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Photo provided by Jackie Grant, 2025.
| An unexpected rainy late spring has been traumatizing one of my dogs, Sunny, but is still very welcome after such a dry winter. The land and plants are responding with a vigor that I might almost describe as joyously frightening. I am finding enormous joy in the many plants that are blooming for the first time in years, or with more zeal than I’ve seen in a very long time. The frightening part comes with knowing that these rains bring the peril of flash floods, which can be both exhilarating and deadly in this land full of canyons. In fact, a group of hikers had to be rescued this week after a storm many miles upstream caused water flow to increase from 7.5 gallons per second to nearly 18,000! Luckily, everyone was safely retrieved from Big Horn Canyon where the flooding occurred. Aside from nervous dogs and rushing water, the rains have been a real boon to our beleaguered native plant program. We’ve been able to hire two seed technicians, Heather Vielstich and Tucker Hastings (meet them below), who are keeping busy tracking native plant populations all over the Monument. Being able to immerse myself and the team in the search for desert plants has been an excellent way to cope with repeated requests from DOGE and the loss of funding for our plant collaboration with Bears Ears Partnership. I highly recommend getting into the desert and away from cell service if you can do it! This month we also welcome a new summer intern, Jack Behrens, from Bowdoin College. Jack’s first contribution to GSEP starts with this newsletter. Check out our 2024 Annual Report! As always, thank you for being part of our community, and for your continued support of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. -Jackie |
