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At the beginning of our project our team met at the Park Headquarters to get instructions from the NPS leaders and discuss the best areas for the lichen sampling.

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Our team of climbers worked their way up the cliffs of Yosemite Valley to gather small bits of lichen and some mosses on the rock faces and crevices.

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James Watson is an NPS lichen expert from Denali National Park who provided wonderful guidance to us throughout the project.

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NPS scientist Martin Hutten was the Project Leader and helped us learn a lot about lichens and their importance in the Yosemite ecosystem. He also helped with the lichen sampling and with exploring potential sampling sites.

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We found a wide variety of beautiful lichens in the Park, some common as this one, but some rare or not previously known to exist in this region.

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It was interesting to find so many varieties and shapes of lichen.

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During the project we met other Park officials and gave them updates on our project and its goals.

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Martin and James helped our team members learn how to properly store and label our lichen samples, using a standardized system of folded paper forms.

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James and Martin often used their hand lenses to get a better look at our samples and identify them properly.

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One of the many surprises we found were odd copper-green substances about 1/4 inch below the surface of the granite in areas that are near seasonal water flows. Could these also be lichen, growing in the dark under the rock surfaces?

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Sometimes we found very interesting lichen on boulders at the base of cliffs, which were easy to sample.

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But sometimes we had to use our rock climbing skills to get into the overhangs and crevices high on the cliffs that offered the most promising lichen sampling.

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We worked in teams of two or three for the cliff sampling.

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On the day we took the Associated Press reporter to observe our sampling techniques, our team set up a rappel station in the forest on the rim of Vernal Falls (hidden by the trees here). Experts from the world-renowned Yosemite Search and Rescue team were on hand to ensure the safety of the systems used.

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Climber Enga Lokey descended off the rim with NPS Scientist Martin Hutten to sample the many dramatic streaks of lichen on the wall of the falls, expecting to find new varieties. Earlier in the project, Martin had also rappelled with climbers into a large alcove at the east side of a huge pillar of rock called The Rostrum in the west end of Yosemite Valley. They discovered a wealth of interesting lichen varieties living there. After our samples are reviewed by the scientists in Yosemite National Park, they will be sent to lichen experts at Oregon State University for further analysis and identification.

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This image shows the size of Vernal Falls and the vivid lichen streaks. Enga and Martin look like two tiny dots in a wide brown streak near the rim of this immense wall.

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Enga and Martin worked quickly and efficiently to gather lichen samples during their descent. To us watching them from the Mist Trail, they looked like tiny spiders dangling from the rock.

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As they descended near the base of Vernal Falls, the rock face became slightly overhanging, so Martin and Enga often had to push off from the cliff with their feet then swing back in to get some samples.

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Here they are near the base of the falls and the end of their sampling expedition on that huge rock wall.

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Australian climber Cate Webb helped to set up the rappel equipment for this project. Carlos Buhler provided commentary to the reporter about the rappelling effort, and Carlos' wife Crista-Lee Mitchell helped to take photos that day, two of which appeared with the resulting AP news story:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?o=0&f=/c/a/2008/09/25/BA2N133NCG.DTL 

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The Associated Press reporter Tracy Cone spoke with the elated NPS scientist Martin Hutten just after the dramatic rappel down Vernal Falls. Martin was still wearing his thick suede kneepads that protected his knees while he was pressed against the granite during the lichen sampling process.

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Earlier in the project we had also sampled various lichen streaks at Yosemite Falls, which has less water than Vernal Falls that time of year.

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In future projects we might attempt to sample the lichen in the dark streaks near Bridalveil Falls, shown here on the right, across the Valley from El Capitan.