A Research Tech’s Perspective, Pt. 2
The Adirondack Long Term Monitoring (ALTM) Program samples the same 58 bodies of water, 15 of them annually and the other 43 five months of the year: February, April, May, July and September. This means I often get to revisit the same lakes and ponds in every season. The longer I live in the Adirondacks, the more this becomes one of my favorite past times, visiting the same trails and destinations across the seasons and years to experience just how nature has changed the landscape. Sampling techniques also vary from season to season with difficult winter access occasionally requiring the use of snowmobiles, unsafe ice conditions in the spring causing us to sample from slightly different spots, and summer utilizing canoes and rowboats to sample from the deepwater holes on lakes and ponds.
Field days are usually quite long, often sunup to sundown especially early in the year and for the work sites in the Western Adirondacks that require a couple hours of driving both to and from. My first official work trip was in the Ha-De-Ron-Dah Wilderness on one of those days. The sun hadn’t come up until the obligatory stop at Stewart’s in Long Lake. It was a chilly, breezy day and within a mile of the trailhead Brendan and I had to switch from spikes to snowshoes. We found open water to sample Grass Pond #4 perched on the edge of a beaver dam at its outlet. Back at the junction with the main trail we shed the extra layers we’d put on at the pond and trudged on. A couple miles further ahead we reached the tricky stream crossing I’d warned Brendan about that I discovered on a trip here last spring. In addition to regularly being perched on and crossing beaver dams, I soon realized this job would involve many interesting stream crossings on fallen trees. Thankfully we made it across without incident and were soon snacking at the Middle Branch Lake lean-to.
Happy to get moving again and warm back up, we started the bushwhack portion of the day's adventure as we followed the lake’s southern shore west towards its outlet. After about half a mile we crossed the inlet near a beaver dam and found a spot along the outlet within 100 yds of our GPS point. After collecting our samples we discussed our options for reaching Middle Settlement Lake, the final stop for the day. 1. A three mile backtrack in the direction we just came before taking a side trail over to Middle Settlement to finish the loop. OR 2. A one mile bushwhack directly to Middle Settlement across what seemed to be moderate terrain. This decision came just after Brendan’s retelling of a horror story from the Pigeon Lake Wilderness about how his proposed bushwhacks don’t always go as planned. Nonetheless I told Brendan I was down to test out this new route and off we went. The terrain was relatively easy and the snow not too deep, our only hesitation coming at a couple wide stream crossings that appeared frozen. We ventured out slowly one at a time following rushes poking out of the frozen surface, hoping if the ice wasn’t strong enough perhaps there’d be land underneath. We made it without incident and were on the trail around circumnavigating Middle Settlement Lake in under an hour. The outlet at the edge of the lake was frozen and so we sampled just downstream. There were pieces of bridging that eventually disappeared with the trail into a deep pool of water where Brendan’s best tiptoeing efforts allowed us to sample.
In April, Lija and I decided we’d follow the same route. Though the trail no longer required snowshoes, it felt a bit like walking in sand for parts of the trek. When we reached the bushwhack between lakes we found open water at the wide stream crossings. What Brendan and I had hoped was solid ground where the rushes poked through the ice was nothing but water. Thankfully both crossings had incredible bridges nearby built by the locals: beaver. We took coordinates for both dams as they ensured usage of this route in all seasons as long as they held. One of them rose about a foot or two above the water and spanned nearly 50 feet. This time we were able to sample from the correct spot where the outlet drained from the lake over a large beaver dam, no tiptoeing on bridges required this time around.
When Connor and I returned in July the dams were still in place but one was slightly more submerged. Though it was chilly and poured rain for most of the day it at least kept the flies at bay. It wasn’t until the start of our bushwhack that I remember ‘oh, right, bushwhacking is quite different this time of year’. There was a much more limited view through the forest and we relied on our GPS units more than line of sight. We also struggled to push through chest high ferns and hobblebush (aptly named) which only got us wetter as we forged ahead. As we approached Middle Settlement Lake, something seemed off. Were our eyes deceiving us? The entire eastern side of the lake seemed to be a large mudflat. As we got closer we realized our eyes were correct and once at our sampling location understood why.
Half of the dam we sampled from was perched atop a large rock slab which had blown out with the heavy rain, lowering the water level of the lake by nearly ten feet. We stood there in awe at the drastic change that nature had made to the spot in just two months since our last visit. This required a special note in our field journal as it could affect the chemical composition. The next morning many major highways through the Adirondacks would also become completely washed out affecting the team's ability to sample certain locations for the foreseeable future. It would seem we made it home just in the nick of time.
Funding for the Adirondack Long-Term Monitoring program is provided by NYSERDA. NYSERDA has not reviewed the information contained herein, and the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect those of NYSERDA or the State of New York.