Adventure Scientists

  • Home
    • About Us >
      • Mission and Values >
        • EIJ Resources
      • Annual Reports and Financials
      • Contact
    • Our Team >
      • Staff
      • Board and Advisors
      • Science Advisory Board
      • Join our Team
      • Our Partners
    • Press >
      • COVID-19 Updates
      • Films
      • Writing
      • Audio
  • For Scientists
    • Our Services >
      • Project Design & Feasibility
      • Project Build
      • Volunteer Recruiting & Screening
      • Full Project Management
    • Scientific Partners
    • Project Reports and Scientific Publications
    • Access Data Sets
  • For Adventurers
    • Volunteer Basics
    • Current Projects >
      • Wildlife Connectivity
      • Timber Tracking
      • Wild and Scenic Rivers
  • Our Impact
    • Past Projects
  • Blog
  • Donate
  • Home
    • About Us >
      • Mission and Values >
        • EIJ Resources
      • Annual Reports and Financials
      • Contact
    • Our Team >
      • Staff
      • Board and Advisors
      • Science Advisory Board
      • Join our Team
      • Our Partners
    • Press >
      • COVID-19 Updates
      • Films
      • Writing
      • Audio
  • For Scientists
    • Our Services >
      • Project Design & Feasibility
      • Project Build
      • Volunteer Recruiting & Screening
      • Full Project Management
    • Scientific Partners
    • Project Reports and Scientific Publications
    • Access Data Sets
  • For Adventurers
    • Volunteer Basics
    • Current Projects >
      • Wildlife Connectivity
      • Timber Tracking
      • Wild and Scenic Rivers
  • Our Impact
    • Past Projects
  • Blog
  • Donate

Welcome to Field Notes

Uncharted Territory: Sun Prairie North

3/23/2015

 
Picture
Story and Photos by Hannah Larson
Landmark Crew Member

Squelch. Squelch. 

Ryan, Emma and I are trekking across a flat stretch of prairie that, at the moment, looks more like a shallow lake than a grassland. With each step, we lean forward to gain traction, but our hiking boots disappear under thick brown gumbo mud. This is our first hike on Sun Prairie North, a 22,000-acre parcel added to the American Prairie Reserve in summer 2014. 

Hiking through the mud is exhausting, but all we can do is laugh at the absurd amount of muck coating our boots and legs. The weather is lifting our spirits, too—it’s an unseasonably warm day with bright sun and azure sky reflecting off of the water around us. Our hats and jackets are stuffed into our backpacks. Eight miles behind us, four more to go. 

Picture
In early February, we sat around our dining room table with ASC staff and sketched out six transects for this new phase of the project. It was a logistical puzzle. Which roads could we safely drive to access the hikes? Would we be able to cross the streams that meandered across the map? Would each transect be far enough from the others to ensure we would see different sets of animals? The final result was a colorful set of elongated rectangles superimposed across the topo lines on our computer. 

Now, slogging through the mud of the flatlands, we are experiencing the terrain in person for the first time. Most of my past hikes have been on established trails, trod by thousands of people before me. However scenic these trails may be, they don’t quite inspire the sense of adventure I feel every time I step onto the prairie with the Landmark crew. 

Here, I never know what the day will bring. It might be a herd of mule deer bounding over the next ridge or a snow-white jackrabbit pressed into a hiding spot under a clump of sagebrush. It might be a chilly wind that prompts us to race across frozen ponds, hurrying back to the warmth of our ranch house. Or, like today, it might be a perfectly blue sky with warm sunshine that thaws the ice into miles of heavy, wet mud.

Back at the house, we flop into camp chairs on the porch and fling off our dirty gear, basking in the evening light. Maybe we will reroute that transect around the endless plains of mud, maybe not. Right now all we know is that it’s been another challenging, amazing day on the prairie.

Originally from Minneapolis, Hannah Larson grew up canoeing in northern Minnesota and Canada. Since graduating from Bowdoin College with majors in Environmental Studies and History, she has led wilderness trips in Minnesota, built hiking trails in Maine and New York, collected stream data across the western U.S., and worked for environmental nonprofits in Washington, D.C. 

Learn more Landmark and other ASC projects on our website, the Field Notes blog, and by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+.


Comments are closed.

    Read the Landmark Notes blog:

    Picture

    Archives

    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011

Donate Now
STAY IN TOUCH
Picture
Adventure Scientists®
​PO Box 1834, Bozeman, MT 59771
406.624.3320 info@adventurescientists.org