Another near death experience

This has been a crazy few weeks. Jamie, our regular crew leader, has been in and out of town due to personal errands, so Derik, a seasonal in his second year here at the Ashley, has been our crew leader. Though that has been a big change, it seems like our workweeks have been more regular. We've been spending three or four days in the field, and a day or two in the office, mostly working on the North Flank, which is just what we call the region were logging and burning projects are going to occur. It has been mostly uneventful, yet difficult, except for some (extremely) bad weather.

One day, we went up a ridge to survey, unfazed of the storm in the distance. By the time we reached the top, the storm was directly overhead. First, lightening struck a little unnervingly close, but we thought it would pass quickly. Only a couple minutes later, the lightening and thunder were simultaneous-- we couldn't tell which direction it came from, and were expecting a nearby tree to have been struck. We then decided it was not worth staying on the ridge top at 9000 ft, and ran down. Then, it started to rain, shortly followed by more rain, then massive hail. We were soaked from head to toe in a matter of minutes and bruised from the aggressive hail. After we got down the ridge top, we had to walk about a mile and a half to the car wearing wet denim and hiking boots filled with water. The water broke my phone, so that I can no longer see the screen well and I lost my sunglasses in the frantic run down. That was not a fun day. We went back to the ridge to survey later that week, and the hail was still on the ground; it looked like snow.

This past weekend, we went to Salt Lake. I was able to hang out with Hannah, and we all went shopping. It was so nice to be in civilization again. Also, I've been especially home sick these past few weeks, and it was good to see a familiar face. Not to mention the fact that Hannah was super awesome and made me a bed with sheets and everything. I haven’t had sheets in six weeks.

It's confirmed, my last day of work is the 28th of August, which is a Thursday. Plan accordingly?

One last piece of good news, I finally submitted my abstract to the GBAC (Great Basin Anthropological Conference). I'm doing an oral presentation of a paper, and a poster to accompany it. The conference will be from October 8-10 in Portland, Oregon. I don't know when my presentation will be yet, but I invite anyone who wants to come see me (I'll need the moral support).

I hope you're having a good summer, and save some fun for me when I get back! I can't wait to come home.

Carter Military Road

I just got back from a weeklong camping trip for a Passport in Time project. Passport in Time projects are fairly common throughout the states. They are basically an opportunity for the public to be a part of an archaeological project. For our Passport in Time project, we had a group of about 25 volunteers with metal detectors to help us find artifacts along the Carter Military Road. The Carter Military Road was used in the 1880’s and goes from Fort Bridger, Wyoming to Fort Thornburg in Vernal, Utah. We have found also sorts of artifacts along this road, including eagle buttons that adorned military coats, wagon parts, nails, tent stakes, coins, and we even found a historic shoe. Our volunteers were a diverse group from around the United States. Many of them routinely participate in Passport in Time projects, and some even come on every Carter Road project, and study it’s history as a hobby—so they knew more about the Carter Road than we did. There were quite a few retired couples; the average age in the group was probably 60. But there was also a father and daughter that came, it was their first time using metal detectors and their first Passport in Time project. All the volunteers were really smart and interesting; one even had two PhD’s (chemistry and I forgot the other). They were more than willing to tell us everything they knew about the artifacts that they found, so they were a lot of fun to work with.  

We left for our trip on Monday morning, and got back on Friday. Our campsite didn’t have any water, electricity, or cell phone reception, but it did have an outhouse. This trip included all the crews of interns, so there were about fifteen of us. Instead of hiding in my tent and reading, as I did in the High Unitahs trip, we all hung out together, played Frisbee, roasted marshmallows, and played cards. On Wednesday, we had a Dutch oven dinner and potluck with all the volunteers. So while I had to go a week without showering, this trip was a lot of fun.  

We worked pretty much from eight to five everyday. One day we were at a site that was in a meadow, with no trees or shade. The volunteers found nearly nothing and I just baked in the sun. So, despite the fact that I was wearing sun block, I was badly sun

burned on my face and my nose blistered. The other interns called me Rudolph, but then they also gave me aloe and a hat. Aside from that day, all the other workdays went well; we found many artifacts, and there was some shade to stand in. On Friday, I gave a presentation with another intern to a group of boy scouts about the Carter Road. They were trying to get their archaeology badge (I didn’t know there was such a thing). It went well, we told them about the history and conditions of the Carter Road and showed them what kinds of artifacts we have found there. The boy scouts seemed very bored, but the counselors and staff were excited.

All in all, it was a good week, though I’m glad to be back in a regular bed and showered.

A near-death episode

This weekend all the crews went camping at the Fremont Indian State Park in Central Utah. This is what we decided to do for fun, even though camping and hiking is part of our job. I know, while I am the first to admit camping and hiking are fun, after doing it 40 hours a week, my ideal off-time would including sleeping in a bed watching Arrested Development. The Fremont Indian State Park was a six-hour drive from our house in Manila (driving from place to place is also another thing we spend much of our time doing during the work week). While I was skeptical of the fun potential of the weekend, it actually turned out great.

The Fremont Indian State Park was the site of the largest full-scale excavation of a Fremont

 Indian village site. Then, someone decided to build a highway through it. So, the State Park was set up (around the highway) so that they could protect the land in a way, and educate the public on the information found, despite it’s being destroyed. There were a few models of pit houses and granaries (storage shelters) and lots and lots of petroglyphs.  

We spent most of the time hiking through the trails looking at all the petroglyphs (lets hope my pictures came out). They were cool; though the problem with petroglyphs in the archaeological record are that you are unable to associate them with a radiocarbon date, due to the fact that they are not in the ground. Therefore, while they are cool to look at, they do not

 quite reach their potential in information value.

I had the most fun on the trip when we were all just sitting around the fire, bonding. We haven’t interacted with the other crew, and it was cool to get to know everyone. I really enjoy the people I’m working with this summer (though, I just met them, ask me again in three months). We played this awesome game called the drawing game, ask me how to play, it’s awesome!

There was also an episode that was somewhat embarrassing and traumatic for me. The stars were beautiful; it seemed as though we could see every one of them. Therefore, at night, we decided to hike up to one of the cliffs to see the stars. Most everyone had hiked up there during the day (not me), and knew that it was perfectly safe (yadda yadda yadda). I hiked up there with everyone, only to find out that we would be on a small plateau of land that was surrounded by cliff on three sides. Because it was dark, I could not see how far down the cliff went; I can only assume it plummeted infinitely. I sat up there with everyone else for about 15 minutes, trying to preoccupy myself with the stars and the idea that I sat in a flat meadow. I did not move; I sat there like a statue. But inevitably, someone behind me would move, a bug would land on my foot and tickle me, 

and I would accidental flick a small pebble off the cliff and watch it forever fall into nothingness. I thought after being up there for a while, I would relax, but I did not. These little things that were happening around freaked me out, not to mention the fact that the cliff edges were closing in on me and the slope I was sitting on grew steeper, until the only reasonable outcome of the situation was that I would fall into oblivion. In short, I nearly had a panic attack. When everyone realized the extent of my freak out, they carefully assisted me down and were very understanding. I was very embarrassed. While a couple people later went back up there to spend the night (since it was perfectly safe), I insist that I nearly died. I don’t think my fear of heights has ever been worse.

Overall, it was a fun weekend. We’re thinking about doing similar trips, though perhaps a bit closer.

P.S. Here's me in my forest uniform. I'm doing something goofy because I don't like my picture taken. But I did it for you.