Good day for ducks--

My first real rain of the year! Water is over running the sidewalks and flooding Bar Harbor's many frost heaves and potholes. Tomorrow I have plans to paddle one last time on the Union before heading back to Jersey, and today's rains are assuring my river will have water.
The last ten days have been full of happy reunions and tearful goodbyes, stories, rivers, sunshine and downpour, and a ton of planning for the start of my trip next month. As the date gets closer I will be starting a new blog that will document my experiences as a Watson fellow in some of the world's river deltas.


Two more days in Bar Harbor. Enjoy the rain!

Back in Maine

Back in the NE for a few days. I'll do a final tally of transects, tortoises, and other desert stats sometime in the next few days before graduation.

The final five

Today marks the beginning of the last week of field work out here. By Friday my last five transects will be completed and I will head back east. This week ended up being crazy hot with a string of days well over 100. It also was a great week for herps--between my partner and I we found 3 rattle snakes, a gila monster,3 tortoises, and tons of lizards. Though my good luck in the field was cut short by a flat tire in the middle of no where--even our trucks are wearing out after 9 weeks of hard work. Here are some more photos from the last two weeks.

105, truck bottoms, and gila monsters

Found a Gila monster near camp last night and nearly stepped on a sidewinder this morning. The hot weather is bringing everything out. Except for me, for much of the morning the sun reduced my world to a band of shade six inches from a truck muffler. Time to get some ice cream and head north for a few days. Stay cool.

At least it's a dry heat.

Today we are taking shelter in Overton, NV to escape the record heat. Between the library, museums, and grocery store we have at least found enough AC to keep our brains from melting. 106 today--then "cooling" to the upper 90's the rest of the week. But with only 10 more transects to the walk this season we are definitely in the home stretch. Last weekend I posted some photos from a few weeks of work and a hike up Mt. Griffith--notice the snow that would be more than welcome today.

96 km, no tortoises.

I have been neglecting this blog a little, but for good reason. The last few weeks I've been heading right for the trail or river after my 5 days out in the desert. For work we have been moving between parts of the northern Mojave—Coyote Springs, Mormon Mesa, and Gold Butte. We have not been finding many tortoises the last few weeks—perhaps, at least in Gold Butte, an effect of over grazing by cattle. Tortoises or not the terrain has been amazing, mostly rolling hills and washes rising into desert mountain ranges. Early this week while working several miles out into the desert near Gold Butte my team mates found a Teddybear Pomeranian—the little guy was hungry , thirsty, and sure glad to see us. Within a few hours he went from being a desert rat into the lap of luxury in Las Vegas. We could not locate its owner, but we had no trouble finding it a new home. It appears that it had been out in the desert for some time, a pretty amazing survival story for a 7-pound pooch—that or maybe its an alien/gremlin of some kind.
A few weekends ago I summitted Hayford Peak in the Sheep Mountains and hiked into Mary Jane Falls in the Spring mountains. Both hikes took me up to elevations where there was still quite a bit of snow left over from the winter, as well as trees. Each mountain had towering forests of Ponderosa and Jeffery pines that transitioned into alpine juniper forests near 10,000 feet on Hayford.
Last weekend I got away form the snow and camped with some friends on the far northern tip of the Mohave Reservoir on the Colorado. We spend two days paddling along hundred foot cliffs and exploring side canyons. It was great to be back on the water after so long in the desert, though sad that it was at the expense of the free flowing Colorado.
I've posted a bunch of photos from the last few weeks on my picasa page.
4 more weeks of field work to go.

42 km and 3 tortoises.
Plus desert thunderstorms, snowy peaks, and the start of long hot days.
More pictures up on picasa

Another 48 km and 2 more tortoises.
This week we transitioned from the Piute valley south of Vegas to Coyote Springs in the north. Coyote Springs is amazing tortoise habitat and is incredibly beautiful, sadly it's slated for condos and golf courses, oh and parts of Piute are claimed for new gold mines--thank you USA for public land auctions and 130 year old mining law.
It rained here this weekend, which brought the aroma of the desert into Vegas.
I did a little hiking yesterday and for the second time this spring found myself in the snow on top of Turtlehead mountain.
Every day in the field is new and exciting--tortoises, rattlesnakes, lizards, mountains, wildflowers, fossils, cacti, helicopters, and grand vistas. Like I say everyday as we set up camp, not a bad job at all.
I posted some new photos on Picasa.

Spring in Southern Nevada

Instead of going on too much about some of the things I've been up to out here I thought a few photos could do the talking.
They should be in a slideshow on the side of the page--I'm not fully sure how this thing works but I thought it would be worth a shot.
Field season is now underway--from this point on I'll only be living in Vegas on the weekends, out in the country the rest of the time.
So far 30 km covered--with one tortoise.
40 more transects to go.

Happenings in the desert

-The last few days have been long ones spent out in the sun looking for styrofoam/real tortoises. I've also been driving on some of the wildest roads of my life and climbing some big mountains(first snow I've experienced in Vegas so far). My internet has been lagging a bit so I'm hoping to get some pictures up when I get to a faster connection. For now I'm pretty beat--6am start time tomorrow on the styrotort line.
--Night

Settling in to go away again.

