Crazy Week
This work week was a real bear, no pun intended. In fact, I didn't even see any bears. I saw some moose, a few elk... a coyote... that's about it. The real reason it was a bear was just because of 1) the mosquitos 2) the terrain and 3) the fact that nothing (save one thing) seemed to go right lol.
We were working way back in the Gros Ventres again (i'm starting to dislike it back there lol) doing goshawk surveys, as always. The terrain is really tough: thick lodgepole forests with lots of steep hills, standing water (swamps, bogs, some streams), and tons and tons of downed trees that pile up on top of each other and have lots of sharp sticks sticking off of them and stuff.
Anyways, the float trip last monday left me with a pair of super sunburned legs. My shins were completely irradiated and they hurt... real bad. Anyways, this left me in a bad spot for work on Wednesday as 99% of the 10 hour day is spent bushwacking through the thick brush and conifers and such. Yes, hurt.
But I got through it and moved on to Thursday, which I was lucky enough to work with Zach. I took my jacket that morning; my favorite blue jacket that my pap bought me a couple years ago. In the breast pocket I zippered in one of my two sets of car keys and on this set, I had a little prayer key that my grandma gave me (that her grandma gave her) to keep me safe on my many adventures and such. So anyways, halfway through the day the frosty morning turned to baking sun and I lashed the jacket to the outside of my pack like I have done so many times before. With an hour or two left in the day, I happened to notice it was missing. Damnit.
We retraced about 2 km worth of distance through the forest (a long long way in these parts of the Gros Ventres), reclimbing a few super steep pitches and re-scrambling all of the downed trees and crap, being molested by hundreds of mosquitoes the whole while (literally). It took a few hours to retrace those steps and I said prayers in my head the whole time to just please let me find that jacket (especially because of the key) but we never found it. I was pretty pissed about it for the rest of the day, even though Zach and I made kielbassa, mashed potatoes (6 potatoes worth) and a huge jar of sauerkraut. We loaded our plates down that night; they must've weighed at least 5 lbs each. We finished it all too, it was awesome.
On Friday, Shawn and I dedicated the morning to retracing more of the route from Thursday to try to find the jacket. Finding something that is lost out here is pretty much a lost cause. We had a GPS that had our tracks logged from the day before, but they aren't precise enough to allow you to take the exact same path and, on top of that, the forest is so thick that you can walk a few feet away from it without seeing it at all. We figured we'd give it a shot though. I had figured out that I had it at least 4 transects in (Zach commented on the 7 Springs tags at this one call station... I knew there was ar eason i kept those on there), so we could start from there and minimize the search. We searched pretty thoroughly for a couple km but didn't see it. Then, as we were approaching the last call station where Zach and I ended our search the other day, I jumped up on a downed tree and looked around, thinking to myself "why can't I just see it lying there" when I did exactly that. I spotted it hanging off of a small tree about 30 meters away. The area we were in was full of downed trees that we were hopping around and over and it must've been pulled loose. But anyways, I found it and I was super relieved. Even though I got totally massacred by mosquitoes that day (i counted 30+ bites on my left arm alone at the end of the day), I was pretty happy.
Saturday was actually an OK day, even though I had to work with Jenny. As always, I got stuck doing the majority of the work (as is the case when anyone works with her), as I ended up having to plan the route, figure out which call stations we'd do, navigate the route, and then do the calls themselves (Jenny wrote down the data). When I would try to get her involved by asking her where she wanted to go/which route she wanted to take back etc she would respond with "whatever, I don't care" (but of course she had to repeat that response a couple times since she always mumbles and I can never understand what she says). Growl. But on the bright side, the terrain was, for the most part, pretty easy. More importantly however, for some reason, the mosquitoes were not bad at all. It might have been the frost that morning, but who knows. We were also lucky in that I found a route that allowed us to take a trail the majority of the way (even though it was a 4 km hike to and from the transects themselves). While we were hiking that trail, I kept asking Jenny if she recognized any of the areas we were in (she worked in the exact same area the previous day whereas I was somewhere else) and she'd just say "no, i don't know, not really, i guess". Thanks for the help, Jenny lol.
Anyways, on the hike back we took a somewhat different route because I thought it'd be a little faster. It was a trail the whole way but it came around from a different direction back to the truck. We were hiking along this trail and the GPS was giving me 1.0 km to the truck when i really thought that it was much, much closer. I hiked to the top of this one ridge to find a 4wd road and the GPS was indicating that the truck was parked on the NEXT ridge over. Didn't seem right, so I started hiking up this road to try to get a little higher and see the area when I walked right into the truck. I was surprised, to say the least, but then I got pretty angry with the GPS for misleading me. Not sure what was wrong with it, but it was acting up all week.
That's all for now. Went to church this morning and then Zach and I went to the annual chicken fry sponsored by the fire department. Zach somehow ended up with 2 free tickets (usually cost $8), so we hit that up and completely loaded up on chicken, potatoes, rolls and salad. It was down by the Snake River just before the Tetons, so it was a pretty sweet location and the food was great. They even had live music. Noice.
I think we're gonna float the Hoback River tomorrow. It's much larger than Flat Creek (and much faster) so it'll be pretty exciting. It's the river that flows past the cabin and under the bridge of our drive. I wish I had a waterproof camera, but I'll probably take a few pics of the put in/take out areas.
