What They Don’t Tell You About Research

Over the last six weeks if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that nothing goes as planned.  If there is one law that research follows, it would be Murphy’s Law.  Even from the very beginning, nothing was on track.  First was the snow.  If you don’t remember what I’m talking about, scroll back and take a look back at the May Lake post from the first couple weeks.  The snowfall was enormous and that easily set things back by two weeks.  But by the third week the snow was mostly gone and I was rearing to get started.  That was when I learned that my mentor’s research permit hadn’t been approved.  Her contact in the permitting committee kept telling her it would be done soon, but for several weeks in a row, nothing arrived.  Finally, just about two weeks ago now, after several pointed emails from both my professor and the director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, the Wilderness Manager signed off on the permit we got to work.  The real challenge now is to fit seven weeks of field work into four weeks.  When we arrived here, it seemed like the summer was endless and we could do everything, but recently I was shocked when I looked at the calendar and realized just how few weeks remain.

But anyway, this past week was my first full week of field work.  On Monday, Kaitlin and I drove up to Tenaya Lake and hiked up past the Sunrise Lakes (for those of you with your Yosemite maps :-) ) to reach meadow 910.  We packed in both our regular equipment and the pressure bomb, so what would normally be a rigorous uphill hike from the road became a grueling five mile trek.  ...Oh, and we were hiking above 9000 feet too, which didn’t make things any easier.  


For those who don’t spend much time near 10,000 feet elevation, when they say the air is much thinner, they aren’t kidding.  Basically, a walk feels like a jog, a jog like a run, a run like a sprint, and sprinting isn’t really a good idea.  I also discovered that if I stand up too quickly - i.e. after moving to another spot to look for trees - all the blood rushes from my head and I have a moment of intense lightheadedness.  The first time took me by surprise, but after the full week at elevation, I started to acclimate.

A new Lodgepole Pine seedling, maybe only a month old.

Over the three days we were in the meadow, we resurveyed all three transects that Kaitlin looked at last year, totalling about 140 meters, looking both for baby trees and doing detailed vegetation surveys.  Speaking of baby trees, one thing about this project that I find captivating is that something so small can grow to be so large.  I know there’s the old expression about the acorn growing into an oak tree, but there is something a little bit magical about sifting through meadow plants to reveal a new pine seedling.  If that little seedling is lucky and survives its first few years, it will outgrow all the other plants around it and dominate the area.


So as I’m writing it is Sunday night and I should be packing because I’m heading out into the field again tomorrow.  We are leaving bright and early in the morning back up to the Tuolomne area to hike in to a different meadow.  This week will mostly be the same as last (except in a different place), but this week on Thursday, Kaitlin and I will part ways.  I will be hiking back out to the car while she continues on to some hard-to-reach meadows.  We’ll then meet up again on Monday.  It should be a productive week of data collecting.  So until next weekend, good night and good luck.