Weekend #1

I took my first trip out to Santa Rosa Island this weekend and finally got started on my Bishop Pine research.  On the first day I went on a hike with Cause and some other students to get accustomed to the island and on Saturday we really got started on the interesting stuff.  We started the day by getting up into the mountains at 8:30 am to meet Catherine at the erosion mitigation site at a couple of the island oak groves and around 12 pm I got to my site where I will be researching the Bishop Pines.  I counted 5 trees ranging from a few inches tall to 6 meters, but most of the big guys were dead.  I also got to enjoy some beautiful views from my research site without another person for miles, it was awesome.  Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures on Santa Rosa but here is a picture of a large Bishop Pine grove that has almost completely died off on Santa Cruz Island from the boat ride back.