Setting up for the field season

Greg Peters, our Field Coordinator, and I began to set up Wildlands CPR’s wildlife monitoring field sites on the Clearwater National Forest this weekend.  After a week of rain and snow, the skies cleared and we had a sunny first day in the field.  

Our first site was a recontoured road.  It was pretty steep and rocky at the entrance and made for some difficulty carrying the track plate and roof

     

After about 20 minutes of hiking down the recontoured road, we found a nice flat spot to set up the camera and track plate.  Here is Greg setting up a track plate in the shade of a tree.



While the snow had just melted from this site, already some trillium had begun to bloom on the decommissioned road



We were able to set up another site on an abandoned road, but as we tried to set up more sites, we were continually greeted by fallen logs and snow.  This fallen tree prevented us from setting up any sites on Wendover Creek.  




After this last weekend’s heat wave, we’re hoping to be able to access more sites next week.