Day 7: June 14th

Today completes our first week on the trip. We started the day with a discussion just a mile from Bryce Canyon. We had a discussion about Utah prarie dogs in front of a prarie dog town consisting of about 150 prarie dogs. I think they are so funny because they have lookouts that stand a top their mounds caling out alrams to the others because we were in the vacinity. There were also two pronghorn fauns laying in the grass perfectly camouflaged. Their mother must have hid them there for the night.

The prarie dogs are endangered because so many people shoot them because they are considered varmit. Prarie dogs have a natural symbiotic relationship with bison. The prarie dogs replenish the soil through digging and the bison keep the grass short enabling the prarie dogs to see predators in the distance. Prarie dogs could thrive on ranches because the cattle fill that niche the bison have left in Utah as there are no longer wild bison in the praries of Utah. With proper education for ranchers they could set up a system to benefit ranchers with the prarie dogs on their land. 

We left the prarie dog town and headed to Zion. Zion was a short drive not longer than an hour from Bryce. The park was amazing and once again there were way too many people. We did Angel's Landing, a very neat hike. The trail was tretcherous but it made for a great experience. We had to hold on to chain linked railings on parts of the hike because of the dangers of falling to our deaths. The risk was worth it. the view from the top was awesome.

When we got back to the bottom we discussed how the park is very "green." It is the most environmentally friendly operated park in the US. Their buildings were energy efficient with solar chimneys and they use a unique shuttle service. Their visitor center uses  windows as natural lighting and natural ventilation to cool and heat the building. There are parts of the park that you can only access by using the shuttle. This decreases emissions tremendously and prevents the more touristy people from crowding the more scenic challenging hikes. A lot of people like to do parts of hikes but this may prevent them from even bothering to attempt it. Before the day ended we tested the currents of the Virgin River that runs through th park. It was a lot of fun. Some of the lighter weighing girls got swept off by the currents. It gave us a little scare but all and all they were fine making it kind of funny. The water felt amazing after the strenuous hike.

Day 6: June 13th

Our day consisted of a lot of driving. We left Antelope Island for Bryce Canyon. We drove close to seven hours. At this point were used to long drives, so seven hours is really nothing at this point. We entertain ourselves enough to make the rides seem shorter. Sleeping helps as well.

We got to our campsite first which was about 35 minutes from the canyon. The campsite was 15 minutes down a bumpy dirt road where we had the entire site to ourselves. We did a three mile hike in the canyon. There were people everywhere, it kind of took the experience away a bit. But I told myself to ignore the croud and appreciate the spectacular geology. I got some great pictures, the sky was amazing on this day, making for an awesome background behind the red rock of the hoodoos (hoodoos are the eroded rocks that you can see in the picture). Hoodoos are made of stone more resistant to the weathering than the surrounding sedimentary rock. The size of the canyon wasn't too impressive, but its beauty sure made up what it lacked in size.

After the hike we got to take showers and do laundry. It was very relieving. I ran out of clean clothes a couple days earlier. The laundry took a while so we had gotten back to the campsite kind of late. I was shocked by how cold it had gotten after the sun set. It was one of the coldest nights so far and it was 90 degrees earlier.

Day 5: June 12th

We left Flamming Gorge and headed to Great Salt Lake. The drive wasn't bad, it was close to four hours and we cut through the busy city of Salt Lake. When we got to our camp site on Antelope Island at Salt Lake State Park I was shocked to see bison. Apparently they reintroduced the bison to attract tourists. There are between 500 and 700 on the island. The population is kept in check so the island isn't overgrazed by the population. The camp site had a beautiful view of the lake with lots of wildlife in near site. The only problem were the insects but once the winds picked up they seemed to go away. While we went on a short hike we were attacked by mosquitos and gnats. I got to within fourty yards of bison and probably even closer to a coyote. After dinner about 12 of us decided to on a late night excursion. We walked through the meadows, the brush, the bogs with think reeds, and a beach 10x wider than Wildwood's beach to get to the salty water. We rolled our pants up and walked about a mile into the lake until the water finally began to get a little deeper. Someswam out, I decided to walk back to the beach. A classmate and I drew an enormous figure in the sand which we hoped we'd be able to see form the campsite. It didn't seem to be large enough but if one knew what they were looking for they could see it. We ended the night with sitting by the fire.

