After visiting Chicago two weeks ago, I really feel like I can put faces to at least some of the other blog posts. I’ll admit, after so many weeks of traveling and meeting different people at trainings this season, it made me exhausted to even think about trying to socialize with another large group of people for a week. However, it turned out to be a very easy thing to do. Which makes complete sense since all of us attending the workshop have so many things in common: working in the outdoors, being interns, trying to figure out our career paths, and in general being rather laid back individuals. There was always something that could be chatted about no matter who you were standing next to. The week was an enjoyable one. I had never been to Chicago before so I swooped in on several opportunities to visit downtown. While I don’t think I could ever personally live in a city of that magnitude, it was still really neat to get a sense of the atmosphere, culture, and diversity of people inhabiting it. Seeing the actual gardens was also a highlight. I visited a new section everyday and still didn’t see it all by the end of the week. Overall, I left Chicago with new friends, knowledge, and quite possibly a few extra pounds (the lunches were ridiculous right?)

After a rather relaxing week away, we jumped right back into the peak of the season here at the home front. Our focus is on the BLM parcels that are within areas that burned around the district in the past few years. Our project for right now is to survey an area called Okanogan, about 70 miles north of Wenatchee and pretty darn close to the Canada border. The fire burned a total of 219,306 acres, 16,506 of which is BLM land. Some of the parcels are clumped close together, making it easy to travel from one to the other, while others are rather scattered and require extra travel. And then some are completely landlocked by private property making accessibility a bit of a doozy. We’ve only checked out a handful in the past 2 weeks and will need to organize the rest of them based on how easy they are to get to. The actual surveying for weeds part is the easy piece of the puzzle, getting to where we need to be is the difficult part I’ve come to discover. However, as the title of this post suggests, the areas we do manage to get to are sometimes quite steep. Let’s just say I’ve upgraded from the stair master to the hill master. But I absolutely love it and wouldn’t want it any other way. While observing and mapping weeds can get somewhat repetitive, the change in terrain really makes this job a lot of fun.

We camped for work the first time this week since we would be spending half the day driving every time we went out to this particular area. Other than the 2 dozen or so mosquito bites it was quite nice. No matter how hot it gets during the day it always cools down to a very comfortable temperature in the evening. And sleeping under the stars is always a plus. It’s going to take a few weeks to complete this one area so more camping is to come! 🙂 And more deet is to come as well! (though I suppose I should find an alternative…)

Cheers