It's been one hell of a week.
Monday, Rebecca failed to arrive. I waited for her and did nothing much else all day long. When dinner rolled around and there was still no Rebecca, I realized we were going to have to wait until Tuesday to get our project off the ground.
Tuesday morning, I returned to my computer after breakfast to find a note from Rebecca: "Sorry I'm late! Went to drop off my bags. See you soon." She arrived, we discussed her vacation (rental car troubles, bad hotels, and then a fabulous retreat on the beach), planned, ate, planned some more, and annoyed our advisor Cat with important questions guaranteed to seem insignificant to her. Our day commenced with a trip to the GIS lab to design and collect a custom map so we could randomly locate two one-hectare plots to sample. After the plots were determined back in the cool air conditioning of Jack's lab, we called it quits and I played some frisbee before dinner. Rebecca did laundry.
Wednesday was a scorcher. After breakfast in the radiant heat of our friendly home star, we hopped on a couple of jalopy bicycles and headed to our furthest plot to scout. Happily, huge trees were encoutered. Several outstanding emergent canopy trees lie within the bounds of our sample area, many along the banks of a bisecting stream. Feeling very positive, we returned for lunch. In the afternoon we excurred again to a different plot, along with Cat and her field assistant Rigo. After two hours of bushwhacking, bullet ant-dodging, and picking leaves and twigs out of our hair, we decided (or rather, Cat decided) that our plot was not suitable. A large hole in the forest caused by the collapse of a giant tree lay directly smack-dab in the middle of our plot, occupying almost half the entire area. Not cool. So we gave up and Rebecca and I left, praying for more intact forests elsewhere. We thought to scout another plot. Fate thought otherwise. Exhausted and frustrated, we arrived to the location of our plot only to find that the trail markers that should serve as our reference points had somehow managed to pack up shop and ditch the trail. We wandered back and forth over the same hundred or so meters of jungle trail until Rebecca and the waning daylight convinced me to make like a trail marker and get lost. Tired, dirty and sullen, we went to dinner.
Thursday we were supposed to see Cat in the morning, but we completely forgot. Instead, we headed back to the phantom plot and changed our strategy. Following a different line of trail markers, we threaded our way through 150 meters of dense primary rainforest to arrive at the corner of our plot. We spent the entire morning using a compass to orienteer around the perimeter of our plot, setting flags as we went. A few mistakes and lapses in scrutiny cost us a couple of precious hours digging through the thorns and palm fronds in search of obscure marker stakes, but we flagged nearly half our plot edges before lunch. Progress had been made. That afternoon we spoke with an optimistic Cat who advised us to keep it up. We then left for our further plot to flag its perimeter as well. Again, Fate decided to throw a wrench into our well-oiled plans, and we ended up searching in vain for a stake that turned out not to be there at all. I mistakenly placed us fifty meters to the side of our actual location, and on our way out we ran into a sixteen foot-tall chain link fence in the jungle. That, I must say, unnerved me more and for longer than nearly any other experience I've had in these forests. Chain link fences just don't seem to belong here. It turned out to be an experimental plot to examine small-mammal exclusion on seedling regeneration rates... Go figure. Exhausted, confused, and a little bit worried about our plot's viability after our encounter with the fence, we trudged back to the river station. I played more frisbee, then dinner.
This morning Rebecca saw Cat. They made a date for noon, just after lunch. I showed up late to breakfast after nearly not getting out of bed. This morning felt much more like Washington state than Costa Rica. A cold front rolled in overnight and blanketed the country in chilly gray fuzz. The leaves at the tops of the canopy trees held their collective breath, shrouded in dew and cloudy fingers. Howler monkeys lazily flopped through the fig trees above the river, idly chewing on new leaves and gutturally hum-burping like a few dozen beehives with the hiccups. Rebecca and I, thinking fondly of our beds, reluctantly dressed up for the murky, dripping depths of the forest, and made our way to our closer plot, which was much easier to access this time, since we had marked the way in.
