Field Trip

We will offer an optional but highly recommended two-day field trip beginning Friday afternoon 09/16/11 through the coastal Oregon forest to examine operational silviculture and relevant inventory/monitoring and decision support issues across forest types and ownerships. The trip will therefore involve multiple landowners and their representatives, including the Siuslaw National Forest with tours and activities in the woods. Students should be ready for rugged conditions and weather here, as well. Our purpose is to reinforce concepts from week 1 (including completion of the first project) and provide a springboard for week 2 activities.

Weather and Supplies
September usually has pretty good weather (at least in the valley), but you’ll want decent footwear for walking in the woods (including in the presence of poison oak and thorny things) and light rain gear/field clothes. If the weather forecast is looking really ugly on the 8th, then I’ll warn you to bring heavy rain gear AND I’ll provide plastic bags – we did get nailed one year over at the Coast…it was beautiful and fun, but wet!

You may want to bring a hardhat for in the woods, particularly the Saturday when we are out with FS staff on the Siuslaw National Forest, but I won’t leave you behind if you forget it. You should bring a small field notebook for writing and collecting a bit of data here and there, but there isn’t any need to bring your own equipment – I’ll provide whatever we need for measurements .