2019 People of the Big River Field Class

Day 13: Thursday, July 18.    It was a long morning for me today. We had to pack everything up to go the beach. Our group decided to go to the beach for our last trip in this amazing adventure. I didn’t appose to that since I have never been to the beach. I couldn’t wait to arrive. When we got there my expectations didn’t disappoint me. The beach is beautiful. After we ate dinner I couldn’t wait for the sunset. Just like in the movies the sundown was amazing. At night before going to sleep we did the circle. Everybody had the chance to talk about how they felt during the trip. I’m just happy to have had this amazing opportunity. Also, I’m very thankful for my classmate for making me feel part of the group.

Day 12: Wednesday, July 17.      Today was an interesting day. We met with Alex Gonyaw again to talk about The Klamath Tribes aquatics program. This programs specializes in fish and tribes habitat. The main tribes being Modoc, Klamath and Yahouskin. The main thing that caught my attention was the fish going extinct. The C-waam ( lost river sucker) and Koptu (short nose sucker). This fish have between 10 to 15 years until they go completely extinct if we don’t do nothing about it. Some of the causes of extinction are drowning of marches and water quality. Most of the fish that are alive now are the same ones of each year. Most new spawn fish don’t survive the water quality or are kill by their competition. Then we went to Hagelstein County Park. In that park there’s a little lake not that big but the only lake where short nose sucker fish are able to live without dying. The problem is that it’s a public park and people can fish and swim in the lake, that’s not good for the almost

Day 11: Tuesday, July 16.     Getting up at 5:15 was not my ideal way to start my day but a visit to Crater Lake made up for it. Crater Lake is one of the deepest lake in United States with a depth of 1949 feet (594m). It’s blue and clear water made look beautiful. After that, we hike the watchman trail. The watchman trail has a length of 1.6miles and an elevation of 420feet but badly I didn’t reach the top because of time. Our class was on a hurry to meet up with Alex an environmental science graduate. He showed us the importance of trees and plants where for the Native Americans. One of the most interesting things for me was when he told us that the aspen was the biggest living organisms in this planet.

Day 10: Monday, July 15.    Today l, We got up at 6:30am to go help Bend District of The Deachutes with some environmental projects. First, we help Thomas Walker a fish Biologist on taking out grass weeds from a lake. We wore waiders to protects us from the water. Grass weeds in lake prevents from others plants from growing and with no other species of plants it’s hard for fish and other habitats to live. Walking on mod and pulling weeds out was a hard job but putting on the waiders was the hardest for me. After 4 hours of so, we move to another job site where Peter Powers a forester who has been working on his profession for 16 years and Graduated from Washington State University invited us to work on his Aspen restoration project. We help him cut weeds and plants around Aspen trees to eliminate its competition so the aspen can grow. Powers calls it managing the habitat. Powers has not only work in Oregon but in Washington, Idaho and Montana. It was a busy and fun day for me so

Day 9: Sunday, July 14.    This morning we had breakfast duty, which wasn’t that bad. We only serve bagels with cream and coffee since we had to leave early to the Deachutes River Trail. The Deachutes River Trail was beautiful, walking next to a river felt peaceful. Then, we took off to jessica’s friend house, they were very kind to us. Jessica's friend cooked us some hamburgers, one of the best homemade hamburgers I have ever eaten. They even let us use the shower. The family really made us feel like home. After spending some days in the woods being in a house felt great. The family contribution really made this field trip much better.

Day 8: Saturday, July 13.    After eating breakfast we went to put the cam traps around our camp base. On our hitchhike We found some animals trails, that’s when we decided to put some cam trails. We are hoping to capture some wild animals. In the afternoon we went to little lava lake to swim, relax and just have a good time. Little lava lake has a beautiful scenery. But, everything can't always be good and today we experience a bad and sad moment. Not all people are good people.