Friday, July 6, 2012 – LANDS Week 5

White River Partnership Project – Week 2

                This week we finished up our surveying of the White River Partnership area for invasive species.  We spent the past three days camping in Branbury State Park and driving down to the roads and trails to map them during the day.

                Tuesday we drove down, stopping to do our mapping along the way.  It was a scorcher, but luckily we had just received our official SCA-issued water bottles and caps, so staying hydrated and avoiding sunburn was not a problem.  We then returned to Branbury, where we set up camp and made our dinner of Annie’s Mac and Cheese.

Note the hats.

Walking down Liberty Hill

                The heat and humidity stuck around for the Independence Day festivities.  We spent our day being as efficient as possible while mapping a number of forest roads and trails in one section of the White River region that we had not gotten to yet.  On many of these trails the damage caused by Hurricane Irene could still be witnessed.  The following are pictures from the roads and trails around Chittenden Brook.

Exposed culvert at crossing to Chittenden Brook Trail

This trail was closed - as signs reiterated many times throughout the journey

Washed out shoreline - trees were taken down, as were many enormous boulders, and deposited in the stream

Raccoon on Forest Road 61

 More flood damage, this time on Corporation Road

                Once we had finished with the trails surrounding Chittenden Brook, we drove out and mapped the last two nearby trails so that we would not have to drive back out the next day – saving gas and the environment.  When we finally made it back to the campsite we all darted straight down to the lake to cool off.  The park was packed with people, but we scoped out a spot on the lawn and got creemees before our patriotic dinner of hot dogs, corn, and potatoes.  Unfortunately the one-and-a-half bags of marshmallows that we had been planning on finishing by making s’mores were barely touched, as the rain started pound down.  We promptly put all of our dishes out on the table so that mother nature could rinse them all out, and then sat on the edge of the lean-to waiting for the fire to be completely extinguished.  While most of us crawled into our sleeping bags and listened to the rain, a few managed to catch the fireworks down at the lake before bed.

                Thursday we woke up, took down camp, and set out to finish our mapping for the White River Partnership.  We returned to the area that we had come to on our very first day in the region, but fortunately for us there were no construction vehicles driving back and forth.

                With our mapping done for the week, we returned to Burlington and to the Greenhouse and began planning for the next few weeks’ mapping and report-writing.

Post by Dylan Marcus