During field excursions to deploy the nodes, there are many roads that are overgrown with vegetation or may have lots of tall grass. This is always concerning, but it’s especially concerning during the fire season (summer and early fall, sometimes late spring) when it is drier and hotter. Small cars andSUVs that don’t have much ground clearance are a concern because they may spark forest fires. These sparks may come from the underside of the car and near the exhaust pipe. Due to this risk, all vehicles must carry shovels, fire extinguishers, and water in case a vehicle sparks a fire. Additionally, this is why we drive larger, taller trucks with lots of ground clearance to sites that are overgrown with grass or have lots of debris on the road. While driving along these roads during deployment and recovery of the nodes, it is extremely important to be very cautious and keep a watchful eye on your surroundings to make sure no fires are started by sparks from the vehicle. We also keep an eye out for wildfire occurring nearby. And, of course, NO SMOKING!
When taking a vehicle into the backcountry, four factors need to be carefully considered:
1) the driving terrain,
2) the capabilities of the vehicle
3) vehicle maintenance, and
4) the experience level of the driver.
In this short post, I will focus only on vehicle capabilities and maintenance.
All Wheel Drive (AWD) Vehicle
4×4 Vehicle
AWD vs 4×4, which is better? Well, that depends upon the application. AWD vehicles provide power to all four wheels through clutches and gearing that do not require the driver to provide any input. AWD vehicles are designed mainly to give traction on normal roads during inclement weather or light off-roads such as gravel. Conversely, 4×4 systems are designed to handle rugged terrain.
One misconception that drivers have when they select an AWD vehicle, is that they assume these vehicles can perform just as well as 4x4s on rough terrain. For most models of AWD vehicles, this is not the case. For AWD vehicles, traction is optimized, while for 4x4s traction is maximized. Also, AWD vehicles tend to have much less ground clearance than 4x4s. When negotiating trails with tree branches, rocks, large ruts, and washouts, clearance can be equally or more important than the type of drive system.
For 4x4s, both the size of the vehicle and the drive system can have drawbacks. It is rare to find a vehicle that is a full-time 4×4; therefore, the driver must learn to predict when it is necessary to switch between two-wheel drive, 4H, and 4L modes. Moreover, for many vehicles, it is necessary to come to a full stop before changing modes. On improved gravel trails one can generally get away with staying in two-wheel drive. Upon engaging the 4H or 4L mode, the differentials become locked and prevent the vehicle from negotiating tight corners smoothly. The inner wheel typically “skips” when it loses grip: this characteristic is especially noticeable when backing around a corner. When turning a 4×4 vehicle around in tight spaces, try to avoid using 4H/4L modes. Remember to execute turnarounds by using the maximum space available and taking advantage of a spotter.
Be sure to walk around the vehicle before heading into backcountry. Look for things such as worn-out tires, including a worn-out or poorly inflated spare. One spare tire will not replace four tires that are all ready to fail in quick succession! Know where the tire jack and lug nut wrenches are and how to use them. Check to make sure the vehicle sits level while on flat terrain; this will let you know if the suspension is damaged. Look for holes in the radiator grill that may indicate damage to the radiator. Lastly, fill up the fuel tank before heading out.
A lot of sites are in land managed by Suislaw or Siskiyou National Forest, the Bureau of Land Management, or different timber companies. Many signs of wildlife are present here, and it’s exciting when we get sightings of them! Sightings ranging from large to small (e.g. bears, coyotes, and cougars to rabbits, chipmunks, and small insects). Different teams came across different things, but there was a lot of overlap too. A few unique situations arose for my teams. Tamara and I saw a large gopher snake and a very large snake get carried away by a turkey vulture! On another field day with my partner Tara, we saw a couple-days-old bear track. The day prior to this, a BLM watchman stopped to give us a warning as we were installing a node: Seven different cougar individuals were spotted in the area where we were working – just up the road from us! Four of these individuals were young adult male cougars that were running around together as a group. This is unusual cougar behavior as they are usually solitary, but it has been documented among siblings that have not yet separated. With all of the tools and gear that we had, one or two may not have been as concerning, but seven – especially four of them together! – was a bit unnerving. We decided to install one last node and get out of there since it was approaching late afternoon – evening, which is when cougars are more active. Terrestrial or marine creatures that are more active at dusk and dawn are referred to as crepuscular animals. On one of our last days in the field during deployment, an owl flew right in front of us (about two feet from the windshield of our truck)! We also saw tons of deer, including a newborn, and some cows that may have been feral or grazing on National Forest land.
Navigating in the backcountry was no easy task! Many of our nodes were installed in remote regions with no cell service. Teams spent time each evening or in the early morning studying maps and using feedback from property owners to plan their route to each site. We used a variety of different tools to navigate in the backcountry. Teams used paper maps as well as navigation apps to find their way to the sites. Each group took an atlas or a paper map of Oregon or Washington into the field. In addition to this, volunteers imported the site coordinates for each day into several different navigation apps. Each platform had its own distinct advantages and teams often flipped between multiple apps and paper maps to navigate to their sites. It was not uncommon to find that different maps showed different roads or disagreed about the quality of the road.
Atlases were great for planning general routes but sometimes they did not show smaller roads or roads located on privately owned land. Maps provided by the Forest Service and timber companies provided additional detail in some regions. Each team used different navigation apps depending on the type of phones they had as well as what they were already familiar with. Before going into the field and losing cell service, we downloaded the maps for the regions we would be in working in that day. Most teams used a combination of Google Maps, Maps.Me and GPS Tracks or GPX Viewer. Sites located near houses or businesses could usually be found using turn-by-turn directions. Sites located in more remote areas usually required using Maps.Me or looking at satellite imagery. Each team recorded their path to each site using GPS Tracks or GPX Viewer. Saved tracks proved useful in finding our way out of complex road systems and finding our way back to these sites nearly a month later to recover the instruments. Even with the help of saved routes from the deployment, during the recovery, we encountered some unexpected challenges such as road closures, overgrown roads, and downed trees.
Google Maps
Maps.Me
GPS Tracks
The last instrument to be recovered was located in a particularly complicated road network shown on the maps above. My field partner and I used the GPS track from the team that deployed that node to navigate the complicated road system. We encountered some fallen trees along one of the roads the deployers had taken and turned to Maps.Me to find an alternate route to the site. Once we were at the site, we used the deployment notes and a compass to locate the buried node.
