“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” - Thornton WilderDuring a hike this week, I paused at the top of a hill, soaking in sweeping views of the foggy coastal prairie ecosystem and the...
While Death Valley is known for its lowest point and highest temperatures in the valley itself, the park is actually much more than just the dry desert. It expands to over three million acres, and covers a number of mountain ranges where most of my...
In mid-June, I had the opportunity to join a four-day camping trip to Pinnacles National Park, where I spent time with the botany, raptor, and riparian monitoring teams to learn about their research and collect media materials. Below are some highlights and observations from each...
Wahguyhe Peak (right-most, bald peak) at ~8,200 feet Fun Fact: oxygen thins the higher in elevation you go! While this is a commonly known phenomenon, I am reminded of it every time I hike somewhere new. For example, my recent scaling of Death Valley’s 9,000+ foot...
My two main projects include: mapping the Great Basin western bristlecone pine trees along the mountain ranges and digitizing Death Valley’s herbarium. Western bristlecone pines suffer bark beetle attacks, which have rendered these long-lived trees vulnerable to weather conditions. By creating a reliable map of...
Owls, starfish, & plovers… oh my! Before this internship began, I never imagined that I would have so many new, incredible, and diverse experiences packed in my first month. Over the past weeks, I’ve been visiting with various San Francisco Bay Area Inventory & Monitoring Network...
Hi all! My name is Caitlyn Klemm and I am the biotech natural resources intern at Death Valley National Park. I graduated from UC Merced in 2022 with a degree in English, but I was always drawn to the natural sciences since childhood. This pull...
Hi everyone! My name is Avani Fachon, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to be a Science Communication Assistant with the San Francisco Bay Area Inventory & Monitoring Network (SFAN) this summer. When I arrived at Fort Cronkhite last week and pulled open the...
Two fog monitoring stations ready for deployment Hello everyone! Taro here, checking in with an update on our fog monitoring project at Cabrillo National Monument! Things have been very busy here! Since Cabrillo is a park right next to the San Diego Bay, it gets many, many visitors...
The Basinwide Systematic Surveys are still underway! If you haven’t read my last blog post detailing the first step of our current survey process, I recommend it for an in-depth explanation! For those who haven’t, our basinwide systematic survey process begins with habitat typing, which...