Leopold cabin back in business.

Last week, Kevin Starr finished rebuilding the Leopold cabin that was crushed by treefall in May.

The damage was worse than we'd hoped, so in addition to a new roof, we had to replace several sections of wall & jack the corner of the floor back onto its foundation.

We took this opportunity to remove the old bathtub, opening a lot of floor space. We added bigger windows & a storage loft. In order to get the backhoe in to lift the tree off the roof, we put in a gravel driveway that now supports a seasonal storage tent. We also dropped a bunch of dead trees in the immediate area to hopefully prevent a repeat.

Kevin also rebuilt the wavy tent platforms with stronger hardware ties so that they should stand up to big winter snowloads this time.

ARC has moved in & the improved space is working great! Additionally, the new storage loft means that there's room to use the cabin for other visitors when ARC is not in session, giving us more badly needed bed space.

Cabin foundations.

Campus inspected us last year & decided we are due for new foundations for the North & South cabins.

Kyle Gadda & his crew worked on a tight timeline to jack the cabins off their crumbling pilings, dig trenches & pour sweet new footers & stem walls. They finished just minutes before the station filled up & the new residents arrived.

2010 wildlife surveys.

As the Sagehen Forest Project builds steam toward implementation, various groups are taking the opportunity to revisit & expand on wildlife research conducted decades ago in the Sagehen basin.

This is a rare opportunity to get a pre-snapshot to compare with previous & future survey results, ultimately giving us a good picture of how forest restructuring & fire affects the resident wildlife.

First was Katie Moriarty's pine marten research that turned up the wolverine. Now, a group is here re-sampling the old Calhoun line small mammal trapping transects.

Meanwhile, Marty Raphael completed a bird point count revisit of the 1960 Donner Burn plots this spring. Carl Bock began these counts shortly after the fire, & Raphael continued the surveys in the 1970's.

Shorty Boucher & Peter Moyle are also working up old data on Sagehen trout & stream temperatures.

Interesting bird.

We caught an unusual sparrow at the MAPS birding station this morning. Looks like a white-crowned sparrow, but which species?

Pollen & flowers.

In time for this week's spring wildflowers & pine pollen showers, Al Grigarick has updated his plant identification tools, including an excellent photo collection.