Bryce, and then some

We had issues at work on Wednesday. We left the office all bright and cheery, ready to zap and count fish. Unfortunately halfway through the fish zapping and counting process our fish-zapper (technically called a backpack electroshocker) had a bit of a temper tantrum and would shock no more. Those sculpins and brown trout aren’t going to count themselves!!!
Suddenly finding ourselves as a field crew without functioning field instruments we had a team huddle and proceeded onto Plan B: Windshield Biology. We spent the next several hours scoping out access to streams that we were supposed to survey in the next week. The current bone-dry nature of those streams raises doubts about their resident fish population. Moral of the story, you can’t find threatened fish in streams without water.
Thursday was far more successful: our stream had water and our shocker worked. Our presence must have been the most exciting event in the area because we had a very attentive audience of small children for the length of our sampling stretch. Into our normal regiment of catch, measure, weigh, release we inserted an extra step. A surprising number of fish ended up in the waiting hands of future biologists, where the scaly specimens received careful inspection before bouncing back into the stream.
After work on Thursday I headed down to Bryce National Park with two of my coworkers, Matt and Heather. Bryce Canyon is incredible. In the south west corner of Utah, at 9,000 feet, it sits above the desert. A combination of geology and weather (high number of freeze-thaw days) have eroded the canyons into armies of orange tinted pillars (hoodoos they are called).
Ten years ago we passed through Bryce on a family road trip. It was December, and I clearly remember my dad dragging us out of the warm car, pointing out into the blank screen of snow and informing us that this would be a spectacular site, if only we could see it. Visibility was not an issue this time and it was incredible. Pinnacles and walls in washes of pink, orange, and white stood in stark contrast against the cerulean blue of the sky. Ponderosa and Bristle Cone Pines dotted slopes and perched precariously atop eroding spires, roots curling around air where rock once stood.
We camped in the park, and froze our butts off. Despite our college degrees and designation as “biologists” none of us made the intellectual connection that it might be cold at 9,000 feet. It was a wonderful 75 F in the day and an unpleasant 45 F after dark (hats, sweatshirts, gloves…. all at home in 100 F Provo, UT). In three days we hiked all but one of the main trails in the park (the park is actually not very big) and went on a trail ride. Matt had never been on a horse so Heather and I thought it would be quite entertaining to get him on one. We spent 2 hours meandering around into, and then back out of, a canyon. The horses, well trained in the etiquette of trail horse, were on both auto-pilot and cruise control, concerned only with keeping their nose in the tail of the preceding horse. Matt, on a mule named Chubby, brought up the rear. We all survived our weekend adventure; however, I suspect the Native Aquatics field crew might be moving a little slower than usual come Monday.