The last week has been slightly crazy with lots of hours spent on training, both in the field and classroom and with our friend the desert tortoise. As of last night the final member of our crew moved into town--so watch out tortoises we're coming to find you. My housemates and I have really adjusted well to each other, the next few weeks should be a ton of fun.
The work week ended with me learning that two of my college pals and myself had been accepted as Watson fellows. By august 1 this summer we need to be gone from the USA. The Watson foundation sponsors fellows to pursue a travel agenda of there choosing that revolves around a specific topic or passion. A list of this year's fellows can be found here . Planning over the next few months is going to be intense--especially once my field work starts--but I'm excited to finally start putting the pieces of my project together.
After a night of celebrating a few of my coworkers and I went out to Red Rock Canyon, a group of mountains just outside of Vegas. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.
Best,
Brett

Back to work

Spent most of the last few days downstream of the hoover damn (there are some crazy fluxs in river flow with peaking power in CA) at a series of hot springs at the bottom of Goldstrike canyon. I got to know my housemates and future co-workers really well. I think we have a pretty good crew lined up. To get to the canyon we had to hike and repel several miles through amazing country. Saw lots of lizards, breeding toads, and desert plants. My waterproof camera finally died--killed on a swim up the Colorado to find some sauna caves.
Work starts tomorrow morning, it will be good to get on a real schedule again.

Lost In Las Vegas—

3/3/09

It's about 3 in the afternoon Pacific Time and it's already been along day. The bright sun and mountains around Vegas almost made me forget the freezing line at the southwest terminal this morning—except that freezing line is why I almost missed my flight, and is the reason my luggage is somewhere in the hold of big purple and orange plane. Oh well, it's supposed to get here sometime later this afternoon.

Vegas is interesting. My taxi driver managed to get me lost while trying to find my apartment. Sigh. I told him to let me out and I'd find it faster (and cheaper) on foot. And I did—well maybe not faster. I checked into the place a few hours ago and have already been out to get some food and the essentials from the surrounding retail sprawl. But the desert beckons; you can see the ranges surrounding the entire city. I can't wait to get out into it. Tortoises, here I come. So far the city has treated me with lots of sights already. Concrete rivers, lots of flowering shrubs, a car full of bullet holes, 24-hour poker_________ (insert any noun, example—bar, liquor store, grocery, hospital, daycare). Interestingly I also found a broken window about a half mile from my apartment in the road—interesting because my apartment was missing a very similar window, which I asked to have replaced, and which was replaced very quickly (a good sign I think).

Not sure when I'll post this, I'm on the hunt for the elusive wi-fi.

Cheers.

3/5

Spent most of the last few days getting to know two of the guys I’m living with. The other two still haven’t arrived. The apartment looks much more livable already—though a couple of us are still planning to take off this afternoon for a trip down south to escape the city. I went to return a camp chair yesterday—after I realized I bought a broken one—the store clerk asked why I had moved to the neighborhood? I told him tortoises; he said told me Vegas is a funny place to look for tortoises. Agreed.

Off to the desert.

50 lbs

Thanks to the free baggage policy of southwest airlines I spent much of this morning condensing my life into a 50lb bag for the next few months that I'll be living in Las Vegas. Great thing about Vegas--it's warm there--so most of the weight is TLE (tortoise locating equipment).
The last few weeks in Jersey have been pretty nice, I've gotten some time paddling in, brewed another batch of beer, fought a horrible GI virus, traveled up to Massachusetts, did a bit of hiking in the Pinelands, and worked my way through a few good books.
Tuesday morning I take off for Vegas. By the weekend my 4 housemates and I should be all settled in and ready for work.
See you in the desert.

Rotten Chicken

Good video on food security and the benefits of local foods by IBM.
Click on the cartoon poultry.

I can't believe it has been over a month since winter arrived. The last few frigid weeks I spent in Maine helped me get my fill of the cold and snow. There was plenty of snow for snowshoeing, deep freezes for river walking and ice hockey, and lots of time to enjoy looking out the window on snowy nights. Not to mention happy reunions with friends.
Though Maine was full of wintry days, yesterday I started to believe that the east's spring was slowly arriving. I discovered skunk cabbage flowers pushing up through the thin layer of snow and ice here in Jersey. Between these early signs of spring and the influence of Colin Fletcher's River, I'll I wanted to do today was get out on the water and put some mileage on my paddle. Sadly, the Big Timber Creek had not been informed that spring might be on its way. The initial quarter mile on the water was quick and easy--the sun was shining and the outgoing tide was moving large pieces of ice down river with me. But I quickly caught up with alot bigger pieces of ice that slowed my progress, and eventually closed the creek off to my bow completely. Thus it was slowly back to the put in under gathering rain clouds. My paddle will have to wait a little longer. Though in the meantime my hope is to head to the Jersey shore next week and use the salt water of Barnegat Bay as a quick fix.