5 Following the destructive flood of July 5, 2006, planning began immediately to improve field camp facilities. By summer 2007, new restroom and shower facilities were ready to use and six new cabins were constructed and almost ready for occupancy. For several weeks, students were housed in the map room, dormitory style, until we were given approved certificates of occupancy. Our attendance in 2007 was only 44 students as a result of our housing shortage. By summer 2008, all eight new cabins were completed giving us housing for 60 students, which has remained our enrollment target. As the numbers of OSU students attending field camp fluctuated, the number of non-OSU students was adjusted to bring the complement to sixty. The curriculum has remained similar over the years with projects in Grape Creek, Mixing Bowl, Gnat Hollow, Big Orange, Blue Ridge and Twin Mountains, among others, with field trips to Great Sand Dunes National Park, Pikes Peak, Leadville and Cripple Creek. The summers of 2009 through 2013, were trials by smoke and fire. Most fires were not close to camp, but large fires in Arizona and southwestern New Mexico as well as small fires close to Cañon City made smoke as issue. During the summer 2013 session, the Royal Gorge Fire forced evacuation from the Mixing Bowl and burned much of the old Priest Canyon project area. Fortunately, the fire was stopped before it could cross US Highway 50 and burn Twin Mountain. Unfortunately, the Mixing Bowl itself did not burn and Piñon trees killed by the extended drought and bark beetles still litter the area. Moisture returned to the Cañon City Embayment and surrounding mountains in winter 2013. As a result, snowpack in the Wet Mountains and Front Range was normal and Grape and Eightmile Creeks were flowing in summer 2014. Rains during the first two weeks of the 2015 camp had us wishing for sunshine and drier weather. The creek undercut a large cottonwood tree that fell normal to the channel, generating a dam that forced the stream against the bank west of the kitchen. By the next day fifteen to twenty linear feet of bank was gone and the location of the old cook’s cabin was washed away. The rain of 2015 resulted in a continuous flow or water in the stream in the Mixing Bowl and the stream on the west end of South Twin Mountain. Several field areas were not accessible in 2015 as a result of high water or washed out roads. While the water caused us some inconvenience, it was a welcome sight and we enjoyed a smoke- and fire-free summer. We look forward to a green summer and ample water supply in 2016 as El Niño brings needed precipitation to the western U.S. Field Camp 2006 to 2015: A Decade of Change
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAxMjk=