People of the Big River 2025

  Shout out to Monet the chef and driver! I am very thankful for her and Corbin since they are so experienced on this trip, it's nice that we have mentors who are so willing to help and take care of our whole group, as stressful as it is. So, thank you Monet and Corbin! Jessica too since nobody would be here without her.  Now, on day seven the three staff literally drove us about 10-hours to Crane Prairie Campgrounds in Bend, Oregon where we are now. Specifically, we are on Mt. Bachelor which is new to me. I haven’t seen or heard of this one, but it is nice and cold. I love camping in this environment since it isn’t dry like back home but isn’t pouring like Yellowstone. It wasn’t my first road trip, so I feel like that was a breeze as a passenger. Usually, I'm the driver for my family so it was nice to just hang out and be on my phone. The Wellpinit region was a good place to be, but the cell service was horrendous. I felt really disconnected from my family but that’s okay t...

     Today is a heavy science day. We are currently entering data and this morning we did a group discussion centered around forming our hypothesis relating to the water samples we collected and the sites we visited. I am leaning towards the way agricultural practices and cattle impact the quality of the water we are sampling which are creeks where cattle roam and/or are based through an agriculture field. I used to get super intimidated by the excel work and the data entry, but this year has been super smooth. I have a good feeling our water samples will grow the bacteria's we are looking for. We incubated them on Wednesday and after 48 hours which is today, we did the pure culture isolation. All this is transferring the bacteria over from the incubation oven to the medium we will use to multiply the bacteria hopefully into the millions. These plates got put back into the oven to grow the cells. Then Sunday we will be able to look through the microscope and see what type...

  Today we met with a couple of really cool people from the Wellpinit Fisheries team. Jordyn who has over a decade in fisheries work and Josh from University of Idaho and Wellpinit Fisheries too. They work as field techs right now and they do a lot of electrofishing for conservation of the Redband Trout which is a native species that is endangered in the region. We first measured the depth of the Tshimakain Creek using the lifts installed by last year's crew who took the People of the Big River trip. This year our team is gathering a little bit of information and Jordyn and Josh will be comparing the results of the last two years in hopes to find some improvements to the quality of their wetlands project. Fingers crossed since they said there were subtly signs of improvement in increased flooding. Their goal of preserving the Redband's is admirable work I can get behind since the Yakama Nation does the same type of work- preserving salmon. I can’t wait to really get into the f...

  Today was a travel day. We made our way to Wellpinit, Spokane. We are working with their tribes' fisheries program, but we are based out of the Wellpinit Fairgrounds. I’m not sure what we are going to do but I’m ready. On our way here we stopped at a place called Dry Falls which is a geological wonder of the world. I love seeing old landmarks like this especially from the ice age. It is mind blowing how powerful Earth’s processes and natural events can be. I liked reading about how the Lake Missoula Floods tore through the basalt layers of rock to form wide canyons in not one but two different spots. Considering the hardness of basalt rocks it is amazing how fast that water had to have gone since it was built up behind a massive ice dam that broke, similarly to a bomb, blasting free the water behind it. Seeing these formations today is interesting since there are remnants of the plunge pool at the base of the dry waterfall- where the massive waterfall did fall- and seeing how it ...

  On day 3 we really got into the field work at the Swamp Creek in the Yakama Nation (YN) closed area. It was good because I never considered helping out beavers even though I know they are a keystone species. I guess it never crossed my mind that everyone likes the beaver from trappers (I guess they don’t, but they get em you know?), bears snack on em… seems like scientists or wildlife people really like them and the Yakama Nation has stories that carry significant lessons in their daily lives. So, I really hope this low-tech restoration will help entice the beavers and stimulate the response the YN Fisheries is looking for. Huge thank you to Jenette and David for getting us out there and letting us help by helping out with building the actual dam using the mud, soil, grass wads, logs, and fenceposts. There was a lot of grass and there was a lot of orange-tinted soil which I learned today was a good signature of wetlands. I have an interest in all of the science relating to preser...

  Day two was an official start of the science part of the trip which was collecting water samples and measuring our variables. We went to two spots today which were the King Mountain Area and the Klickitat River. Both were faster but shallow streams, but the Klickitat was much wider and had more healthy indicators with more grass on the banks and the shallow, slower moving water. The King Moutain area had little to no vegetation on its banks but had way larger boulders and was very clear of silt or sand where the Klickitat was very silty. I find it interesting learning the different scientific field equipment.  Klickitat River Additional Site  King Mountain Creek Site 1 On another note, the first night here was super cold. I woke up at 1 am slightly hoping it was 7:30 am. Since I was part of the breakfast duty group I was up early and helped set up the breakfast, drained the coolers, and set up the lunch station. We had sandwiches of course. I’ll let you know when they...

  First impressions of this trip aren’t horrible. Things seem smooth at the moment and the camping is going to be as cold as I was warned about. Too bad I didn’t bring a comforter or a nice pillow but that’s fine   I’ll live. The drive here wasn’t bad but I hear we are doing a 6-hour drive on this trip so I’m not looking forward to that. I am excited for the sampling though. Water sampling is new to me so Im ready for that and the start of our research posters. We had a good dinner too. Burgers and pasta salad the first night plus some chips really is good when you’re camping but honestly what isn’t tasty when you’re outdoors.