Day 10

Coyote (spileye) woke me up again this morning around 5:00 AM, which was nice because I had time for another run. On my run, I saw two deer (yamash).
Today our group split into two groups based on major. Each group then headed to do volunteer work with the United States Forest Service (USFS), each group doing work for a different department.
The sub-group made up of environmental science & studies majors, including myself, were assigned to the botany department. Having worked with the USFS previously, and having the passion/interest in botany that I have, I am looking forward to this work.
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Favorite day of the trip so far. Our USFS contacts included Charmaine Powers, district botanist at the Bend/Fort Rock Ranger District, and Marlowe F. who is a botanist who specializes in invasive species. Our "work" for the day was counting a plant species endemic to Central Oregon.

  
Castilleja chlorotica, commonly known as green tinged paint brush, is not endangered but is on the USFS sensitive list. This is because green tinged paint brush is a hemi parasite, meaning that it aquires it's nutrients from another plant. As such, it cannot survive fire which is problematic in a fire dependant landscape.
Our survey site was a shrub steppe in the Pine Mountain area. The last time this area was surveyed was in 1994, 87 green tinged paint brush plants were counted. Our survey today, 7/15/2019, found 414 plants. This information will be used in the planning of prescribed burns at the site, and will ultimately help protect the green tinged paint brush. Personally, I left the site with a feeling of gratification and satisfaction. I'm pretty sure the rest of us felt similarly, knowing the value of our work and the lasting effect it would have.

   
Apart from the green tinged paint brush, we found cicada shells (smaller than the ones I'd found growing up in Michigan, I hadn't realized they were out here at all), a short-horned lizard, and what was either a western skink or a western fence lizard (a very fast, elusive, lizard with a bright blue stripe).

   
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The Obsidian Flow Trail at the Newberry National Volcanic Monument was our second stop of the day. The staggering beauty of this place is what pushed this day into the running for the favorite day title.

   

   



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Dinner, deployment of mouse live traps, sharing circle around our final campfire at this gorgeous campground then bed. Full moon tonight. Tomorrow is 5:00 AM wake up, then off to crater lake, time permitting, and on to Klamath for our second to last stop of the trip.

   

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