Hi everybody, my name is Patrick White, for those of you who do not know me I am one of the interns working at Hi Mountain this summer. Another intern is Shannon Murphy, who worked here at the beginning of summer before she left to go to Costa Rica, and the other is Karlien Lang who took Shannon’s place about half way through the summer. We have been up here since Fourth of July weekend collecting telemetry data for the Condor Recovery Program. We have been coming up every weekend for three days a week, usually there were two of us, but once all three were here, and I have been up here two weekends alone too.

Shannon and I started our training by having Marcelle, one of the main Volunteers at Hi Mountain Lookout, drive us up to Hi Mountain for our first time to show us the ropes of setting up the lookout. The first thing you notice when you get up here is the view. You can see in every direction for what seems like a hundred miles. There are mountains in every direction, to the south you can see the Oceano dunes and to the North up to King City. The view is really nothing less than spectacular. After taking in the view Marcelle showed us all the basics like opening the doors and locks, turning on the power, water, and gas, and just showing us everything we need to live up here for three days a week for the whole summer. After we were comfortable with the lookout we went back to San Luis Obispo and got ready for our training at Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge from August 29th through the 31st.

On Friday morning we met our trainers at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife station in Ventura. From there our trainer Wildlife Technician John Thompson drove us way out to Hopper Mountain which consisted of
driving on freeways to a long trip on a dirt road. Hopper Mountain is right next to an oil field which the condors nest near also, so the oil company lets the Fish and Wildlife Service use their roads. It is a pretty amazing place; the roads just go up and down the sides of mountains which are very high compared to the valley below. Eventually we make it to the field camp which consisted of a Ranch House, a couple trailers, and a barn. We unloaded all of our stuff, get back in the car, and take off to do our first telemetry ever.

Continue reading ‘A Summer at Hi Mt. with the Interns’