We have now had two days to sample in the field along the haul road. Today we walked all the way out to 1 km for a plot, it took about half an hour to get there because of walking through the tussock tundra. It is extremely hard to walk through, with your choice being either a hole to step in or a grassy bunch which is not stable, good thing all the “ground” feels like a couch when you fall.
Thank god for our bug jackets, they have made the clouds of mosquitoes manageable. Today we also split into two teams, with Kali and Beth trading off between myself and Peter. I think we are finally getting into a groove figuring out the most efficient sampling methods.
Tomorrow we start our first day of helicopter sampling. We will be leap frogging the two teams as the pilot can only take two passengers at a time. Hopefully we will get many plots done and start to see more lichen diversity!
Elisa
