martinez

Hines, OR