Imma serve this stream!

Monday, June 15, 2009

Today was the first of many intense stream inventory training sessions. Every day of stream training starts at 8 AM so I try to get to bed by at least 10PM. Sometimes this does not always happen (note time of post) . I have not been able to update my blog as often as possible because I lack a USB cord for my camera (which my mom should be sending in the mail). But, thankfully, my fellow intern has supplied me hers, so we are back on track. 

Anyways, we arrived at our first stream survey sight at the confluence of the North and South Forks of the Umatilla River in Pendelton, Oregon. 

 In comparison to streams in Ohio, this

stream was extraordinarily healthy and had so many aspects of a thriving mountain brook. The water was crystal clear and I kept wanting to drink it but I kept being informed that stream bacteria can cause a whole assortment of uncomfortable bodily functions of which I hope to avoid.

After gearing up in about 20 lb. dry suit, snow suit, gloves, booties, wading s

hoes, diving hood,  and snorkel gear, we hit the water. The water was ICE cold because it was flowing from a far away ice melt, but I kept pretty warm throughout the whole excapade. We saw lots of juvenile rainbow trout, a giant slug,  and two HUGE bull trout, one that had to be at least 2 feet long. It was cool! 

Following our first snorkel adventure, we did a bunch of safety exercises that included throw bag rescues and deep water spinal injury rescues which were informative and interesting. My instructors are especially enthusiastic and have made the entire learning experience quite engaging. 

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

This day again, started at 8 AM, a timeframe I am still 

adjusting to, when we travelled to the same stream segment and practiced an assortment of field exercises. 

Right when we got there I realized that there were butterflies everywhere! 

All over the ground, in the air, it was crazy! 

They were gathering on the ground in clustered, and could be disturbed with little reaction. It was strange. From reasons ranging from extracting moisture in the ground or extracting minerals from clustered deposits, I do not know. But I did get some cool pictures. These are square spotted blue butterflies; they are indigenous to the west pacific and often vary in physiology from region to region. Also saw there were northern checkerspot butterflies. 

 This included pebble count, analysis of bankfull measures, and a practice stream reach. There were

 a few man made restoration projects we encountered along the stream, most of which were constructed in the late 70's and consisted of large fallen logs pinned down with boulders. I even got to sit on a waterfall! Wee! 

After successfuly completing my second day o

f training, we returned to the hotel for a fun filled night. I taught everyone how to play euchre (which is apparently a strictly east coast game I learned) and ended the night with the Hood group in the hot tub. Yes! 

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Today was strictly a classroom day in which we learned all about the technicalities of the stream, how to fill out stream data forms, and so on for about 8 hours.

 Although it was tenuous, my crazy instructors made it fun by performing a variation of "Pretty Woman", conducting a game of jeopardy and memory with stream terms and descriptions. For being and 8 hour class, it was not too bad actually.

 The only thing that got me through it was the candy that was constantly being handed out and my little egg of silly putty I played with constantly. :) 

This evening we had our first social! It was great. We played a long game of impromptu BYOB frisbee golf, with the next target being determined by whatever was in sight. This often included fountains, parking spaces, poles, trees, etc. I tried to play off my terrible frisbee throwing skills by explaining to everyone that this was an "East coast style" of throwing... it sort of worked ;)

For the remaining two days in Pendelton I believe we are going to be doing more field work, so I will write more about this later. So tired from a long days work!