I am now more than halfway done with my internship in Grand Junction, Colorado. I\u2019ve spent the last two months doing rangeland health assessments in and around the Dolores River canyon, during which time I\u2019ve spent 3 nights a week camped out in a BLM trailer. Our trailer was nicknamed \u201cthe Chateau\u201d and was outfitted with a wine cellar, though some may refer to it as \u201ca cooler full of non-alcoholic beer.\u201d The men\u2019s trailer was referred to as \u201cthe servants\u2019 quarters.\u201d Yes, trailer life was great fun. But, the fieldwork part of the land health project is now over. We collected data from almost 100 sites, which involved sampling vegetation and measuring canopy gaps along a 50-meter transect, doing soil stability tests, and assessing soil erosion, hydrologic function, plant functional group composition, and plant mortality at each site. It\u2019s now my job to enter all this data into a GIS database and map the land health status of the entire area.
\nAfter spending nearly every day of my internship working in the field, working primarily in the office has been a major change of pace. After I\u2019ve gotten used to hiking around all day, I get pretty restless staying inside and staring at a computer screen. But since I\u2019ve spent the field season only working with a few other people, it\u2019s nice to get to know other people in the office. It\u2019s also very interesting to see all the field data coming together and see how it will be used.
\nAs a side note, I got to spend a week taking a course in MIM (multiple indicator monitoring), which is used to monitor land use impacts on streams. MIM involves sampling riparian plant species composition, woody species height and age class, bank stability, bank alteration, gravel size distribution, and pool and riffle composition. After spending so much time hiking around in the desert uplands, spending a week wading around in a stream was a blast. Although after learning so many upland plants, I found I was almost completely clueless on riparian species.
\nAnother side note: Bear sightings! Three of them! Unfortunately they ran away too quick for me to get a picture.
\nYou stay classy, fellow CLMers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am now more than halfway done with my internship in Grand Junction, Colorado. I\u2019ve spent the last two months doing rangeland health assessments in and around the Dolores River canyon, during which time I\u2019ve spent 3 nights a week … Continue reading