Another week another adventure out here in Oregon! So not only did we have our mid-summer check in this Friday but we also had the chance to go camping in Willamette National Forest this weekend. It felt amazing to be back out in the woods just hiking around again. The last time I was able to go camping was in Laguna National Forest outside of San Diego; needless to say there was a tad more desert involved. To say the least, it’s the polar opposite of San Diego, or the rest of the Oregon coast for that matter. Old growth forest clings to the rolling hills as far as the eye can see and the far-off peaks of the Three Sisters and Mt. Washington were visible from the trails. It even reached the high 70s (gasp) and felt like real summer for a few days. It was simply spectacular and I would have been happy to skip work this entire week to stay and hike around some more. I’m sure the rest of this week’s blog posts will revolve around the weekend’s hikes so I’ll let them fill in the rest of the details about the natural side of things.

The pics are of Tamolich Pool, some streams below Klamath Falls, and all of us idiots posing in front of South Sister on our hike to Moraine Lake.

On a more ‘sciencey’ note Amy, TChris, and I went water sampling this week. We drove up to the Tillamook watershed and sampled the five main tributary rivers that drain into the bay. Although we were only taking nutrient, microbial, and parameter samples it was a solid 13hr day. Couldn’t have asked for better weather though and the day did of course involve a trip to the Tillamook Creamery so overall it was a great day!

The pics are of our very full car out on the field sampling trip and of an IDEXX tray that has been incubated to test for the presence of Enterococcus spp.