So I’ve finally made it out for my week in the field! And what a week it was! We (Myself, my boss Glendee Ane, and my coworker Jen M.) started out with a nice liesurely drive to St. George, Utah. In St. George we had lunch at a wonderful little place called Cafe Rio’s, and then got some gas and snacks. We then took the 2-2 1/2 hour drive out to where we would be based on BLM Road 101. We spent most of the first day getting there so by the time we actually set up camp, we were not able to do any survey.
The next day was the start of actual survey. This consisted of Placing a person on either side of the road about 20 meters away. After photos of the road, and GPS points f the start were taken, all that was left to do was walk. Our first day we walked about 6-7 miles. If anything was found, such as stone tools or historic artifacts (ie: cans, gas tanks, car parts, glass…) this had to be documented with gps points taken. I quickly found out that, while this is an interesting process, stoping can take up a lot of time. We found 2-3 sites the first day and each took around 30 mins-1hour to completely document. This same process continued throughout the week. We gained extra momentum when a 4th archaeologist (Jen D.) came out and helped. Total, we hiked about 30 mi. or more.
We actually finished early and were able to leave on Friday. This turned out to be a bit of a hassle,when we ended up having 2 flat tires! Other than that there were no great hiccups to the trip. We saw and heard signs of a lot of wildlife (Deer, cows, feral russian boar, mountain lion, bobcat, and fox, to name a few). But, other than the cows, a few horses, lizards and birds, we really didn’t see much wildlife up close and in person. We hiked hills and valleys, drainages, canyons, and sand dunes. There were a great many cactus (cholla, prickly pear, goat’s head) pinion and juniper pines, as well as many other types of vegetation. The weather was quite nice, around 95-100 during the day and 60s-70s at night. Despite these realatively cool temperatures, I did end up with a bit of heat exhaustion the first day.
Overall, the trip was great, I learned a lot, and I felt like I got closer to my coworkers. Something about being in the wilderness always brings you closer to those you share it with. 

