In Search of Bats: Part II

It's hard to believe, but it has been a MONTH of bridge surveys. I don't know when a month has ever gone by faster.

After a month, the hardest thing about these surveys aren't the day-to-day mechanics of fieldwork, but figuring out what it means, and what sort of questions I should be investigating. I am more efficient in my surveys; I have a system, and I know what I'm looking for. I have volunteer assistants who both help me complete the surveys and keep me from going entirely crazy on my own.

My previous assistants weren't particularly good with pens.

So, what do bridge surveys really look like on the ground, and without romantic notions?

  

 Bridges come in two varieties: too big to survey, or too small. They are hundreds of feet in the air, or six inches from the surface of a gushing stream. They all look about the same from the little colored square on the GPS, so you never really know what to expect until you drive up (or sometimes, hike up) on it. They are also everywhere. You do not even realize how many bridges you drive over in a day, and probably don't care, but I have learned to care.

 I can tell when I'm driving over a bridge because I get this terrible feeling, a disturbance in the force, telling me I just missed a bridge and I've got to fight my way back to it. I am supposed to survey every bridge I encounter (let me say again, EVERY BRIDGE). Any bridge that I miss could potentially be the one to house a whole colony of bats, and I can't bear to skip even the meanest of bridges.

Start swimmin!

Once under the bridge, I have to check every crevice that could possibly house a bat. Some bridges are easy--a blank slab on the bottom, nothing more--but others have a million tiny hiding places. From the few bats I've encountered so far, I have learned the number one rule of bridge searching, Do Not Make Assumptions. Just because the research says a bat won't be in a 1-inch deep crevice 3 feet off the ground, doesn't mean you won't find one there (apparently).

Don't Make Assumptions means that I need to crawl under the nastiest, cobwebbiest bridges you can find, and stick my face directly into spiders that shouldn't exist outside a horror movie.

I've gotten soaking wet, spit cobwebs out by the dozens, rolled around in poop, fallen off precariously piled rocks, and nearly toppled into torrents of water. My volunteers have similar stories. Anyone who says this is not proper field work should go crawl in an irrigation ditch sometime and then decide. However, the bats I have found melted my heart and made me love them all over again, and I'd survey a thousand bridges for the chance to get up close with them as I have (there are adorable pictures, guys).

My workplace is also beautiful. I am unimaginably lucky to be doing this sort of work in the gorgeous Western Montana, a place that I have been taking for granted. I can camp out by beautiful mountain streams with my volunteer partner, wake up and catch the sun rising over our first bridge. I am content out in the woods, taking an evening run or reading around the fire once the work is all done. The field season is flying by, and while it can be occasionally tempting to wish it was over and all the hard decisions were already made, I try to remember to enjoy it too.

Days like these do not come around often. I have the freedom, and the company of a small but good crew, to make the most of it.

Til next time

-Batwoman

Dark Angel

"Val shifted her all her weight onto her left big toe, straining to reach upward with her right hand. Her chalky fingers groped the slick shelf above her head, failing to gain purchase. The muscle in her left calf quivered.

Val let out a soft curse, withdrawing back down to rest her weight on a lower hold. As much as she hated to admit it, fear fluttered in her abdomen. She risked a look down below her. She had committed to free soloing this route—no ropes, no partner, no backup. A fall here would not just be costly—it would be deadly."

             . . .

The rest of the story is available here:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dark-angel

Yes, sorry, it is 99 cents; I was not able to make it free. If you have a spare .99, check it out! I want to dip my toe into adventure writing (maybe so that someday when I have worthwhile adventures I can write about them).

Wonder Women

*This may rapidly devolve into a rant. Fair warning.

I am a hiker. I am a skier, and a caver, and every so often a mountain climber. I am happiest when I am sweaty, filthy, and in some kind of danger. I am happiest when I am pushing my own personal limits.And, yeah, I'm a girl.

I rarely thought about gender differences as a kid. My brother and I played with each other's boy or girl-oriented toys equally, and my parents didn't try to change that.

My dad took me fishing, taught me to ride horses, and dragged me into skiing. As my original adventure buddy, he challenged me to ski races down the mountain at breakneck speed. He always encouraged me to get out and do what I wanted, and never once told me that my interests were unusual for a girl.

In short, I wasn't praised for being a girl who enjoyed boyish activities. I was just one of his kids who happened to enjoy the same things he did. I was confused when I was called a tomboy at school--I didn't think I was acting like a boy. I was just being myself.

I bring this up because of several recent reminders. First, attending the Banff Mountain Film Festival (www.banffcentre.ca). Second, reading a book by Verna van Schaik, who holds the record for deepest dive by a woman.

Banff is fantastic, and I love going each year and getting inspired by the adventurers on screen--real people doing unreal things.

 I am less inspired by the lack of women. Even this year, the only documentary with women even featured in it was a film completely focused on the idea that lady climbers are doing things that are unusual for women.

Banff was in the back of my mind even as I read Schaik's book, available for purchase on Kindle, called Fatally Flawed: The Quest to be Deepest. Anyone who believes that gender bias no longer exists should read her account of setting a world record. Her writing isn't perfect, but it is honest.

Schaik writes, "I spent years trying to imitate [men], to be become a man and so be accepted. I gave up my personal strengths so that I could cultivate the strengths that the men around me needed to see. . . What I have come to realize is that I am not a man." (166)

Her message resonates with me in a way I did not expect. Even though I consider myself an advocate of equality, I am always trying to prove I can be just as good, that I am not slowed down by being a woman. Any reminder of my differences, like trying to hike fast even with agonizing cramps, pisses me off.

It would do me good to remember that I am not unusual. I am not looking for attention from guys. I am not a tomboy. I do not pursue male-dominated activities; I pursue my activities.

Anyone who believes social equality has been achieved should also hang out with some teen girls.

It is painful for me to see girls like those in the cave club curse their own bodies for not being thin enough. They hate themselves for not living up to some bullshit ideal of what fit, adventurous young women ought to look like. It is painful to realize that I have the same insecurities.

I am grateful to have met these girls and shared these experiences. I felt the euphoria after making it through a tight passage called the Seizure Squeeze. We dared to free climb down passages that grown men would not attempt.  For hours on end, we examined poop in close detail.

In short, it is completely unsexy--awesomely so.

Giving birth to herself.

We aren't trying to be anything. This is what we are.