The First Day of Fieldwork
Today is officially the first day of the project! Today's crew consisted of Bryn, myself, Marisa, and Brian Marcroft. We began the project by repairing some of the Echo Mountain trail so that a larger crew can walk on it safely. The unusually heavy rainfall from this past January caused damage to many of the trails in Angeles National Forest.
Marisa, Stacey, and Bryn in Zone 1
This rainfall also caused an unexpected amount of brush and plantlife to spring up on the site, so when we finally arrived on site, we were a bit taken aback by the foliage!
Echo Mountain is taken over by brush!
After a brisk hike into the site, we started testing our total station equipment on Zone 1. Zone 1 contains what historians and myself believe to be the remains of a "section house," a home that would have possibly housed Mexican-American workers . Zone 2, which we didn't work in today, is located on the opposite side of Echo Mountain. My theory is workers were segregated by space at Mount Lowe - Zone 2, for example, could have housed Anglo-American workers while Zone 1 would have been home to Mexican-American employees.
Back to a summary of today's work! It was insanely hot today, and, according to our total station's thermometer, it reached 113 degrees by 1pm this afternoon. Believe it or not, the sole of Marisa's shoe melted!! Despite Marisa's shoe, we spent most of the afternoon using the total station to stake out a grid to survey upon. I am still amazed at the intensity of plant growth since December. Surveying under these conditions will be interesting.
Marisa's melted shoe
