The Return to Mongolia

Last time I left Mongolia, I did not really expect to come back. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like the place, but Mongolia is very far away and requires a very expensive plane ticket. Well, a mere three years later, here I am. PIRE Mongolia hired me on as the new project coordinator, doing administrative and scientific work for the project. (I should probably add that this blog reflects my personal opinions and account of the travel and -- not those of the project's or the University of Pennsylvania). Now I'm back in Ulaanbaatar and heading to the field site in a couple hours.

Ulaanbaatar changed a lot in the past three years. The streets are pretty dusty still and the sidewalks are the opposite of wheelchair friendly. But new skyscrapers seem to be popping up all over town. Even in the area where our hotel sits-- not necessarily a hopping part of town-- a new apartment building is going up across the street. Cars clog the streets seemingly everywhere. Brand new Hyundais and Land Cruisers fly by imported and used Japanese, right-hand drive Priuses, none of them stopping for pedestrians. I think the air quality has suffered, too. Walking around yesterday, I inhaled a good bit of exhaust.

During our sightseeing yesterday, we visited a monastery. The place was destroyed under communism, but when the US Vice-President Henry Wallance paid a visit to Mongolia, the ruthless dictator Choibalsan sheepishly rebuilt something to show of the religious heritage he had tried to decimate. Today, the place is back in working order, swarming with monks, and erecting a new building across the street. Inside, the three story tall golden buddha still dominates as he did three years ago. Amazing!

I'm off to the field site today and quite happy about it. Ulaanbaatar is nice, but Mongolia's best features are in the countryside. In a few hours, I'll breathe in fresh air, take in breath taking views, and get to see the experiments which have consumed so much of my time for the past eight months! Also, I'm traveling with the undergraduates this year. If we all make it to the field site safely, I will have completed my job successfully, something, to be honest, I was a little nervous about. Finally, this year, I'm lucky enough to be doing my own research project, looking at the competition between forest species (Larix siberica or Siberian larch) and grassland species (gramanoids, sedges, and forbs). It should be an interesting experiment, and I can't wait to get it started.

I'll be back on this blog come August 2nd or 3rd when I'm back in Ulaanbaatar and then again from August 3-9 while I'm visiting Seoul, South Korea (as a complete tourist!). Until then, definitely check out NYTimes Scientist@Work, which will be documenting our work in the field. The PIRE Mongolia project also has its own blog this year, containing interesting scientific and cultural insights. We can actually update that one from the field, so it should be up-to-date and fascinating.

Kayaking Photos

I got the pictures from my kayaking trip developed today. Seeing the gorgeous scenery again was great pick-me-up for an otherwise rainy and tiring day.

We got up close to the watery scenery

I don't know if it's my outfit or the disposable camera, but this looks so 80s

Our lunch spot; there's a seal swimming out there somewhere

The Bears of Valdez

Moose are sooo last month. Yea, I've seen 12 of them, whatever. Now I'm hyped about our recent bear sighting.

On our most recent work trip, we drove from Anchorage to Glennallen, where we spent four days. Instead of driving all the way back to Anchorage, we took the shorter drive to Valdez and then hopped on a ferry to the Anchorage area. Before catching some sleep on Thursday in Valdez, we drove to a spot often frequented by bears and hit the jackpot-- four black bears.

We spotted three cubs in the woods!

Then they decided to cross the road as momma peaked out from the woods

She joined them by the waters edge for a salmon buffet!

The salmon never stood a chance!

Fishing can be fun!

The birds took care of the leftovers

It's a SMALL World

I never realized the difference that living in a small city can make. I grew up in metropolitan Detroit (with over five million people) and went to school in the Delaware Valley (with over six million people). So with 360,000 people, metropolitan Anchorage is by far the smallest place I've lived. 

Riding my bike through the park, getting groceries, and going hiking inevitably become social events. Another seasonal intern and I have mutual friends in Michigan. I've only been here a month, and I keep running into people I know. For my roommate, this was a little more literal. When she was recently "tapped" by a car on her bike (everyone is ok!), the driver ended up being a friend of our boss.

A small city has other great attributes, too. Traffic, no matter what the Alaskans say, is virtually non-existent. People drive slower and more carefully. People wave and say hello on trails and while passing on the street. The only time I feel unsafe is when I'm in the proximity of bears.

Anchorage does have a little more traffic than this...

My trip this past week was fantastic. I'll be posting more pictures tomorrow!

Time is Faster Than a Glacier

When summer hits Alaska, people up here tend to get a little frantic. "It's all we've got," one six year resident told me. "We've got to utilize every minute of it."

Having a penchant for adventure, I've easily been swept into this mindset. Suddenly, a lazy Sunday seems like a total waste-- I could be hiking, kayaking, fishing, etc! And with so many new people, the pressure to form bonds and make friends leads to an eclectic collection of get-togethers and parties. Moreover, it doesn't help that I know my time here is limited. My summer here is extra precious as it's probably going to be my only one.

So today, I'm bringing down the pace a bit and just relaxing at home. The rain outside keeps me from feeling too bad about blogging instead of biking. And I'm just going to count myself lucky for getting to experience so many cool places through work. 

On Thursday and Friday, we drove south of Anchorage to Kenai Fjords National Park for a grass identification class. As exciting as lemmas and awns may be, I think my real memory from this trip is the glacier. I had never seen a glacier before coming to Alaska, and up until Thursday, I had only seen them from a distance. We got up close to Exit Glacier (we still couldn't touch it though. It would be dangerous to get that close to this huge, yet fragile and moving hunk of ice). The massive power and density of this natural occurrence is something that just can't be conveyed in pictures. But here are some anyway :)

Where the glacier was in 1917. A lot has changed since then!

