Camping Season has begun!

Greetings again from Rawlins, WY!

The weather has finally warmed up here, which means that camping season has begun. Being a recreation intern means that it is my co-intern and I’s responsibility to get the campgrounds up to snuff, which has meant a lot of painting. We repainted most of the bathrooms either due to graffiti that needed to be covered up or just general updates. We also have been replacing and repainting many of the picnic tables at our campsites. Some picnic tables either needed tops or benches replaces while some just needed a sanding and to be repainted. We have also been working on getting bear-proof trash cans installed at one of our campgrounds, as there has been signs of bears digging through the trash.

Area where the bear trash cans will be installed

Example of picnic table needing to be fixed

Example of picnic table needed to be fixed

Another thing that we have been working on is replacing many of the road/information signs in our field office. Many of our signs have become faded and hard to read. We have many signs that had been ordered before we arrived and we are hoping to get them put up. We are also working on finding other signs that need replacing that we might not know about.

I am hoping in the coming weeks we can start to work on some monitoring of our Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs).

During the holiday break my co-intern and I had the opportunity to go to Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park. I had been to Arches in January, but I only had half a day to spend there. This trip I was able to go on some of the longer hikes that I was not able to do in January. Being my first trip to Canyonlands it was neat to see how different the two parks were even though they are only about 25 miles apart. One of my favorite parts of the trip was the guided tour through Fiery Furnace. Our tour guide was amazing and so knowledgeable.