Northern Nevada Fall

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Road to Angel Lake in the Ruby Mountains, Elko County.

Hi CLM blog,

What’s new with you? For me, the end of September and first part of October have brought some changes, at work and in general. The end of September marked the end of the two Reno Seeds of Success crews’ terms, so I had to say goodbye to the four of them (in a professional context at least), which was sad. Working (and hanging out outside of work!) with them was the highlight of my September, and I’m hopeful that we will remain friends even when we don’t have plants and seeds to look for together! I’m going to visit a couple of these cool people this weekend so I’m optimistic.

Why yes, there *is* a roller rink in Reno that we went to after work during the Reno crews’ last week!
A cool mountain lake that I fell into and then decided to make it my latest-season swim on record (9/25). On a fun weekend adventure with some of my Reno friends! Near Saddlebag Lake along Tioga Pass in CA.

Now that the seeds are almost completely dispersed for most species, I’ve started working on some other things. I made a tissue sample collection for Machaeranthera (/Dieteria) canescens at Angel Lake, and got to enjoy the fall colors and dense fog up there, which was cool to see. Lots more moisture than the atmosphere had contained for many months was hanging over the tops of the mountains, and at higher elevations like Angel Lake you could get pretty much engulfed by it!

Colorful aspens and low-hanging clouds on the drive to Angel Lake

In October a few cloudy systems have moved through Winnemucca also, and the mountains around town have been intermittently snowy, which I’ve really enjoyed. Maybe it’s just that I’m a Midwestern person who has rarely seen that, but having snow on the tops of the mountains gives them more definition and helps me notice peaks in the distance that I’d scanned over without really seeing when they were snow-free. I also learned that tumbleweeds, once dry, can clump together to form aggregations several feet long across four-wheeler trails, which added a kooky obstacle on one of my runs last week (of course, after googling the phenomenon, I learned that what I experienced was on the small end of the spectrum of tumbleweed aggregations!). In general I’m really appreciating being cold sometimes after a hot summer––much more what I’m accustomed to.

Some cute sedges near the Saddlebag Lake hiking trails. There were almost enough to collect––too bad we weren’t on the clock!
Sunset from one of the Water Canyon hiking trails, Winnemucca. Note to self: no more evening hikes––seeing a cool sunset is not worth hiking back down the trail in the dark!

The other main thing I’ve been doing for work is some re-seeding of disturbed areas in the Santa Rosas. There are some heavily grazed and fire-affected areas along the Quinn River near the northern edge of the Santa Rosas, and I’ve been bringing bags of seed mix up and broadcasting it over these disturbed areas. Hopefully this will help some native grasses and forbs take root in this semi-bare, dry ground.

This hillside is one of the areas I re-seeded––you can see there’s a fair amount of bare ground that might be able to support more plants than are currently growing!

If it was seed conservation summer, now it’s ecosystem restoration autumn. I’m excited to see what comes next as the seasons keep changing.

Bye for now!

Emma