here's the view from the bottom...
and from the top...
This has been a very dry year in Sheldon and out west in general. As a result, there has been a lot of wildfires. Yesterday a portion of Catnip actually caught fire. Luckily it wasn't anywhere near our study site there. As I was doing my first transect on my last point yesterday I could see the plume rising up behind and to the left of Blowout Mountain. It was eerie. The cloud almost had an irridescent quality to it, like that of oil floating in water. Aaron saw the plume while driving between Bald and Badger and reported it. Viddy also saw it from his '94 burn plot and when he got back to the cabin he called it in on the satellite phone. By the time I had finished my second transect on that last veg. it was under control. You could tell because the plume of smoke had significantly diminished.
In other news, the last time Jutin and I were at Catnip they were conducting horse counts via helicopter before they do the yearly roundup. Horses are invasive on the refuge and are wreaking havoc on the vegetation and landscape. Every year they do a roundup to try and keep the population under control. The evnetual goal is to remove all the horses from the refuge... If you want a horse, adopt one from Sheldon! Anyways, the helicopter was flying low over terrain. At points Justin and I were standing higher than the helicopter on the sides of the hills. Aaron said that they were trying to give Justin and I some room. Apparantly at one point the helicopter scared up some pronghorn and horses, and they all ran by Justin in a huge herd. He said he felt like he was in some wildlife film from Africa. I'm definately going to miss this crazy landscape. It took some getting used to, but I love it now.
~me
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