People of the Big River 2026_Lovey's

 6-25-2026 Today we went out to Deshuts National Forest, where we met Marlow Fisher, the district botanist for the Deshute National Forest, for the last 15 years, and manages 200 million acres of forest and the wilderness. Before this, she worked as a firefighter in Cle Elm. She describes Wilderness as having no roads or any kind of machinery. For today, we will be doing a plant survey on the Pumus Moonwart, which is considered federally sensitive and a threatened species. It is kind of like a fern, and is endemic to the Central Oregon area, and is partial to Pumus soil, and there isn't much known about it except it was found in the 1930s by a botanist and didn't gain status until the 90s, and needed to be protected. The population used to be in the 1000s. Not much was known about them, like if they serve some kind of purpose or if it would be ok if they just disappeared, or would the whole ecosystem collapse, it's just kind of there, the only thing they know for sur...

 6-24-2026 Today was an intresting day, we went to the visitors center of the lava lands, and Alex Enna, the partnership project manager, arranged the whole thing, as well as what we'll be doing on Friday. Christine Hughes was the backbone of the information that was given to us before we went up the mountain. She gave us some insight into the land and explained the bigger mountains in one kind of on its own is called Mt. Bachelor, and the ones next to it are his sisters, North, Middle, and South. After that, she asked us if we knew how these mountains are formed, and said that the Cascade Wanda suka plate is getting pushed towards us and is hitting the core of the earth, and the magma from that needs to rise somewhere, and so it decides to go up, and that's how these mountains are formed, and then explained that over 100 and millions of years the plates have moved 25 miles. She also told me some of the geology from the aftermath of everything. The mountain we went up is calle...

6-23-2026 As usual, we woke up, and the same routine for traveling day, and today we are leaving the Mt. Adams Reservation area for the Deschutes National Forest, which will be roughly a 3ish hours, but that isn't so bad considering we'll be going through some of the most beautiful landscapes in the Pacific Northwest, and ending up at the Craine Pairie Campgrounds. Which is near a lake, or more technically, a reservoir, and we'll be here until Saturday. As previously mentioned, the ride was beautiful, and as you cross into Oregon, you can see basalt cliffs, river canyons, and rolling plains. Eventually, the landscape becomes more mountainous again as the trip approaches the Deschutes National Forest. Located near Bend, Oregon, Deschutes National Forest is known for its volcanic scenery, lakes, lava fields, and large ponderosa pine forests. I based this on common sense, driving through it, and what the rest of the trip looked like for us over the next few days.  Before I get...

6-22-2026 Woke up and had the usual morning routine, and then we packed up to go to the reserved area on the reservation and to some beaver analogs with Yakama Nation Wildlife Fisheries, and we had a few people go out there with us. Jeanette Burkhartt, the watershed planner, David Lindley, the habitat coordinator, and Jerard Foley, the habitat biologist. To start our morning at Swamp Creek, we collected dead trees from a fire near the site at Cougar Creek in 2015, which originated from a lightning strike on the south side of Mt. Adams around the Glenwood area. Anyway the dead trees were scattered along the creek and had previously cut and lopped some of the small Douglas fir for the base of the dam, which is kind of like a sponge sort of. Then three other students and I got into the water to collect sediment upstream of the sides of the channel so it could patch up some of the holes and cracks between the wood. While Phabian, Leah, Jessica, and I were doing that, some of the other memb...

 6-21-2026  Yeah, this weekend's posts are going to be fairly short since it's the weekend and all, but it is Father's Day. Anyway, today we woke up and went to a pretty big waterfall by the White Salmon River, and we were just kind of wandering around the area. The falls were beautiful; the water was so clear and blue,  and apparently the area is in the process of being restored to what it was before the dam. I found it kind of funny that they only removed the dam because it didn't do anything really and had no use for it, when there are still a lot of dams that serve no real purpose and obstruct the flow of water and the wildlife that live and depend on the water. Sorry for the little rant, but the area was beautiful, and the little trail was pretty to walk, and I saw a lot of baby native plants that were planted there, like serviceberry, cottonwood, ponderosa pine, etc. It was fun walking that trail and looking at all the native plants. I think that's probably my...

 6-20-2026 It being Saturday, it was a little more chill. We woke up and went on as normal, with some routine, as we had the other day when we had to pack up, with the only difference being the Harris Park Campground. Before our 3-and-a-half-hour drive, we stopped at a Starbucks in Pasco, WA, to get a drink and work on our computers to update our spreadsheet with the data collected from Harris Park and to complete our daily blog; we were there for about 2 hours and left around noonish. I consider myself a coffee drinker, but the raw flavor of coffee is too bitter for me; that's why my coffee drink has to be loaded with some kind of sweetener.  My coffee order at Starbucks is a grande caramel macchiato, if you were wondering at all.  We did a quick stop in Goldendale, WA, to wait for Jessica ( Our Supervisor sort of), and we got a chance to get Dairy Queen. I didn't happen to get a picture of our stop there, but we had to have been there for about 20 min, and I got myself ...