2019 People of the Big River Field Class

7/17/2019 We met with Alex again and he took us to the Klamath tribe research facility, where he gave us a lecture on the Klamath River basin and its history. In 1907 with the Klamath Recreation Act the lands were to be drained and then made into something useful for agriculture, they made a canal in order to drain the lakes into the river and other places. Then in 1954 the Termination Act was the end of the assimilation period for the tribes and were no longer recognized, but then in 1986 the tribes petitioned for the right to be recognized again. There were 13 native fish species in the Klamath River and 7 of them are an endemic species. The L’waam (lost river sucker), and Koptu (short nose sucker) are two important food sources for the tribes. In 1988 both were listed as endangered, for ceremonies they only take one or two fish instead of hunting for them as they used too. These fish are long lived, living up to 33 and 55 years old, there have been no new born fish introduced in

7/16/2019 We got up early to get our trail cameras, we only caught deer but another group captured vultures. After this we left at 8:30 so we can visit Crater Lake, one of the other students really wanted to go to see this place and so Jessica made it happen. The view was absolutely stunning and I was surprised to see snow on the ground still. Crater Lake got its name in 1869 after a newspaper editor Jim Sutton from Jacksonville who explored with several others, its first name was GIIWAAS which means a most sacred place, and The Klamath Indian tribe was the one to name it. The mountain is Mt Mazama and around 7,700 it collapsed in on itself. Many eruptions after sealed the bottom of the volcano so that rain and snow melt filled its basin allowing the lake to form.   During this time a caldera was formed now named Wizard Island, it’s a volcano within a volcano, its top is 90 m wide and is 27 m deep, and the island height is 233 m tall. The lake deepest point is 592 m deep. The group

7/15/2019 All of the environmental majors went with Jessica and Monte to visit with the forest ranges in the bend national forest. We met with Marlo F. and Chermane P. they are both botanists for the Bent Rock ranger and forest district. They place they brought us to was pike mountain area habitat type shrub step, off of 216 road. The conditions were partly cloudy and the clouds were increasing, we felt a few drops but nothing serious. They told us that we were going to be counting the number of green tinged paint brushes, or also called the Castilleja Chlorotica which are found only in central Oregon. The reason we were counting these plants was because the Fire management wanted to do a prescribed burn in the area but the problem is that the paint brushes are on the forest service sensitive list and are an endemic species. This means that as it only grows in Oregon it is considered a rare plant, not endangered but it is part of their job to make sure it does not become endangered

7/14/2019 Today we went to the shoots river, we are camping next to one of the rivers that drains into the shoots we went on a hike near it. It was about a three mile hike, and it was and wasn’t fun. It was beautiful and really refreshing to go on a hike so early in the morning, but I got sun burnt.   I’ve never been burn before so I’ve learned that it’s not a situation I want to happen again. Other than that the hike was fine, lots of people were jogging. Actually there was two different marathons going on, they had closed many of the roads in order to let bicyclists and runners past. I’ve never seen a marathon in action so I was surprised by how many people were running and bicycling all together. After this Jessica brought us to her friend Joys house in the Bend, it was at this time that David had to leave us but we were all very thankful for the time he took out of his schedule to be there for us and hope to hear from him again.  After this we were then able to take showers w

7/13/2019 We got to sleep in till 8 and then for breakfast we made eggs, hash browns, bacon, leftover oatmeal, breakfast burritos, and had hot chocolate with whip cream, it was quit the spread. Then we set up our trail cameras. We set one up in a meadow that we saw animal trails lead to, our second camera we set by the river so that it can capture the right side of the bank which had less vegetation so animals have an easier time getting to the river. The third camera we hiked up a road that said lead to the swamp but on the trail we found a half-eaten chipmunk and set the camera facing towards it in hope whatever ate it will come back. We returned to camp and wrote some more on our blog then at around 4 we left to lava lake campground and went swimming. The water was not to cold or too warm but really refreshing and had a spectacular view of the mountains. I had my water shoes on which I was thankful for as when you got to a certain point the ground turned mushy when you walked on

7/12/2019 At 10:30 we arrived at Lava Butte and hiked up to a view point to see the side of which the lava flowed out of. The museum inside told us of how long ago the lava erupted and how it formed its shape. It was 300,000 years ago when the Newberry volcano erupted, the magma chamber was emptied causing it to collapse in on its self, forming a caldera. More eruptions later and it was back to the way it looks but by 80,000 years ago the same situation happened and another caldera was formed which is why it looks like it does today. Lava Butte is 7,000 year old cinder cone at the edge of the Newberry volcano, because of the pressure buildup it finally exploded out of the weakest side so all the lava flowed out of one side so only trees grow on the side of the mountain that no lava flowed out of. We also learned that the collapsed in space filled with water and made natural glacial lakes. We waked to a viewpoint on the side of the cinder cone that over looked the side of where the