The morning felt productive. We marked off the remaining edges of the plot and started measuring trees. In order to understand epiphyte biomass, we first have to know how many epiphyte-supporting trees are in the forest. Before the climbing can begin, we've got to measure the diameters of all the trees larger than seventy centimeters, which is no small task. We got two trees measured before we decided it was time to go to lunch. Feeling pretty good, we waltzed in to the mess hall where a quick glance at the clock turned into a synchronized double take. Almost one in the afternoon. We'd missed our meeting with Cat. Feeling a bit like two dogs who've dug up the roses but have yet to be punished, we ate lunch and then booked it for Cat's lab at quarter to two. She was there, thankfully, and not too pissed. Unfortunately, her plans for us were shot, and she informed us clearly and matter-of-factly that we just weren't going to be able to climb any trees next week, because her field assistant Rigo wasn't going to have time to rig them up for us. Our jaws hit the floor in unison. I think she noticed. She asked us where we would be in case Rigo got back early, and we gave her detailed, specific instructions. Rigo was our only hope. Rigging the trees ourselves would take countless precious hours of daylight and more skill than we could hope to scrape together. And we all knew that unless climbing starts next week, our study, like an agouti who wanders too close to a bushmaster, is doomed.
On the way back to the plot we joked about what we would do in the absence of all hope. "Go to the beach and get wasted?" I laughed. Rebecca giggled and said "Let's go!" but we went to our plot instead. We arrived in Mirkwood around two-thirty, and immediately started tallying trees. No less than an hour after later, we heard a sound which changed the mood entirely. "Woop!" It was Rigo, come to rig our trees and breathe life back into our arrested study. "Woop! Woop!" we replied. Tracing one another's sonar hollers, we zeroed in and met up. We showed Rigo our two most promising trees, and he got right to work. Fantastic!
We left Rigo and continued our transections of the plot. Measuring tree diameters in the tropical forest becomes exceptionally difficult when the trees have large buttressing roots taller by several meters than any human. Many of our estimates are probably strongly inaccurate, but what can you do? After three more hours of thorn-dodging, ant-flicking, mud-sliding labor, we had measured thirteen trees. One single tree remained before we could finish our transect. I was rabid to finish before we left, but this tree was clearly going to be a challenge.
Roots like the matted hair of an earthbound giant cascaded down its trunk, concealing shadowy hollows home to god only knows what sorts of freakish, biting creatures. Giant lianas as thick as small trees twisted around its monstrous buttresses. Roots thicker than my body snaked along the forest floor, searching towards the murky stream at its base. Steam rose in columns from the darkening forest floor as Rebecca and I sized up our final challenge. Several close calls with the freakishly large bullet ants (so-called because their stings are purported to be as painful as a gunshot wound) had left both of us spun on adrenaline: a little wacky and ready to get out of the forest. Rebecca had to wade through vats of slick orange mud to get to the base of the tree. From my perch atop a buttress I sent the measuring tape careening right through a hole between a liana and the tree trunk, and nailed her square in the arm. It was too much. The dam broke and all the day's stress started flowing out of her in teardrop form. I felt terrible when I heard the sobs coming through in her words, but she kept on threading the tape around the roots and lianas, telling me that it was ok and not to worry. She handed me the tape, we got our measurement, and I hopped down, winding the tape as Rebecca slipped down the back toward the creek to collect our other tape measure. "Don't worry about it. I'll grab it in a second." I said. "No, it's alright," she replied, "I'll get it." Her tears had stopped. I watched her collect the tape measure and turned around. In no less than ten seconds, I heard her exclaim in the most profoundly frightened voice. “Oh my god!” I turned around, already knowing what I would see. “There is a huge snake right there in the stream!” she said. I followed her pointer finger to the sight of a very large, swimming viper, no less than 2 meters from where she was standing. Fortunately, it was swimming away.
Now the nerves were completely shot. Curses were flying. If the forest had ears its face would've been pink with embarassement. I heard all sorts of things, one of the most memorable of which was “Let’s just get the fuck out of here!” Clearly, it was time to leave. Slowly and noisily, we clomped our way out to the trail, giving plenty of warning to any large venomous snakes. We beelined it to our bikes and cruised off. I played frisbee and Rebecca took a long shower before dinner.
So, we’ve had a productive and unnerving week. We’ve measured and located fourteen large trees in our plot, and we have only a few more to do. Next week we’ll climb, and hopefully get some good numbers to analyze. Preliminary conclusions on this project include: 1. Tree climbing is a lot more work than it seems like it should be, and 2. Tropical biology is frightening.
On a completely unrelated note, here is a movie a friend of mine recorded on top of Chirripó. Your’s truly is photographing a panorama from atop a rock. This file is about 7 MB, so if you don't have a fast connection, you could be waiting a while to download, but it's well worth the wait. Michael, in the blue shirt, is celebrating his 21st, golden birthday (on the 21st) on top of the highest point in all of Central America. Listen to what he says...