Day 4: June 11th

The day's events consisted of us traveling through three states. We began our day very early, just before the sun had come up. We broke out tents down around 5 a.m. We were headed Northwest for Utah. To get there we took Trail Ridge Road, which is the highest continuous roadway in all of North America. At the highest point on Mt. Evans we were well above the tree line in alpine tundra. Its funny to find yourself in the tundra after being in the valley just hours earlier where temperatures were in the upper 60s. Patrick explained to us how the disruptive elk are pushing higher in elevation every year closer and closer to this ecosystem. And sure enough i saw an elk laying behind a rock just a few hundred feet from the very top. How and why it was up there baffles me.

My favorite part of the day was when we were at the end of trail ridge road. We stopped in to see La Poudre Pass. This is the very start of the Colorado River starting right at the continental divide. It was so cool to watch this water flow by knowing that it originated in the snow peaks of the mountains in the distance which we just drove through and ends up in the Gulf of California becoming a part of the Pacific Ocean. What I loved most about this spot was the wildlife. There was a moose, a small elk herd, and a coyote. All three species were within 25 yards of each other, it was an amazing experience.

Eventually we drove through foot hills. We stopped at Lake Grand which was the largest natural lake in Colorado. It was huge but it seemed the water level had dropped significantly . A couple hours later we were in Utah and it became a little more dry and more wild as there was less farmland. I saw lots of mule deer and a some pronghorne. We eventually drove into Wyoming for about 10 minutes. Making it three states in one day. Our campsite was great, right on Flamming Gorge in Utah just at the border of Wyoming. About 8 of us decided to go for a swim because we hadn't showered yet on the trip (even though there were showers at this site). The water was frigid. We skipped rocks for like an hour. Took a shower, watched the sun set and called it a night. The sunset was awesome.

It was hard to believe we saw everything that we did in this one day. Probably the craziest day of my life.

Day 3: June 10th

Today we did our first significant hike. We hiked about 7 miles to Cub Lake in Rocky Mountains National Park. The hike was great, it was my first opportunity to take some great pictures with my new camera. It also was the first time i had ever been out in the wilderness in the West and it was great to know i had much more of it ahead of me with it only being the third day of the trip. During the hike Patrick discussed the wildlife in the park. We learned about the problem with controlled burning in fire management. I had no idea but natual fires don't burn as hot so they are less damaging. According to Patrick most of the landscape in the park was in fact unnatural. This was largely due to poor fire management and an overpopulated elk herd. Many of the forest was too dense with ponderosa pine bringing stress to the trees and causing them to be more vulnerable to pine beatles. The pine beatle damage was evident all throughout the park as well as the elk damage.

 The forests in the park should have been more balanced between aspen and ponderosa pine. But clearly from what I saw it was unbalanced. There were a lot more pine than aspen. The elk feed on young aspen but not the young pine saplings. The park had fenced off areas to deter elk from eating young tree saplings. The fenced off areas were full of aspen stands but just outside the fence was nothing but grass, this gave me a great appreciation of the balance in ecology. Elk populations are high because of a lack of predators. There were once wolves in the park that kept these populations in check. There were also once beavers in the valley but the elk have eaten all the young willows which grow along streams and provide timber for the beaver to build dams. Now there are a shortage of wetlands in the valley, an important habitat for many bird species. Much of the stream was fenced off as well to encourage willow growth, so the possibility of beaver can be reintroduced. The picture shows a great example of the way the valley's streams should look. This was thanks to a fence around the stream. The politics of the park are getting in the way of solving this problem. If hunters were aloud to come in and cure the population, damage could be kept at a minimum. But the park doesn't want tourists to see them being hunted in park boundaries.

We stopped on our hike to talk about the Endangred Species Act. We discussed two species in particular, the lynx and the wolverine. There is prime habitat at the snow capped mountain tops of the Rockies. The wolverine prefers tundra like conditions. Skiing is a huge part of Colorado's tourism and this has effects on the wolverine who is only found in snow and it even has effects on the lynx. Skiing requires places for skiiers to stay, so it is very popular to stay in fancy mountain resorts. Patrick told us the story of the reintroduction of the lynx to Colorado's Rockies. A resort wanted to expand tremendously on the other face if the mountain they were occupying. There location they wanted to expand at was prime habitat for the lynx. The resorts didn't see how this was at all fair due to the fact that fish and wildlife introduced the species. So the resorts decided to pay off the fish and wildlife to reintroduce even more animals so they would be no longer in danger of becoming extinct. This would then allow for them to expand their resort. This was an example of the complexity of the Endangred Species Act and the controvercy it causes. I think it is a great act as it does give full protection to species and I believe it is saving many species regardless of its loopholes. Every law in this country has it's downsides and loopholes.