7/11/2019 We were packed and ready to go by 7:30 when Claude S. and Evet came to the fire management to greet us. They gave us a brief overview of the forestry and its relationship with the logging industry. They then took us to a couple of active logging sites in the forest and showed us the different machinery. We got to see the machines in action as they brought them down and stacked them into piles. Claude showed us how they can determine how much a log will provide in terms of how many boards it will produce. The site that we were taken to was east bearer 217-219 log block #80 and it is projected to make 2 million board feet. The way they measure it is that if a tree is 41 feet long the company will only pay for 40 feet of it, that extra foot is for if there is any rot that needs to be cut off and such. The tree that is 40’ long and 24’’ in diameter will give 500 board feet. They can then estimate that if a truck can carry at least between 10 and 14 of these trees it can make

7/10/2019 We went to the fire management area and met with Brad D. and Bob S. Brad over viewed the different levels in AFMO – fields, linguistics, and operations, they each have their part to do in their department. There are over 100 workers and in the summertime another 100+ volunteers. They have a 20 strong Hotshot crew that go all over the U.S. and into Canada, they are currently in Alaska. The fire management work with 9 different tribes on projects in the forest. Bob explained that the workers start at 8 with an hour of PT, though when they know that they are going out they will skip PT so that they are not exhausted. Their longest shift lasted about 46 hours in one of the worst fires they have seen in 1996. We asked about how they can tell how fires are started as they are mostly started by lighting. They explained that after they determine the area that the fire had started they close it off then bring in trained investigators to look over the area. They will look at the gr

7/9/2019 We started an early morning with packing all our gear to head out to our next site in Warm Springs. It was a long day in the car and not much happened though on our way there we did learn of the water problem in warm springs over the radio so we pulled in to a Sonics and asked the manager to use his water faucets and he agreed. When we arrived at our camp site we learned that we were placed in the public park next to the community center. This was a bit uncomfortable for me as it was a public place and in Yakima I wouldn’t want people to sleep in the Green Way public park, I was a bit surprised though as to how many people I saw walking up the trails to hike, and then I saw them hike back down in the morning.

7/8/2019 This morning I was part of the cooking crew and we made pancakes with chocolate chips, then headed out to potato hill. On the way we saw a black bear in the middle of the road, it looked right at us before running away, I felt excited as it was the first bear that I had seen yet. The base of potato hill was very grassy and full of different flowers, Jessica warned us about the mosquitoes but they weren’t that bad. I am not an active person so the hike up potato hill was a real challenge but I made it to a spot where I didn’t feel bad that I did not make it to the top. Actually I was surprised by how far I walked up the hill as when I looked back down the cars looked so small in the distance. I was mad at myself however that the path I took ended up being the hard way. When ground water drains down the mountain it creates a path down the steepest slope and erodes away the surface so there is a clear path of dirt. This was the path that I took but this was the hardest path a

7/7/2019   Jessica stared to wake the others up at around 7 and then Monet got breakfast started. I wanted to help but I wasn’t in the cooking group that time so I was only allowed to boil the water. While we waited for the food I was told that that night there were two loud bangs that people thought were either shots being fired or some kind of tree dropping, they were loud and startled more than a few people. I was assigned to dishes after breakfast and as we finished dumping the water at the road we came across another camp ground near ours that had branches nailed across different trees that we think hunters used them to hang their kill. This was very interesting to me as I didn’t think that they did that, I would assume that they packed up their kill to go home. My family has killed pigs before for special occasions but that was at home, even when catching fish it was brought home before it was eaten, it was not eaten at the site. We then got our gear together to set up our mo

7/6/2019 We arrived yesterday near Camp Chaparral at around 4 in the afternoon, I have never gone camping before so I was excited. The place was very beautiful, grassy and lots of tall white flowers, and we could hear the Klickitat River. A lot of people were very relieved that there was a portable bathroom near the camp. I had a lot of trouble setting up my tent so I had to have Alex and Xavier help me set it up. I don’t like where I set up my tent, I tried to set it up in a patch that didn’t have a lot of vegetation but as I have to walk towards my tent I displace a lot of bugs. I felt bad when I walked through the grass because all of the grasshoppers looked like they were fleeing from me, next time I’ll choose a place near the camp. Next I helped unload all the items from the back of the truck and set up in preparation for dinner. For dinner I helped Monet make spaghetti, I really like cooking so I wanted to be involved. The evening winded down from then and some people played