Day 1
These past few days have been a blur and I'm still recovering from this super fun trip. Our class left at 730 on Saturday and began our drive to Idaho. Each van had 2 drivers, i started off sleeping in the back for a few hours than i switched with the other driver and drove around five hours to Farwell Bend State Park. On the way we stopped at some gigantic waterfalls which were stunning. We made a few other stops on the way at various rest stops then eventually stopped in a small town called Huntingvile. We ate at a old redneck restaurant in a large room next to the main bar. The food was terrible, but held us down for a bit. We then headed to the park and set up camp. It was super windy and cold, yet the sky was very beautiful as a result of the low light pollution. I slept outside in between peoples tents, and actually slept very well.
Day 2
Today we left from Farwell Bend at 7 and began our drive to Utah. This drive took around 11 hours, and i drove around 7 of them. It was very crazy and began snowing during the drive which was very surreal in dry Utah. On the way we stopped at Bear River Wildlife Refuge in Utah. This place consists of over a hundred acres of wetlands. There are roads which loop throughout the park and we drove around then eventually walked some of the trails. This place is filled with many majestic birds such as hawks, owls, pelicans, pheasants, finches, cranes... We were able to look at all of these birds though fancy powerful equipment from the school. One very amazing site was when we viewed a group of 5 pelicans swimming and eating synchronized. The place we were at had an excellent view of the Wasatch mountain range and we were able to view a line on the range which showed how salt lake used to be massive and covered a great amount of land. Later we headed to the city of Odgen and camped out at the Ogden Nature Center. This place is very unique because its roughly the size of one city block within the city. This place is truly wild and has packs of wild deer, turkey, rabbits, mice, snakes... There are many trees and a huge swamp lies in the middle of the refuge. We camped in the back of the park by two large tree houses and had bathrooms and electricity. I shared a tent with a friend from class. Later this night we cooked a peanut stir fry which was very tasty(one of my classmates used to be a chief!). After diner we sat around a large fire and roasted smores.
Day 3
On Monday we were woken up and rushed at 7 to get ready for the day. In the morning i worked with grads from NAU(Northern Arizona University, This was one of my college choices) and helped them with an ongoing project involving cotton wood trees and symbiotic fungi. We helped them collect data by taking four soil/root samples from each tree at the directions N,E,S,W. We dug into the dirt a meter away from the tree base and then sifted through the dirt for fine cotton wood roots and then bagged and labeled them for further study. After this we rushed back to camp and than after changing into hiking gear headed to the Wasatch front. The city abruptly ends and the mountain range takes over. We decided to do a 3 mile hike to Malans Peak. This hike was amazing and very intense. We began by hiking up into a little canyon next to a river and eventually the switchbacks took us higher up. The environment began to change as we got higher up and soon the whole landscape was covered in snow! It felt like i was climbing Mt. Everest and we had to be very careful not to slip. When we made it to the top we rested at the clearing and had a short seminar about wilderness and the transition of nature and city.
Day 4
Yet again we woke up super early and headed to the nature center headquarters. We were supposed to work with kinder gardeners, however the class never showed up. Instead we helped the educators prep activities and we also toured the facilities. They have a large raptor center which takes in injured and desensitized birds. Some of the birds they had were pelicans, golden eagles, owls, hawks, and ravens... After this we drove to various sections of the Weber River and studied how the surrounding ecology was effected by the city. In many parts erosion had influenced the river and created at risk areas for housing close by. We also looked at one area in which the plants were dieing due to the large amount of paint ballers who shot up the area. We had some very interesting discussions about how to educate people about environmental issues such as these. Later this evening we had a seminar on the book Last Child In The Woods which is a very insightful text about nature deficit disorder and how its contributing to attention disorders, depression, and obesity.
Day 5
WE left camp at 6 and headed back to Washington. The night was very stormy and there were thunder/lightening storms so i packed up the tent the night before and slept in a trees house which was lots of fun. Unfortunately i did not hear the wake up call and woke up a few minutes before 6. I stuffed everything in my pack and jumped into the back of the van and slept for a few hours. Later i took over driving and ended up driving 10 hours back to Washington. We ended up arriving around 9 back on campus. This trip was lots of fun and i have bonded with many of my classmates. Now i have lots of time to relax, the other half of the class is going camping in Northern Washington so i have no class this next next week. I still have assignments and will be watching several nature films and reading a book about natures influence in media. Im also going to start solidifying my plans for the science carnival with my group. You can check out photos from the trip here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=81102&id=631538370&l=5ebb772909
No comments:
Post a Comment