| [Chelsea] Working Times: 10:00 am -12:00 12:30 pm - 4:00 pm Location: Lightning Tree Survey Area-flagging coordinates Weather: clear, mild temperature (high 60s,low 70s) [We] went out to the head of Burro Canyon to practice correct usage of the silva ranger compasses and familiarize ourselves with the surrounding area of Burro Point, Yellow Jacket Canyon and the landscape in general. Next we spent between half and hour to an hour examining two sites which had been previously recorded a few years earlier by another survey group… After 12:30 pm we used the GPS
unit to locate the SW corner of the Lightning Tree survey area
in the canyon south of Burro Point I will now refer to as Lightning
Tree Canyon. While looking for this point we came upon Lightning
Tree Tower which is near the base of the canyon. This tower
stands at least over 15 feet tall and 8 feet wide. It has several
layers of masonry to the walls with a large section that has collapsed
and appears as a several feet high rubble pile. Near the
tower is a large boulder with an accumulation of flat tabular-like
stones built up against it that runs out in a straight line for
several feet. These layers of stone could be evidence of possible
terracing and Ruth has identified the area as a reservoir.
This tower appears to be a solitary structure and begs the question
of why it is there. This field season a good goal may be to examin
the tower's line of sight with other possible towers in the area.
Are there towers along Yellow Jacket Canyon? [there totally
are!-kellam] If there are other towers in the area it may be evidence
for some sort of Lightning Tree community. While following the dried creek bed to the SW corner of our survey are we came across large patches of Morrison mudstone and some quite large quartzite river stones. [I feel that this area, and further west, may have been one spot where people living on Burro Point and in Lightning Tree Canyon acquired raw lithic materials-kellam] The area was riddled with degrading sandstone and a dense accumulation of juniper trees and pinion pine trees. [Becky] The SE corner group had some rough terrain, going in and out of drainages and through heavy forest. [I agree, gambel's oak isn't nearly so cool when you have to go straight through it-kellam] Boundary was accurate ± 10m, the SE corner is accurate to ± 2m The NW corner group (Tucker, Ruth, Seth, Chelsea) also had rough terrain, walking up a cliff, but had good visibility, so the boundary is very accurate, as are the corners. SE group: used a method of leapfrogging.
The two people w/ compasses leap-frogging each other and taking
bearings of each other. A third person marked the boundary, while
a fourth made sure the GPS agreed and checked w/ the map. NW group: ran out of marking tape
½ way though second segment (middle of N boundary). Will
finish tomorrow. |