2019 People of the Big River Field Class

This morning we woke up at about five-fifteen in the morning to make it to Crater Lake National Park. This was something that mostly all of us wanted to make sure we got to see. We had a peer who was talking nonstop about how beautiful it was and how he had heard so much about the location. Erick really shared his interest which made us want to see this beauty for ourselves. When we noticed that we made enough time to get there we were pretty thrilled about the idea of actually making it to the location. Once arriving at crater lake, we were mesmerized by the beauty of the clear blue water and the surrounding sights. In the middle of the lake there was a small island named “Wizard island” and it was gorgeous. It seemed as though it was its own sight you needed to go and have an adventure in. A few of us went on a small hike towards the top of “watchman’s trail,” while some of us got lost going the opposite way. It was bizarre to see snow in the middle of July, but i...

This morning we woke up by six-thirty in the morning and started with our morning routine. The entire crew broke into two groups. The first group was the non “environmental science and studies” and the second one was the environmental science people . I was a part of the first group who left campsite. And when I read the itinerary, I realized that our group was on service day. We were scheduled to work an eight-hour day into two section. We first started with the pulling of the weeds in the man-made meadow. The man that was the first to meet us was Tom Walker, he was in charge of the Riparim Restoration. These weeds were planted by the Deschutes National Forestry and it ended up back firing for them. The weeds were supposed to attract the wild animals and it did, but it also started to kill the possibility for native flowers to bloom in that area once more. We spent about three and a half hours pulling weeds. I will say that the team did most of the work because when ...

Today started out with a few of us getting our things ready for the day. We were on a mission to get going earlier than normal. Our goal was to get to the city of Deschutes and walk around the Deschutes River trail. We got to Deschutes with good enough time so that we could walk around Walk around the Deschutes River trail. This was a beautiful way to see how the environment was manipulated into a living area where homes and walking trails would coexist. It was so nice to see the walking trail near the river, but it also made me a little worried when I was walking around the trail and saw “private property” signs on certain areas due to it belonging to the home owner. After our small hike around the river we headed out to meet at Joy and Rick’s home. They were so kind to offer all twenty-four of us some warm showers, a meal, and some Wi-Fi. Around this time David (Jessica’s cousin) left back home. David was such a nice guy; he was an uncle to all of us. We really ...