Exit Glacier and its outwash

I'm standing about 25 yards from the glacial edge

This upcoming week means even more traveling. We're driving to Glennallen, AK to scout plant populations and collect seeds. The trip homes means a stop in Valdez and a ferry ride through Prince William Sound. So what if time is going fast. At least it's quality!

AK 930

Just another day at work...

As much fun as kayaking through the sound and enjoying the copious amounts of daylight here are, they aren't exactly my raison d'être up here. I do actually work up here. It just so happens that my work is just as fun.

In December of 2009, I applied to the Conservation and Land Management Internship. This program, run by the Chicago Botanic Garden (CBG), places recent college graduates in government conservation biology positions across the country. In my application, I refused to state a geographic preference, but I did express a desire to work with plants. Since most of America's public lands are in the west, I expected a placement in Nevada or Montana. [If you're interested in what other CLM interns are doing, check out this blog]

Seven months later, here I am working in Alaska! Up here, I work for two entities-- the Bureau of Land Management Alaska State Office (BLM) and the Alaska Natural Heritage Program (AKNHP). And even though these two offices are physically separate, both have the same project for me and my fellow interns. We need to collect seeds.

AK 930 in action

Throughout America's public lands, disturbances often occur. Large fires take out huge swaths of prairie, mining destroys big mountains, or pipelines divide habitats for years on end. Since humans cause most of these disturbances, we often need to repair the damage before bigger problems (usually soil and mineral erosion) take over. To do this, we revegetate.

Unfortunately, many seeds of plants native to the disturbed area are not commercially available or exist so at a prohibitive cost. Thus, the government started the Seeds of Success program in 2001 to bank these vital seeds and increase their availability. Hundreds of collecting teams throughout the United States find native plants and collect around 10,000 seeds from a populations. They then FedEx these seeds to various seed banks and seed processing facilities.

Dryas Drummondii (our only seeding plant)
 and my boss

We are collecting team AK 930, the only collecting team in Alaska. Because of Alaska's unique climate, only one of our target species is currently seeding. This means we spend a lot of time planning. When we're in the office (so far about 30% of the time), we arrange for rental cars, flights, hotels, and food for our upcoming trips. When we go out into the field with our boss, he teaches us plant names and systematics. When he doesn't come with us, we scout out plant populations that might be good to collect.

So what makes this job so awesome? First, we are pretty independent. Second, I'm using my degree. We get to make scientific decisions based on our rapidly expanding knowledge of the plants up here. Last but not least, I'm basically getting paid to hike and look at flowers. Later in the season, we'll even travel around the state. Place like Nome, Fairbanks, Glenallen, and Seward await. Not bad for a first job, huh?

Just keep paddling...

After a couple weeks of settling in and meeting people, I was ready to shake things up for the 4th. One of my co-workers/roommates/friends and I decided to join the Anchorage Adventurers for a weekend of sea kayaking.

This story is a great example of how easy it is to meet people thanks to the internet. The Anchorage Adventurers really only exist online. The 600+ members all have some sort of interest in outdoor activities and various members set up events for others to join them on. No one charges a fee or holds board meetings. People simply show up, have fun, and enjoy Alaska together. I've also been able to meet really interesting people through the Anchorage couchsurfing group.

But I digress. Even though we went with a fantastic group, the kayaking was really the highlight of the weekend. On Saturday, we drove out to Wasilla (about an hour away from Anchorage) to take Sea Kayaking 101. We spent the morning learning proper paddling techniques. Sure, it sounds simple, but I'm glad we did that. Paddling out into the lake, the whole group was like 2010's Lindsey Lohan--messed up and all over the place. Coming back, we resembled Lohan ala "Mean Girls." Even if we weren't completely perfect, we were at least somewhat put together.

The afternoon held the big events. Amid a light rain, we practiced getting out of and into our kayaks. Oh, and we were in the middle of the lake. With a gentle push from our instructor, we were flipped over in the lake, quickly undoing the skirt that kept us in the kayak, and floating to the surface. And climbing back in isn't as easy as it sounds. To keep from flipping back over or filling our boats with water, we had to follow special instructions. I'd tell you, but we don't the terrorists finding out how to navigate Alaska by kayak, do we?

Saturday was simply the prelude to our big trip on Sunday, however. We met up at 7am and drove over to Whittier, Alaska. This tiny town began as an air force base in WWII, because its isolation and heavy fog provided a natural defense against the Japanese. This unique situation has also kept Whittier from booming. All 182 people live in a single apartment complex.

But man do those apartments have views. Paddling around the Prince William Sound, I saw three different glaciers, gorgeous blue-grey waters, steep cliffs, and lush vegetation. We even got 5 minutes of sunshine! By kayaking, we got up close to the wildlife of the area, too. Tiny ducks dove when we got about 5 feet from them. A bird rookery allowed me to watch some interesting (and loud) sea birds. Towards lunch time, a seal swam along side us.

I'm really glad I chose to start kayaking. Through my work (which I will blog about eventually!), I'm going to be doing a lot of hiking and get to see a lot of great stuff on land. But if I can use my free time to explore Alaska's waters, I'll see a side that I might have missed. The company we went with really hyped up their Blackstone Glacier tour. Kayaking around icebergs and watching otters try to crack shells on my kayak sure sounds appealing. Does anyone have any other suggestions of places I should look into going while I'm up here?

Since neither my friend nor I have a waterproof camera, we just brought along a disposable in case of tipping. I'll post pictures of the trip once I get the film developed.