Headed to Alaska next week!
My whole week has been a preparation for my vacation to visit my
friend Sarah Case (Wildlife Graduate, '03) who has been working in
coastal Alaska as a Fisheries Observer. Plenty of sunlight this
time of year, and I'll hopefully get to squeeze much out of my scant
7 days in Anchorage. More on that next week.
Lots more field work this week. We've been working in the Lake
Yellowstone area, with daily travel through the Hayden Valley. This
is where the Yellowstone River exits Lake Yellowstone, and is home
to one of the two huge Bison Herds in the park. This is a horrible
area for traffic, as many tourists have to drive through Hayden
Valley to get from Lake to Mammoth, and everyone wants a picture of
the Bison crossing the road or the river.
Our travel takes us through many burned areas of the park. Fire is
part of the Yellowstone Ecosystem, and the forests need this
periodical cleansing to keep healthy. Our politicians would argue
otherwise, but without regular fire in this part of the country, the
forests would be extremely poor. The Lodgepole Pine, one of the
dominant forest covers, needs hot temperatures to open their seeds.
They also need full sunlight to grow, so without a fire to kill the
grown trees and start the regeneration process, the trees would get
old and die with nothing to replace them. My ranger friends tell me
that people often ask who goes around and plants the seedlings after
the fires go through. Nature takes care of it. It's quite a sight
to see hundreds of acres of widow makers (standing dead trees which
fall over and create widows) and deadfall with 10 times the number
of small seedlings growing all around them.
The Gardiner Rodeo was this past weekend, with all the joys of
Bucking Bronco's, angry bulls, and questionable fashion statements.
Truly an experience that I'll never forget...and possibly that I
never repeat.
Until next week.
Nick
