Sorry for the long time between posts, it has been a busy couple of weeks. The hand is mostly healed up, although it still hasn't gotten back it's full mobility. I've had had three crews working in the park, an exotic plant mapping group, a group of masons stabilizing a historic structure, and my field crew mapping sites. After some training in optical surveying a couple weeks ago they "graduated" to the total station. Here they are mapping an eroded Pueblo in the park. I think that they are getting pretty good at generating topographic base maps, the one here involved over 600 shots and the pueblo plots out very well with 10 cm contours.

The monsoons have really kicked up here as well.We have been getting afternoon storms pretty much every day. On our way back from the field yesterday we got caught in a pretty spectacular downpour, complete with lightning, thunder, and hail. The Painted Desert is a sight to see covered with water with streams and arroyos running all over.

Had a short week here in the Painted Desert with the Wednesday holiday. But did spent Tuesday and Thursday out with the field crew. We spent Tuesday monitoring the condition of some petroglyphs in the back country and Thursday mapping a small Peublo II-III site right off the park road. Even though it is only a few hundred feet from the road, the initial site recoding had never been finished. It seemed like the ideal opportunity to teach the tech and intern about making maps...

While we do have a total station, I believe that everybody needs to understand basic mapping with an optical instrument first. I have seen far too many errors in total station data which are very obvious if the user understand the basics of what the numbers mean, or even just which direction north is. Whilst we may no longer need to know the horizontal and vertical angles to set up mapping grids, just understanding what they mean will show you instantly if the instrument messed up.

Anybody out there still use a transit for site mapping?