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I went snow tracking for the second time this year (despite the junky / nonexistant snow). (First trip of the year.) This time we saw tons of bobcat tracks rather than the majority of coyote tracks last year.


Bobcat tracks (female?) east of the pass.



What was this bobcat doing in such a hurry?


This bobcat was light enough to walk across the frozen lake, so we couldn't follow it.

Labels: photos, science

Last weekend I went backpacking in the North Cascades at Mesahchie Pass. There's no trail, so we brushcrashed up to the pass - about 5 miles, 3000 feet elevation gain, 5 1/2 hours hiking time, 7+ hours elapsed. My 'old faithful' external frame pack was totally unsuited to the style of hiking (lunging through conifer branches and willow banks) but I survived. This trip, like the snow tracking earlier this year, was with Conservation Northwest, and the goal was to switch camera batteries and reapply lure (think beaver anal secretions in liquid form - smelly).

More photos plus trip chronicle!

Labels: adventure, science

I just finished a graphic design class at BCC I mean Bellevue College, which was a load of fun! Also a TON of work. I designed 3 brochures, 2 on Bali and 1 as a personal cookbook (they said my food photography needs improvement...fair enough.) For my themes, I picked an ecotourism Bali brochure (12pp), an "adventure" packet aimed at college age kids (8pp) (one spread below), and a fifties-themed cookbook featuring dishes ranked by the amount of dirty dishes they generate.



I have been utterly exhausted from this class for the past 2-3 weeks (it was a 6 week class). But now that it's done, I have time to start a new project! ;D

My new project is going to be coming up with a curriculum to teach myself more about different varieties of ecology, get back into scientific reading, try and figure out if grad school in ecology is something I want, and what flavor of ecology if so. Also I need to take the GRE, so studying for that will be tied in. Wheeee!

Labels: design, news, project, science, self_improvement

As part of a citizen science initiative, I volunteered to snowshoe track animals along I-90 two days this winter.


It's nice to get out in the winter sometimes. Snoeshoeing ftw!


Each transect was 1k long. This route followed an established cross-country ski track, but the others were through unbroken snow.


We followed orange flagging on the unmaintained routes, but some of it was tricky to spot, like this, right at ground level, and required blindly choosing a direction and traipsing around for fifteen minutes until we could spot the next flag. They hung the flagging in summer, so some was covered with snow.


Each team had a more experienced leader who could help us identify tracks. Here he's investigating a coyote trail just off the transect.




The tracks headed up towards the stream are from a pair of coyotes. We later attempted to track them through this riverbed.

Labels: adventure, science, self_improvement

My internship is ending in a week--as a happy final note, I got to tag along and photograph bobcat kitten surgeries yesterday! The four carnivore biologists homed in on the kittens in their den by locating their mother using radiotelemetry, then after the mother got spooked and jumped the den, we interns and a volunteer veterinarian joined them to implant radiotransmitters in the kittens.

My parents came to visit last week, so I dragged them pitfalling one day.

Labels: adventure, news, photos, science

Last week we caught two mountain lions in the span of three days! That makes it sound like it's not that special, but the biologists here have been trying to catch a lion since last May, and in five plus years of trapping cougars, these were only the 10th and 11th mountain lions they caught.



Also, over President's day weekend, Adia and I went backpacking in Joshua Tree National Park.

Labels: adventure, photos, science