Exploring the Park (and more!)

The second week of July was exciting and gave me the opportunity to explore a lot more of the park!

I spent my weekend exploring the park's back country, hiking down from the Lincoln trail head to the Turn Hole Bend campsite, where I spent the night before hiking back the next morning. It was nice to be able to recreate in the park and learn more about the parks resources.

My hiking route for the weekend

The view from my campsite

After returning from the back country, I started my week by riding along with Ranger Russell. We patrolled the ferry parking lot and looked into cars for signs of alcohol use on the river. I also learned more about the issue of ginseng poaching within the park. Hunting for wild ginseng is popular in the area, given the root's value in traditional medicine. However, harvesting ginseng within the park is illegal, and arrests have been made in the past due to the illicit trade. Continuing the spirit of resource protection, I also helped investigate reports of a deer carcass on the river the following day. Kayakers had reported seeing a dead ten point buck on the river bank, and we went out to investigate. The site ended up being too difficult to reach on foot, so we launched a boat and went downstream to take a closer look.

Trying to spot the carcass from the riverbank

Given the purported size of the buck the rangers wanted to inspect the carcass for signs of poaching. When we discovered it, however, we found the carcass was much smaller than reported and its hide too badly decomposed to investigate.

The following day I  accompanied rangers sent to investigate a damaged lock on an old, unused  entrance. The lock was replaced, and while we were out there, we took a look inside of the cave. It was awesome to be able to take a look behind the scenes and explore yet another cave! 

The old cave entrance

Climbing down into darkness

Look at those formations!

I finished out my week by tackling another project: completing an inventory of the park's hasty packs. As the name implies, these hasty packs are filled with all of the equipment needed for a HASTY team in a search and rescue operation. A number of these bags are kept stocked with the search and rescue equipment, and each bag is filled with maps, basic navigational equipment, flashlights, first aid kits, PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), and any other items rescuers might need. I created a new item checklist and collected the items and PPE missing from each bag.

The contents of a hasty pack