After 2 months of being presumed dead, my camera decided to start working again...!!! I guess it was done being waterlogged and missed my company. I have definitely missed having my camera around, so you can imagine how overjoyed I was to discover it working again. And just in time for the 3-day field trip this past weekend. I am born again. Invincible. Limitless.
Anyways, this weekend was the second and last field for my ESRM 315 class. We drove down south to Mount St. Helens, stayed in the Wind River Field Station, visited the dry forests near Mt. Adams, and then drove a bit on the east side before cutting back through the Cascades and back home.
I've blabbed for long enough. It's time for photos.
ROADTRIPPPP
Beautiful, right? Nature bounces back with such gusto.
I probably could have stood there for hours.
After watching a film on Mount St. Helens, the curtains would rise and the mountain would be perfectly framed in the window. Bravo, architects, bravo.
Early seral ecosystems are full of life! So much light, so much warmth. It was obvious that the landscape experienced a dramatic change not too long ago, but I'm always surprised how quickly new roots take hold and start to build almost immediately after a high intensity disturbance. This sort of open and dry terrain gave me instant flashbacks to Peru. We trekked across similar dry mosses for hours and everywhere you looked you were surrounded by mountains. It hit me pretty hard, especially because I didn't expect it.