Lets see if I can get this principal component analysis to work…

Some of the scenery I’ve enjoyed on my runs this week.

Last weekend I journeyed to Sandpoint, Idaho to see friends. I hadn’t seen them in a full year, so it was really great to visit! North Idaho is beautiful.

Lake Pend d’Oreille

I had a really wonderful time at Yellowstone last weekend with the SPAW crew. We saw a black bear, wolves, elk, and many bison (including one that blocked traffic for 10 minutes). The scenery was beautiful, and I had a lot of fun driving around the park and watching the geothermals. We also had a great group of people, which made the weekend so much more enjoyable.

I’m very thankful for Tony and Shawnna and all the time and work they put in to make sure the Yellowstone trip went smoothly! Besides a few unplanned trail and swimming hole closures, nothing went wrong, which is impressive. I had a really great time!

Back in the field! The huckleberry team is still collecting berry phenology data and site productivity data, but things are starting to wrap up. Less time in the field = more time for writing and data analysis!

Another weekend spent at Glacier! I’m seriously grateful to live only a 2 hour drive from this place. Montana is so beautiful.

The huckleberry crew is back in the field this week! Today we set up transect lines to measure the huckleberry productivity at the Hellroaring 1 site, and we’ll follow up with the other sites tomorrow and next week.

In the picture of the huckleberries below, you can see berries at different stages of development. The small green ones are bulbs, the rounded green ones are the “green” stage, and the purple ones are ripe.

I’ve wanted to visit Glacier National Park since I was maybe 14 years old, and this weekend I finally did! Glacier met and exceeded all of my expectations. I only wish that I could have stayed longer and hiked more of the trails.

Happy Friday!

Last week I discovered that my soil conductivity probe was having some measurement errors, so I spent this week re-collecting soil samples and measuring the conductivity with a different probe. Luckily I’m almost done with this section of my research; I only have one more site to sample next week and then I’ll be finished with the soil measurements.

4th of July (and Canada Day!) weekend should be lots of fun. We have plans to visit the Arlee Powwow tomorrow and then camp/hike at Glacier on Sunday and Monday.

Pictured below: a view of the Missions from the Se¿lis¿ Ksanka Ql¿ispe¿ Dam.

We finally made it out to the bison range! The bison really do not give a crap about cars or people, which was a little unsettling, but it also meant that we could get really cool pictures.

(2nd pic is an elk, which was also cool.)

This week: the huckleberry crew collected more phenology data (still no ripe huckleberries yet), I spent many hours in the lab processing my soil samples (big thanks to Mariana and DeeDee who helped me out!), team SPAW started working on our group introduction, and today, a few of us went hiking to Mission Falls.

Next week I’ll start looking for trends in my soil data. There are a few sites I’ll need to re-sample, but in overall, I think this week’s work was successful.

#PhotoOp at McDonald Lake. Big smiles from the huckleberry crew 😁

On Saturday, DeeDee, Tasha and I took a trip to Missoula to buy some better fieldwork gear. I had been wearing a pair of beat-up running shoes, and after many years of never owning hiking boots I finally gave in and bought a pair. Here’s hoping that they serve me well!

This was a busy week! Between Monday and today (Friday), the huckleberry team has visited nearly all the field sites, we’ve watched The Place of Falling Waters movie, traveled to the encampment, and become acquainted with this region of Montana. Later today, we’re going to the Peoples Center and maybe the Bison Range.

Pictured below: fun in the field while collecting huckleberry phenology data! This was one of our Wednesday sites.