Ok, peace out!
We were working way back in the Gros Ventres again (i'm starting to dislike it back there lol) doing goshawk surveys, as always. The terrain is really tough: thick lodgepole forests with lots of steep hills, standing water (swamps, bogs, some streams), and tons and tons of downed trees that pile up on top of each other and have lots of sharp sticks sticking off of them and stuff.
Anyways, the float trip last monday left me with a pair of super sunburned legs. My shins were completely irradiated and they hurt... real bad. Anyways, this left me in a bad spot for work on Wednesday as 99% of the 10 hour day is spent bushwacking through the thick brush and conifers and such. Yes, hurt.
But I got through it and moved on to Thursday, which I was lucky enough to work with Zach. I took my jacket that morning; my favorite blue jacket that my pap bought me a couple years ago. In the breast pocket I zippered in one of my two sets of car keys and on this set, I had a little prayer key that my grandma gave me (that her grandma gave her) to keep me safe on my many adventures and such. So anyways, halfway through the day the frosty morning turned to baking sun and I lashed the jacket to the outside of my pack like I have done so many times before. With an hour or two left in the day, I happened to notice it was missing. Damnit.
We retraced about 2 km worth of distance through the forest (a long long way in these parts of the Gros Ventres), reclimbing a few super steep pitches and re-scrambling all of the downed trees and crap, being molested by hundreds of mosquitoes the whole while (literally). It took a few hours to retrace those steps and I said prayers in my head the whole time to just please let me find that jacket (especially because of the key) but we never found it. I was pretty pissed about it for the rest of the day, even though Zach and I made kielbassa, mashed potatoes (6 potatoes worth) and a huge jar of sauerkraut. We loaded our plates down that night; they must've weighed at least 5 lbs each. We finished it all too, it was awesome.
On Friday, Shawn and I dedicated the morning to retracing more of the route from Thursday to try to find the jacket. Finding something that is lost out here is pretty much a lost cause. We had a GPS that had our tracks logged from the day before, but they aren't precise enough to allow you to take the exact same path and, on top of that, the forest is so thick that you can walk a few feet away from it without seeing it at all. We figured we'd give it a shot though. I had figured out that I had it at least 4 transects in (Zach commented on the 7 Springs tags at this one call station... I knew there was ar eason i kept those on there), so we could start from there and minimize the search. We searched pretty thoroughly for a couple km but didn't see it. Then, as we were approaching the last call station where Zach and I ended our search the other day, I jumped up on a downed tree and looked around, thinking to myself "why can't I just see it lying there" when I did exactly that. I spotted it hanging off of a small tree about 30 meters away. The area we were in was full of downed trees that we were hopping around and over and it must've been pulled loose. But anyways, I found it and I was super relieved. Even though I got totally massacred by mosquitoes that day (i counted 30+ bites on my left arm alone at the end of the day), I was pretty happy.
Saturday was actually an OK day, even though I had to work with Jenny. As always, I got stuck doing the majority of the work (as is the case when anyone works with her), as I ended up having to plan the route, figure out which call stations we'd do, navigate the route, and then do the calls themselves (Jenny wrote down the data). When I would try to get her involved by asking her where she wanted to go/which route she wanted to take back etc she would respond with "whatever, I don't care" (but of course she had to repeat that response a couple times since she always mumbles and I can never understand what she says). Growl. But on the bright side, the terrain was, for the most part, pretty easy. More importantly however, for some reason, the mosquitoes were not bad at all. It might have been the frost that morning, but who knows. We were also lucky in that I found a route that allowed us to take a trail the majority of the way (even though it was a 4 km hike to and from the transects themselves). While we were hiking that trail, I kept asking Jenny if she recognized any of the areas we were in (she worked in the exact same area the previous day whereas I was somewhere else) and she'd just say "no, i don't know, not really, i guess". Thanks for the help, Jenny lol.
Anyways, on the hike back we took a somewhat different route because I thought it'd be a little faster. It was a trail the whole way but it came around from a different direction back to the truck. We were hiking along this trail and the GPS was giving me 1.0 km to the truck when i really thought that it was much, much closer. I hiked to the top of this one ridge to find a 4wd road and the GPS was indicating that the truck was parked on the NEXT ridge over. Didn't seem right, so I started hiking up this road to try to get a little higher and see the area when I walked right into the truck. I was surprised, to say the least, but then I got pretty angry with the GPS for misleading me. Not sure what was wrong with it, but it was acting up all week.
That's all for now. Went to church this morning and then Zach and I went to the annual chicken fry sponsored by the fire department. Zach somehow ended up with 2 free tickets (usually cost $8), so we hit that up and completely loaded up on chicken, potatoes, rolls and salad. It was down by the Snake River just before the Tetons, so it was a pretty sweet location and the food was great. They even had live music. Noice.
I think we're gonna float the Hoback River tomorrow. It's much larger than Flat Creek (and much faster) so it'll be pretty exciting. It's the river that flows past the cabin and under the bridge of our drive. I wish I had a waterproof camera, but I'll probably take a few pics of the put in/take out areas.
Ok, peace out!