Land of Grove and Surrounding Areas

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I live in Pine Mountain Lake, a schmoozy little "gated" community, full of vacation homes and vacation rentals, not far from the small village of Groveland. I live in the smallest and stuffiest room in the house in the basement(of course) and must walk through my Botany Crewmate, Wyatt's room to get to it. The housing is much nicer than I anticipated(not to mention nicer than I am accustomed to). The town of Groveland also offers much more than I expected, with a decent grocery store, coffee shop, library, thrift store, and a couple acceptable restaurants and bars. Being on the northern highway into Yosemite, it is a bit of a tourist trap, but not so much as the southern road. Closest access to Yosemite wilderness is only forty miles away and Emigrant Wilderness in the Stanislaus, only 60.

The Groveland Ranger Station of the Stanislaus National Forest is about 8 miles away. Wyatt and I carpool, sharing driving everyother day. After two gruelling days in the office, filling out form after form and doing mind numbing computer training and testing I made it into the field to join the Botany Crew surveys. Unfortunately, I joined at a rather difficult time. It seems that the then current project, China Flat, was rather weed infested and it took a lot of time and discussion to get the higher ups to let us change our protocol (It was easier to flag the non-weed sites and fill out one form for each unit as opposed to doing one for each of the countless sites therewithin). It doesn;t help that China Flat was hard hit by the 1987 Groveland complex fire and exists now as a shrubby Ponderosa Pine plantation, ie. hot, dry, with low biodiversity. We finished China Flat this week and moved to Soldier Creek, at higher elevation with, some nicer, shadier, mixed conifer forests.

Our plant surveys are for a watchlist of both noxious and sensitive species. The idea is to document them with flagging, site reports, hand drawn maps, and GPS information so that the fuels reduction project, soon to take place, knows how best to not spread invasives or destroy sensitive species habitat.

I have seen Poison Oak of every morphological possibility. The ten foot tall Rhus diversiloba trees are not so bad, easily avoided, but rather it is the discreet plants hiding in the Bear clover or saplings that you often find yourself firmly gripping or sneakily poking up your pant leg. Nonetheless, I have not yet been infected, thanks either to my immunity or to the gallons of Technu which the Forest Service provides to us for both body and clothes washing. One of my roomates was out of work for a week, bedridden with a nasty case of Poison Oak.

I've only been backpacking once so far and have included some pictures.

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Comments

[Erika]

I bet you look sexy..
in your orange vest and yellow helmet! Looks like an awesome job. Joe just had poison ivy soooo bad he was in the ER twice a few weeks ago. It is still healing. I hope that you avoid all horrifying blisters and rashes!

[Sasquatch]

Is that Hetch Hetchy that you backpacked near?