Monday was, well, Monday.
I wasn’t exactly excited to be back to work after, what turned out to be, a great 3-day weekend, but I was given a treat by being sent out with the fire affects crew. It was a crew of about 9 people, half from Grand Canyon, half from Zion. Their assignment was to collect post-fire vegetation data from about 30 different sites around the park. It was a great day; totally stress-free and I was able to work with some new people for a change. We did get caught in a pretty nasty little hail storm, though. With one incredibly close call with lightning. It was kinda funny, we all decided to head back to our gear when the lightning seemed to be getting closer then once we had our gear, a bolt of lightning seemed to have struck within 100 yards of us. We all froze, looked at eachother, then started to run as fast as we possibly could. Hahah, we all couldn’t stop laughing once we got back to the cars. It hailed and rained on us for about an hour, and then we started back up with our data collection.
Tuesday was lame. Just a meeting and some office work.
Wednesday was ACTION PACKED! I finally got my hands on my own project. I was given the task of revisiting photopoint markers that were last documented in 1996. It’s called a photopoint survey and it’s used to track vegetation changes throughout the years. This was an awesome project. I finally got some real responsibility and some good fieldwork experience! It was like a treasure hunt. There were 9 total photopoints where I needed to find a marker (sometimes a piece of painted re-bar or a slab of concrete) and take various photos facing different directions. The people who originally documented the sites in 96 never GPS’d the points, so we were following written instructions on how to get to each photopoint. This was sometimes fun and sometimes very, VERY frustrating. In the end, I was able to track down 6 of the 8 photopoints. Not a bad hit percentage! The fun part of this day was when we came across, what would end up to be, one of the craziest storms either myself or my colleague had ever witnessed. Hail, flash floods, lightning…you name it, we got it. Check out the pics and videos below.
On Thursday I was able to help out the interpretation department in administering a Visitor Survey. This was a pretty cool experience. I was the stereotypical guy with a clipboard asking for a few minutes of your time, but this survey was different because the visitors didn’t have to stand around to take the survey. The survey was a booklet with a stamp on it that they could take with them, fill out on their own time, then throw it in a mailbox and send it back. Most people were surprisingly excited to participate in the survey. I guess it’s because I’m not standing in a mall trying to sell them something, plus they’re all on vacation having a good time.
Friday was exciting because my Mom and sister arrived at Bryce to spend my birthday with me!
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