WETLANDS MAPPING WEEK 2

July 16th-20th, 2012
Monday
The start of the week saw us packing up the van again to head down to Woodford State Park for two nights near Bennington to continue our wetland inventory work from last week. Shovels and augers in hand, we set off into the field for a few hours surveying Maple/Beech/Birch/Spruce forests and Class II wetlands to much success. Having started late, we arrived a little before sunset to a familiar campground in time to build a fire and flame hot/turk dogs and stir up some mac 'n cheese. Can you say yum?

Scouting a Beaver Complex just before the rain

 

We packed into the screenhouse (set up in the lean to to host the boys for the evening) and under the glow of headlamps and flashlights poured over the maps for the next day.

Late night map party

Tuesday
Tuesday morning saw many of us heading up the Appalachian Trail after dropoffs to pursue a few wetlands that were deep within the bush of the Green Mountains. Bushwhacking and with compasses and gps units in hands, we found most of what we were looking for.

This is a mushroom.

This day we were also fortunate enough to be blessed with Stephanie's 24th birthday, so naturally we had to send her and Ally out on the farthest trail, which brought them back to the van a little bit later than expected. Not to worry, our search and rescue procedures did not have to be used and we all made it back to Woodford State Park to swim and cool off in the lake before dinner.  

Wetland outlet

Wednesday
With only a few wetlands left to inventory in a central location, we decided to focus our efforts for the morning on one large wetland off of Rt. 100 and a smaller wetland to the North. We dropped the groups off and they successfully mapped the area, making it out to the other side across the river to be picked up and head back to Burlington. 
For Teresa, Andrew, and Emily however, they learned a few important lessons about trusting GPS units and pacing the correct distances, as they unfortunately spent the morning mapping a wetland that wasn't quite the one they were looking for.



Thursday

The jungle

Happy to be back in Burlington, the crew met in Jeffords Hall to begin the process of writing the multiple reports for the summer. Job roles were divided up and we hunkered down in the computer lab to start compiling the data. It was interesting to see the GPS points we had been taking all summer start to present their selves as useful data in map forms. Much of the day was spent prepping the data and teaching each other how to perform the different GIS operations so that more work could be completed the next day.

Orchid

Friday
With the week winding down, the Wetland Inventory report began to come together as we created maps that showed all the wetlands that we visited, and the natural communities that we found existing within them. We were all becoming familiar with the GIS operations which would make future work much easier and by the time 4:30 rolled around we had completed the wetlands report and were on to writing up our Glastonbury project report! It was going to be a well-deserved weekend.


~Andrew