Day 2: June 9th

Today we visited the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL)  in Boulder. We discussed wind and solar in great detail and touched on energy efficient buildings and biofuels. I was shocked by the size of the largest wind turbines. The 3.0 megawatt turbines have blades as long as football fields. and they aren't the largest. She was mentioning how the Dakota's have great wind potential but the only problem there is mineral rights. All the land is already bought up for possible extraction of minerals in the future. So they have trouble finding areas to build wind farms. NREL provides a map of the United States that shows areas with wind potential . You can see that the Dakotas have great potential and also that New Jersey has excellent potential off shore. She also mentioned this and the debate happening in New Jersey over it.

She brought up the point of migratory birds but she believes the birds wouldn't be affected to greatly. And the other topic of debate is that the turbines may disrupt the view of the ocean from the beach. But she mentions that the turbines would be so far out in the ocean people wouldn't even be able to notice they were there. This shows on the map, the further off the coast the better the winds are for turbines. I defintly believe power will be produced more and more by wind in the future because according to the speaker, the technology is growing at a tremendous rate. I also found it interesting when she was explaining that the scientists at the lab come up with ideas by accident. Many energy efficient building designs they have come up with, they have come up by accident through experimentation for other proposed designs.
After our visit at the NREL we drove to a library where we would discuss water resources of the west. Our speaker was Karen from Western Resource Advocates. She is a lawyer who specialized in water rights. She shocked the class when she told us the seriousness of laws invloving water rights. There are serious fines and even jailtime in some cases. Water is scarce in the West and taken extremely serious. I learned that many of the laws are from the early 1800s and are very unfair today. For instance water rights only acknowlegde the people with the rights. If one has the rights to the water they can do whatever they wish with it, they can dam it and prevent it from flowing anywhere. This leaves people with no water rights in a hard spot and they have to be careful with what they do with flowing water. I really enjoyed her discussion because she touched so much on the restoration of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. She had a lot to say and was highly acurate with what is happening to the ecosystems in the portion of the river thanks to the damming at Lake Powell by Glenn Canyon Dam. Everything she touched on about the river's troubled ecosystem was mentioned in the book we read prior to the trip. We read Restoring Colorado River Ecosystems by  Robert W. Adler and I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was very thorough and gave a great sense of what is happening to the river. This speaker was excellent because of how concise her lecture was and again how the class could relate a book that we read to her talk.

The day wasn't over yet after Karen's talk. We stopped in Boulder to take a look around before we made it back to the campsite. Patrick Hossay (Stockton professor that was with us for the first week and a half) discussed the development of the city of Boulder. He explained how the city has become much nicer after its redevelopment. The city turned their industrial area into a tourist attraction. It is now a nice downtown area with shops and restaurants that are set off from the roads to encourage walking or the use of bikes over driving. I fell in love with the downtown area and we were only there for a half hour. I wish more towns decided to take this approach for their downtown area.

Day 1: June 8, 2011

The day was filled with traveling. We flew into Denver's airport around noon and waited to get picked up by the convoy until about 3. We were rollin deep with a suburban and two 15 passenger vans. Once we got into the van it truely set it, my van was great. I'm very satisfied with the people in it not to say any other combination of people wouldn't work, the entire class is cool. So we drove through the prarie with the rocky mountains in the background. This was getting me so pumped for the rest of our trip to come. I hadn't ever seen scenery like this before. Eventualy we began driving into the mountains into some elevation, we were all silent. Then the chaperon Dave asked, "are you guys tired or just takin in the scenary?" The moment we arrived at our campsite I saw with a doubt the most beautiful site of my life. It was the sun setting behind the rockies. We took some pics and then hurried to set up camp before it got too dark to see. Once we were set up we had our discussion on energy as tomorrow we will be getting a tour at National Renewable Energy Lab in Boulder. Right as we finished the discussion the rain began and a nasty storm hit in the middle of the night.