Thursday, September 22, 2011

Flying over trees. Yay.

I went to Richfield, UT, a week ago to hop on a helicopter. The Fishlake NF was taking flights over a few year-old burn scars to see how their treatments were doing. I was trying out a process for data collection on another project I was working on. I learned: it didn't work!

It was overcast and raining the entire flight so I had to post-process these photos to get anything out of them. I took about 115 photos and during the first 100 (and first hour of the flight), I felt great. Then the nausea hit and I slowed way down. I didn't barf, but I probably could have!

Yeah, burned forest.

Evidence of floods; water came from bottom left, hit the bank on top right and ate a bunch of it away, then flowed to top left. I think. I'm no hydrologist.

Evidence of more floods; pile of logs in this area outside the fire is a result of debris coming off the mountain.

The helicopter I flew in.


4 comments:

The Duke said...

I'm impressed that you got such great shots while moving - and probably bumping quite a bit. That's amazing to see the flood results and washouts. Have they started or will they start re-forestation where this fire was?
By the way -- everybody, Jess went to Ammon's geography class yesterday and did a presentation. The teacher loved it - Ammon loved it -- and the rest of the class apparently liked it. Thanks very much for helping Ammon with his project. He is way above 100% in his class - solid + A.
You are awesome!

Jason said...

Jay Anderson at Idaho State University did some really great re-forestation work in Yellowstone. It made the last 15-20 years of his career. Jay passed away a few years ago but his work is very interesting and helped to reinforce the idea that fire is not necessarily a bad thing - especially in overgrown, old growth forests.

Mike and Adrianne said...

I think it would be so cool to go in a helicopter. One thing to cross off your bucket list.

Michelle said...

How fun to ride in a helicopter. I would have has nausea for sure and then I would have followed through with puking everywhere. However the thought of riding in a helicopter and seeing things from a whole new view would be very fascinating. Cool!