Five weeks down, four to go! Field work on Monday started off with having to reroute as soon as we got going, thanks to a helpful sign warning us that 285 is closed near our research area due to the Weston Pass wildfire. Fortunately, we were able to turn around and take 70 and 91 down to our site with no time lost! The wind was much more cooperative than on our last trip, and with not a cloud in the sky, I expect that the drone will return some fantastic images of the Chalk Cliffs. It was pretty crazy to see the wildfire smoke pouring out from just over another ridge – I’m sure the hot, dry, windy conditions were not helping matters any; we could see it worsening throughout the day. Hopefully (for the sake of the residents as well as our field work!) the fire will be contained soon.
The rest of the week felt a bit hectic and I didn’t really get to spend quality time with Halibut and my project until Thursday afternoon. Tuesday my office-mates and I attended the PhD defense of another office-mate, who I must say did a fantastic job – congrats (soon-to-be) Dr. Gray! Wednesday consisted of a wonderful bbq put together by RECCS’ own Pru Crawmer, which was so much fun! We don’t get to see each other all that often, so it’s always nice when the interns can meet up and enjoy some casual time together. On Thursday and Friday, I finally got to sit down at my desktop and start working through my various ground control point groupings to get a final error value for each (yes, I’m into the results stage already – yay!). However, I’m pretty sure I’m missing a step, as the error values were suspiciously similar in comparison to each other as well as to the original point cloud containing every GCP. Alas, we’ll figure it out tomorrow 🙂
Until next time!
Jess
Drone Pants taking off over the Chalk Cliffs
Smoke from the nearby Weston Pass wildfire
