In Search of Survey references

It was another absolutely beautiful day in the Upper Middle Fork John Day River valley today. Woke up and got out of bed by 5:30am (my usual out here where I wake up with the light of day).
Dawn and Dusk are some of my favorite times of day.
Out in the field -- early morning time is "my time." Today I walked over to Granite Boulder Creek and poked around a bit. It was chilly (wool hat -- thanks to Karen Lind).

The moon is bright and out at dusk now so we have a rowdy chorus of coyotes in the hills next to our camp that sing out the day's light.


Today's flower is this amazing orchid (I think) that grows in total shade just a half meter from the edge of Granite Boulder Creek.

At 6:30am I roust my camp mates and the day begins. My first task was to set up the new GPS unit we have with its antennae to do a series of test logs. I set the unit up over the same spot every couple of days at different times of the day and let it run for 20-60 minutes collecting points from sets of satelites. When I get the data back to the computer lab at school I'll be able to determine expected accuracy of the unit and optimal satelite configurations. Ran a 60 minute test this morning while we got prepped for the day (fed and gear organized).

Today was spent in the upper valley locating US Bureau of Reclamation survey control points. We will be "tying" into them with our survey work. They are stakes hammered flush into the ground with a nail or piece of colored flagging tape tacked to the top. These survey control points were done about two years ago. Needless to say, some were easy to find and others impossible. Even with the coordinates it meant a lot of searching around in armpit tall grass and shrubs or digging along the road side in debris from two years of snow plows.
Best part of this was we walked a good stretch of the river and I started to get familiar with its geomorphic characteristics.
We found enough of the USBR points by midday in the first reach of river we will be working in. The last part of the day was spent setting up our Survey equipment and attempting to set our own backshots...etc. Need more work on this tomorrow. Have to get super comfortable with all the aspects of the Total Station survey equipment and its Data logger so we can fit it to our protocol and goals.

Polly work'en a GPS unit

The close of the day was a dip in the river -- which is actually more creek sized in the upper valley where we were today.Pollyanna Lind getting ready to jump into the Middle Fork John Day River after a hot 90F day.