We designed and started our research projects! We finally got to wade in the creek, and we all rested up to prepare for the day ahead.
We awoke to rain. It was cold and wet, so the rinse in the creek became a lot less likely as we forced ourselves out of the dry tents, and donned all of our rain gear. We spent the majority of the morning reviewing the tools in the science kit that I had been caring in my pack and brainstorming potential experiments which could be done in our limited time with our limited tools.
I was still holding out for a wade in the creek, so I paired with Naomi to study the macro-invertebrate populations in Shenandoah's creeks. We wanted to see what the populations' tolerance levels told us about the water quality, and how the populations and indicated water quality were affected by flow rate. We used a stop watch, the ruler on our rite-in-the-rain notebooks, and a floating leaf to measure flow rate. The macro-invertebrates were easy to find in the nearby stream - we simply flipped a rock, and used a brush to put the tiny bugs into a spoon where we could compare them to an identification chart. The stream was healthy, so we found plenty of mayfly larvae, but our favorite finds were salamanders, massive crayfish, different kinds of fish, a centipede-like aquatic invertebrate, and a tiny aquatic white worm.
Even though the day was wet and cold, I loved the time spent in the creek. Our group was followed back up to the campsite by a raccoon, and Lára and I made dinner that night over the camp stoves while keeping a lookout for it. Aside from the swarm of bees that we painfully discovered only a few feet from our tents, the day was a much-needed rest from hiking.
After our usual GRANITE meeting and bead appreciation ceremony, we waterproofed everything again before going to our tents for the night.