Monday, Rebecca failed to arrive. I waited for her and did nothing much else all day long. When dinner rolled around and there was still no Rebecca, I realized we were going to have to wait until Tuesday to get our project off the ground.
Tuesday morning, I returned to my computer after breakfast to find a note from Rebecca: "Sorry I'm late! Went to drop off my bags. See you soon." She arrived, we discussed her vacation (rental car troubles, bad hotels, and then a fabulous retreat on the beach), planned, ate, planned some more, and annoyed our advisor Cat with important questions guaranteed to seem insignificant to her. Our day commenced with a trip to the GIS lab to design and collect a custom map so we could randomly locate two one-hectare plots to sample. After the plots were determined back in the cool air conditioning of Jack's lab, we called it quits and I played some frisbee before dinner. Rebecca did laundry.
Wednesday was a scorcher. After breakfast in the radiant heat of our friendly home star, we hopped on a couple of jalopy bicycles and headed to our furthest plot to scout. Happily, huge trees were encoutered. Several outstanding emergent canopy trees lie within the bounds of our sample area, many along the banks of a bisecting stream. Feeling very positive, we returned for lunch. In the afternoon we excurred again to a different plot, along with Cat and her field assistant Rigo. After two hours of bushwhacking, bullet ant-dodging, and picking leaves and twigs out of our hair, we decided (or rather, Cat decided) that our plot was not suitable. A large hole in the forest caused by the collapse of a giant tree lay directly smack-dab in the middle of our plot, occupying almost half the entire area. Not cool. So we gave up and Rebecca and I left, praying for more intact forests elsewhere. We thought to scout another plot. Fate thought otherwise. Exhausted and frustrated, we arrived to the location of our plot only to find that the trail markers that should serve as our reference points had somehow managed to pack up shop and ditch the trail. We wandered back and forth over the same hundred or so meters of jungle trail until Rebecca and the waning daylight convinced me to make like a trail marker and get lost. Tired, dirty and sullen, we went to dinner.
Thursday we were supposed to see Cat in the morning, but we completely forgot. Instead, we headed back to the phantom plot and changed our strategy. Following a different line of trail markers, we threaded our way through 150 meters of dense primary rainforest to arrive at the corner of our plot. We spent the entire morning using a compass to orienteer around the perimeter of our plot, setting flags as we went. A few mistakes and lapses in scrutiny cost us a couple of precious hours digging through the thorns and palm fronds in search of obscure marker stakes, but we flagged nearly half our plot edges before lunch. Progress had been made. That afternoon we spoke with an optimistic Cat who advised us to keep it up. We then left for our further plot to flag its perimeter as well. Again, Fate decided to throw a wrench into our well-oiled plans, and we ended up searching in vain for a stake that turned out not to be there at all. I mistakenly placed us fifty meters to the side of our actual location, and on our way out we ran into a sixteen foot-tall chain link fence in the jungle. That, I must say, unnerved me more and for longer than nearly any other experience I've had in these forests. Chain link fences just don't seem to belong here. It turned out to be an experimental plot to examine small-mammal exclusion on seedling regeneration rates... Go figure. Exhausted, confused, and a little bit worried about our plot's viability after our encounter with the fence, we trudged back to the river station. I played more frisbee, then dinner.
This morning Rebecca saw Cat. They made a date for noon, just after lunch. I showed up late to breakfast after nearly not getting out of bed. This morning felt much more like Washington state than Costa Rica. A cold front rolled in overnight and blanketed the country in chilly gray fuzz. The leaves at the tops of the canopy trees held their collective breath, shrouded in dew and cloudy fingers. Howler monkeys lazily flopped through the fig trees above the river, idly chewing on new leaves and gutturally hum-burping like a few dozen beehives with the hiccups. Rebecca and I, thinking fondly of our beds, reluctantly dressed up for the murky, dripping depths of the forest, and made our way to our closer plot, which was much easier to access this time, since we had marked the way in.
