I was out in the backcountry for almost an entire month this time due to me staying in, and not hiking out, during the five day weekend. The two stints this month were the first two with my new partner – an extremely nice, engaging, introspective girl. I think she is expecting me to come up with a clever pseudonym for her, but I can only think of things like “Awesome”, “Kind”, “Generous”, and “Thoughtful.” In the end, I think we were well matched as working partners, she will be referred to simply as “my Partner.”
I have already discussed in depth (I think) about what my job entails. I’ll simply just re-mention how much I love it here, and how much more fun (I didn’t think it was possible) the job is now that my new Partner is here. We take swims in the alpine lakes during our lunch breaks and sometimes sun bathe. We plan out the week and then change up things when we would rather pull nets then electrofish, or do a frog survey to break up electrofishing. And at the same time, we both have no problem putting in the long hours to get the job done. She is also an excellent cook, and makes the most delicious meals every night – I don’t think I will lose any weight (and might actually gain some) this summer, and that is fine by me.
The first weekend I stayed in and my partner hiked out; she had a friend who had flown in from the east coast to visit. I hiked over to the Cabin Crew camp, where the cabin crew was literally a week or two from finishing up the cabin. I still don’t know if I was truly 100% welcome to stay at the cabin crew camp (guys are so hard to read), but I tried to not bother them at all during the day (and finished Moby Dick!) and made sure that I didn’t eat any of the their breakfast or lunch food. I also brought my own dinner food and tried not to seem like I assumed they would feed me, and only ate what they made for dinner after being invited. I have no idea if they caught on how hard I tried to not seem like a mooch –a friend told me later that one of the cabin crew guys asked her why I never brought food to share with them, so I’m not sure. I don’t think they really caught on that our food was flown in on a one-time, all three months prepared ahead of time, no fresh produce deal, while they got weekly deliveries of groceries, including fresh meat, eggs, butter, milk, veggies, and fruit. In the backcountry, these things are coveted more than gold.
After spending a few days vegging out at cabin crew camp (and taking a 1-gallon shower using the most horrible soap for shampoo), I hiked over to Center Basin for the traditional Center Basin Party, which the frog crew has every year. All of the frog crew (except the Musician, who was at his other job) hiked into Center Basin, most bringing alcohol and fresh produce for a delicious taco dinner and pancake breakfast. One of our crew members had speakers for her I-Pod, so we had music and dancing. A lot of us girls had brought dresses or onesies (Bright pink! Mustard yellow! Flannel!) to dress up for the party. Flannel’s twin and another friend hiked up, and my Partner’s friend from the east coast came, as well as a former coworker of hers who they ran into on the trail up. The whole cabin crew was invited, and two of them showed up as well, and we all had a fantastic time, eating, drinking, dancing, and singing. A successful Center Basin Party.
The next day a group of us decided to climb Center Peak, a 12,760 ft tall mountain in the middle of the basin. The route up is all off-trail and composed of skree and boulders – a little sketchy, but not too bad. The view at the top was amazing, and it makes the first SEKI mountain I’ve climbed – totally awesome.
The next day most of us decided to hike to the Rae Lakes Ranger Station, which we did in excellent time, I think. I did the hike in my Center Basin dress, and decided that I like hiking in dresses. J At the ranger station my Partner met up with a second friend (and now had two friends who hiked up to visit her), which was pretty awesome. At the same time, it made me miss my sister an awful lot.
A “major” issue I dealt with this month was getting, and then getting over a crush I developed on one of the cabin crew guys. At first it was fun to just have a crush, and then I asked another cabin crew guy to ask the crush what he thought of me. Long story short, there was no reciprocated interest, which I initially reacted to poorly. Now I realized that I was, once again, saved from a guy who I was not meant to be with, and once the emotions toned down and the romantic interest went away (hard to like a guy who you know doesn’t like you back), I was back to normal – a vastly preferable place to be, instead of in “crush-land.” If the pattern of my life holds, it will now be another year before another “guy of interest” comes along, which, right now, is fine with me. Next time maybe I’ll be able to stop any interest before another crush develops – I don’t know how I haven’t learned from past mistakes yet.
During the most recent stint at Sixty Lakes, Roland Knapp – awesome frog researcher, came by again, this time to catch and swab mountain yellow legged frogs to follow up on a study of his. It was the first time my Partner had met Roland, and we had a couple of really cool conversations with him. On his last night in the Basin, Roland came by after dinner and shared some of his preliminary results and thoughts about what was going on with the frogs in the basin – really cool stuff. It actually made me excited to think about touching my thesis again – not for any reason but for the fact that Roland seemed interested in the results of my study, and that we may run into each other at a frog conference in November. I am thinking that major revisions of the thesis may ensue come mid-October.
One thing Roland, my Partner, and I talked about was the dying profession of the field technician, which seems to be regarded today as the job that the lowest man on the totem pole gets – the least skilled person. As you get more experience, you are given more office responsibility until you never go out in the field ever again. Roland is probably 40-something, and yet he still reserves at least two months of the year solely for field work – in those months he hikes all over the Sierras, collecting data and seeing awesome things, and getting awesome results. Roland offered his opinion that the least skilled people should be doing the data entry while the more skilled people should do the field work, because they not only do a competent job, but they are also able to make other observations about the ecosystem, which can often lead to other studies and/or discoveries about what is going on.
This discussion with Roland really made me think, and made me realize, more than ever, how much I desire to be a field technician over having a desk job. I was miserable the months before this job, stuck behind a desk writing my thesis and another report, and fighting for any field days I got. I love my job. I love the people I work with and the place where I live. I love that every day I am in the field and doing field work and knowing that I am doing a great job and collecting and recording data efficiently and in exactly the manner my boss wants it. I hate the thought that back home there were people who would get to do field work while I was stuck in the office, and that they did not seem to appreciate it or do as good of a job as much as they should have and as much as I think I would have. In a way it makes me not want to go home. If not for the snow (because I still don’t like snow) I would want to work in the Sierras forever.
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