Thermopolis, or “Thermy” as I have dubbed it, was the second stop on our trip around the state. The day started not in Thermopolis, but at a gap between time. We had visited a site just off of the road where we stayed for quite a bit. We were let loose onto the rock face…
Category: Wyoming Spring Creek Field Studies
Wyoming Spring Creek: Trip Around the State Day 1
Up early on a Saturday morning we shuffle out the door and heap into vans ready to embark on our 10 day road trip around the state. First stop: Independence Rock. A weathered feature of the Granite Mountain range, this outcrop was originally named by Native American tribes across Wyoming and the Rocky Mountains as…
Wyoming Spring Creek – Day One on the Road
The first day of our statewide roadtrip started like most others: with breakfast at UW. Then, we loaded up and hit the road. As members of the Spring Creek field study, we’re used to long hours in the vans, so our first stop – Independence Rock – didn’t seem so far away. The Rock was…
Wyoming Spring Creek – A Day in Yellowstone
I woke up this day exhausted and not wanting to leave one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept in at the small campground at the base of the Grand Tetons. The day before I hiked twelve miles through the Tetons, so I wasn’t looking forward to the 6 mile hike at Yellowstone this…
Wyoming Week 5: Road Trip to Yellowstone National Park!
Our ten-day trip around Wyoming culminated in visiting the state’s two iconic national parks: Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. The day I’m writing about is our second day in Yellowstone, which was also the final day of the trip, making it bittersweet. We began the day by driving from our cabins in the Tetons up…
Wyoming Spring Creek: Road Trip Day 4
Two days after getting back from our trip around Wyoming, I’m reliving all the incredible experiences we had and mentally preparing myself to leave this amazing state. Laramie and the shortgrass prairie have stolen a piece of my heart, but the northern part of the state–the Bighorns, Yellowstone, the Tetons, and Shoshone National Forest–is so…
Wyoming Spring Creek: Trip Around the State
Ten days ago, my classmates and I began our trip around Wyoming to broaden our new knowledge about the geography and ecology of the West. We watched sunrises, camped in the badlands, visited incredible geographical formations, and swam in the Tetons. Although we all found it exhausting, every day was incredibly fulfilling and edifying. The…
Wyoming Spring Creek – Forest Regeneration Near Fallen Trees
I chose to do an ecology-based independent project. For my question, I asked “Does proximity to large piles of coarse woody debris affect the overall species diversity in regenerating forest by way of light availability, browsing by ungulates, and/or space availability”? I then hypothesized that areas nearer to coarse woody debris will have more diverse…
Wyoming Spring Creek – Endangered Species Habitat Analysis
The environment of the Spring Creek Preserve here in Wyoming is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before – and it is something that I am unlikely to have the opportunity to study in-depth again. That’s why, when choosing the question for my independent research project, I wanted to focus on the prairie ecosystem. Despite appearing…
Wyoming Spring Creek: Pollinators of the Snowy Range
For my independent research project, my hypothesis that I investigated was “if the time of day and weather vary (in terms of a temperature, wind, and precipitation), then pollinators will display different behavior.” The materials I utilized in the field included a plant identification guide to ID wildflower species, a clock to time 10-minute intervals,…