Day 8

 Woke up at 6 am once again, got prepared for the day, and left camp by 8 am to help with the restoration of riverscapes. We got to meet Janet, David, and Gerard, then left Glenwood for Mt. Adams. Janet is the watershed planner, David Lindley works for the tribe as the habitat coordinator, and Gerard Fuley is the habitat biologist.


Janet said the land has been like this since the Cougar Creek fire started on August 10th, 2015, from lightning, and wasn't contained until mid-September.



Before we went down to the river, we had to dust our shoes to make sure we didn’t bring in stuff to the river. It was a very busy day, we got there around 9:30 am, and my first task was to put on weighters and get into the river to lay down pine trees to mimic the work beavers do.  We first dug some dirt out to gather inside of buckets to increase the river level, and after laying down the trees, we had to put stakes in the middle and around the pine bed.






Took a break at 12:30 pm to eat and get as much energy for the last push of work to do.

After lunch, we got some soil samples from the landscape, gathered the info for GPS, canopy cover (there wasn't any), and the temperature of the soil.
After the last bit, we had to fix up one of the older dams they built before. It was holding up water before, but it was leaking through, so as one of the ones with weighters on, we hopped in the river to dig up soil and used pine branches to plug up all the holes within 15 minutes.

I brought full body weighters, but was told it was fine with waist-high ones. Turns out that wasn't enough, as when we were digging up soil in the river, my pants and shirt got soaked in water, and I was probably the dirtiest one, but that doesn't bother me. Now we're waiting at the Glenwood station to take a shower.

Although I was dirty and tired, I had a really fun time helping Janet, David, and Gerard with the restoration of riverscapes and learned a lot today.


Not to mention, at the end of it all, we were all handed out beaver pins. I might have to start a collection now. Anyway, I got one for my mom as well. I couldn't miss out on one for her.







Had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, it was delicious. I don’t know if the group watched a movie with a projector last night but I decided to sleep at 10 pm to get enough sleep for the pack up tomorrow to the next camp site. Our last one on the trip.

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