The Teen Science Trip up Stuart Fork in July 2024 was a collaboration with Ascend Wilderness Experience, Cal Poly Humboldt, and the Bigfoot Trail Alliance. The trip was led by Ascend’s wilderness guide Andrew Nelson, botanist Liz Houghton, and ecologist Michael Kauffmann.
During the week, besides hiking in and out of Morris Meadows in the Trinity Alps the teens engaged with hands on science. For two days, the group collected data for the Klamath Mountain Vegetation Mapping Project funded by the California Native Plant Society and Cal Poly Humboldt. The group was trained on the protocol developed for the project which includes site data like slope, aspect, and canopy cover. They were then tasked with creating a plant list for each plot and learned basic plant ID including the difference between trees, shrubs, and herbs.
Vegetation Mapping
One day the group hiked 10 miles round trip from camp to Emerald and Sapphire lakes where we met a geology field crew from Cal Poly Humboldt. The lead professor, Laura Levy, met with the group and discussed the lake core project she was undertaking with graduate students through a National Science Foundation Grant. We were able to observe the effects of Pleistocene glaciers on the rocks and understand how these glaciers sculpted the lake basin we were standing in. Real world, hands-on science at its finest!
Geologic Storytelling
We have another trip planned in summer 2025. Did we mention that the teens earned a stipend for their work? That’s right — real world science and a stipend for learning. Reach out to Ascend to stay informed about the trip in summer 2025.
[…] skills in one of Northern California’s most stunning backcountry landscapes. This was the second year of this collaborative […]