P.O.T.B.R. 2025 Day 9:

    This morning we had to wake up at around 6 in order to leave at around 7: 30. It gets pretty hard getting out of the warmth of my sleeping bag when it's so cold up here but I'm able to force myself out eventually. Today we went to look for a rare plant called the Pumice Moonwort also known as Botrychium Pumicola. We were guided by Merlow Fisher who is a botanist and is currently monitoring the amount of moon warts in the area as they have become a rarity. They want to figure out if can help out the population or just leave them be. She also taught us about the type of material we were on; porous rock, ash from a volcanic eruption that happened thousands of years ago. 

Pumice Moonwort
(image from google)

   

    We first scouted the area for signs of the plant without any visual reference, only a description. Eventually we were given a photo and the plant was first located by Raquel. The plant was a lot smaller than I thought, about half the size of my pinkie but apparently the rest of it underground and the roots are really long. After we got an idea of what it looked like we headed out to the spot Merlow wanted us to start at. On the way there we came across a cluster of Pumice moon wart and Merlow encouraged us to think about why they clustered there. Noting that it could be due to the fact that it's in a dip in the ground, meaning it might've able to collect more water that way.

    

    We lined up at least 10 feet apart from each other in order to cover as much ground as we could. The goal was to move forward and mark as much moon warts as we could find with our flags. Half the line found a bunch of them while the other half, closer to the road, didn't have as much luck. We eventually changed directions and after a while we finally started seeing them. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we saw so much we ran out of flags. After regrouping we ate lunch and then collected the previous flags as a way to count the already seen moon warts. We then started from where we hadn't finished counting ad started placing flags again. We repeated this process for a while until it was finally time to leave. In the end we managed to count more than 600 in total. I think it was nice being able to help her out since her crew is only made up of two people so they often go out collecting volunteers to help collect the information. 

   

    On the way back we stopped at the Three Rivers library for an hour to upload our blogs. I think we all managed to be up to date except for todays, I even managed to download some more movies. When we made it back to camp we had to rush to grab our shower stuff so that we could get to the showers before they closed. Liz brought a bucket to use this time and we finally figured out how to manage the hot and cold water. It's no wonder I had a cold shower last time, last time I had the nob turned all the way on cold because I couldn't figure out how to use it. This shower was 10 times better than yesterdays, I think bringing the bucket was a really good idea. I still had soap in my hair when the water cut off but since the bucket collected water it saved me. When we came back to the campsite it wasn't cold either, it was such a good temperature I finally wasn't freezing. We also had a traditional native meal; chicken and butter. Usually I get picky with trying new food but I'm pretty happy I've been giving all the new food a try, the food was pretty good, I even went back for a second plate.