The morning felt productive. We marked off the remaining edges of the plot and started measuring trees. In order to understand epiphyte biomass, we first have to know how many epiphyte-supporting trees are in the forest. Before the climbing can begin, we've got to measure the diameters of all the trees larger than seventy centimeters, which is no small task. We got two trees measured before we decided it was time to go to lunch. Feeling pretty good, we waltzed in to the mess hall where a quick glance at the clock turned into a synchronized double take. Almost one in the afternoon. We'd missed our meeting with Cat. Feeling a bit like two dogs who've dug up the roses but have yet to be punished, we ate lunch and then booked it for Cat's lab at quarter to two. She was there, thankfully, and not too pissed. Unfortunately, her plans for us were shot, and she informed us clearly and matter-of-factly that we just weren't going to be able to climb any trees next week, because her field assistant Rigo wasn't going to have time to rig them up for us. Our jaws hit the floor in unison. I think she noticed. She asked us where we would be in case Rigo got back early, and we gave her detailed, specific instructions. Rigo was our only hope. Rigging the trees ourselves would take countless precious hours of daylight and more skill than we could hope to scrape together. And we all knew that unless climbing starts next week, our study, like an agouti who wanders too close to a bushmaster, is doomed.
On the way back to the plot we joked about what we would do in the absence of all hope. "Go to the beach and get wasted?" I laughed. Rebecca giggled and said "Let's go!" but we went to our plot instead. We arrived in Mirkwood around two-thirty, and immediately started tallying trees. No less than an hour after later, we heard a sound which changed the mood entirely. "Woop!" It was Rigo, come to rig our trees and breathe life back into our arrested study. "Woop! Woop!" we replied. Tracing one another's sonar hollers, we zeroed in and met up. We showed Rigo our two most promising trees, and he got right to work. Fantastic!
We left Rigo and continued our transections of the plot. Measuring tree diameters in the tropical forest becomes exceptionally difficult when the trees have large buttressing roots taller by several meters than any human. Many of our estimates are probably strongly inaccurate, but what can you do? After three more hours of thorn-dodging, ant-flicking, mud-sliding labor, we had measured thirteen trees. One single tree remained before we could finish our transect. I was rabid to finish before we left, but this tree was clearly going to be a challenge.
Roots like the matted hair of an earthbound giant cascaded down its trunk, concealing shadowy hollows home to god only knows what sorts of freakish, biting creatures. Giant lianas as thick as small trees twisted around its monstrous buttresses. Roots thicker than my body snaked along the forest floor, searching towards the murky stream at its base. Steam rose in columns from the darkening forest floor as Rebecca and I sized up our final challenge. Several close calls with the freakishly large bullet ants (so-called because their stings are purported to be as painful as a gunshot wound) had left both of us spun on adrenaline: a little wacky and ready to get out of the forest. Rebecca had to wade through vats of slick orange mud to get to the base of the tree. From my perch atop a buttress I sent the measuring tape careening right through a hole between a liana and the tree trunk, and nailed her square in the arm. It was too much. The dam broke and all the day's stress started flowing out of her in teardrop form. I felt terrible when I heard the sobs coming through in her words, but she kept on threading the tape around the roots and lianas, telling me that it was ok and not to worry. She handed me the tape, we got our measurement, and I hopped down, winding the tape as Rebecca slipped down the back toward the creek to collect our other tape measure. "Don't worry about it. I'll grab it in a second." I said. "No, it's alright," she replied, "I'll get it." Her tears had stopped. I watched her collect the tape measure and turned around. In no less than ten seconds, I heard her exclaim in the most profoundly frightened voice. “Oh my god!” I turned around, already knowing what I would see. “There is a huge snake right there in the stream!” she said. I followed her pointer finger to the sight of a very large, swimming viper, no less than 2 meters from where she was standing. Fortunately, it was swimming away.
Now the nerves were completely shot. Curses were flying. If the forest had ears its face would've been pink with embarassement. I heard all sorts of things, one of the most memorable of which was “Let’s just get the fuck out of here!” Clearly, it was time to leave. Slowly and noisily, we clomped our way out to the trail, giving plenty of warning to any large venomous snakes. We beelined it to our bikes and cruised off. I played frisbee and Rebecca took a long shower before dinner.
So, we’ve had a productive and unnerving week. We’ve measured and located fourteen large trees in our plot, and we have only a few more to do. Next week we’ll climb, and hopefully get some good numbers to analyze. Preliminary conclusions on this project include: 1. Tree climbing is a lot more work than it seems like it should be, and 2. Tropical biology is frightening.
posted by cody @ 7:21 PM
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