Rangeland Ecology/Management class goes to Salmon, Idaho
A curious horse approached as we were waiting outside of the Carmen Creek Grange Hall to attend a meeting for a local collaborative group, Idaho Peaks to Craters Network.
Since returning to school I have been introduced to a very interesting field of study: Rangeland Ecology and Management. I had always seen the job posts in search of Range Specialists on the Fed's. hiring web service, Avue, but had never really known exactly what the job entailed. Considering my love for and interest in the working landscapes of the West, I see a strong justification for pursuing a specialization, or at the very least, a well informed knowledge of this field within resource management.
I enrolled in Integrated Rangeland Managment and have learned more than I could have ever hoped. It's so logical, and now completely essential for forest and resource managers to design management strategies and objectives based on an informed understanding of the interconnected state of vegetation types, fuel loads, ecological restoration goals, and public lands grazing and other uses, but history and specific cases have shown that these considerations have not always been given the attention they deserve, or have even been addressed. Historically this has resulted in the overuse of land, or in the case of fire suppression for example, the landscape can become overrun with dense biomass, contributing to increased fuel loads, which can increase fire intensities, increase the severity of fire effects, and can change the ecological composition of the land and the vegetatative communities it supports.
Cattails in seed
Whew...that's just a glimpse into the stuff that occupies my thoughts lately...I love it. And I was thrilled to learn that the class would be taking a four day field trip down to Salmon, Idaho, where we would meet with agency workers (US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Idaho Fish and Game); members of the community that are involved in voluntary restoration ecology projects (largely as a preemptive measure due to the presence of spawning Chinook Salmon, Bull Trout, and Steelhead Trout, which are endangered or threatened species protected by the 1973 Endangered Species Act); local area ranchers facing a variety of challenges; and even getting to view the lek ritual of the Greater-Sage Grouse. This field trip sounded fun at the beginning of the semester, when we hadn't been assigned papers, projects and a million other things, but when it actually came time to hit the road we were at April 23 on the calendar--in student time, that's just about the worst time ever to have to leave your school and work responsibilities for four days.
Cattails, the curious horse, the Salmon foothills, and a game trail leading up the Salmon River Mountain range.
We piled into the van, me and five other guys, and began the nine hour drive from Moscow to Salmon, Idaho, via Interstate 90 in Montana. Salmon displays an intimidating topography, and even more beautiful landscape than I remember from my road trip through the area back in 2008. I was floored by the beauty of the rolling foothills, wide mesas, and the feeling of being so small while standing down in the floor of the Lemhi Valley-to the East you are surrounded by the Bitterroot Range of the Beaverhead Mountains, which is the Continental Divide and the Idaho/Montana state line, and the vast Salmon River Mountain range of the central Idaho wilderness areas.
A classmate searching Carmen Creek for spawning Steelhead Trout
We were driven from meeting to meeting, many of us grumbling along the way about how tired we were from waking each day at 6, and attending meetings until 8 pm each night, but deep down we all had a great time. We visited the McFarland Conservation Easement on Carmen Creek, where we scoured the banks in search of reds and spawning Steelhead Trout; I saw one, but that big ol' fish was moving so fast that all my photos are kinda blurry. The region was gorgeous, and I definitely need to plan a road trip out here again sometime. I'm pretty sure Idaho Falls isn't all that far from Salmon, so I may get to give it go soon enough.
Continue scrolling down to see more photos of the area.
Old things lying around the ranch
The Lewis and Clark expedition traveled up Tower Creek on August 31st 1805. Clark recorded, "...passed remarkable rock resembling pirimids on the left side."
The view West toward the Salmon River Mountain range. This is taken from the Eagle Valley Ranch, a 6,000 acre, working cattle ranch.
The Beaverhead Mountains, Eagle Valley Ranch, Salmon, Idaho
Chris presenting the ranch manager with a gift from the class
The Salmon River Range
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