Amapping We Will Go…

Blue Ridge Foothills and Lakes Chapter head out to our local National Monument on another cool project!

The mapping team (Tommy, Dr Don, Meg, Rick, Connie and myself not pictured)

The Booker T. Washington National Monument is our local slice of national treasure.  It is 200+ acres of our heritage and our history.  In order to help document the lay of the land, or in this case the water, our own BRFAL member, Dr. Don Kelso has wanted to accurately map the meandering Jack-O-Lantern and Gill’s creeks that flow through the BoWA Monument grounds. 

Rick our master mapper

So in lieu of having a crack team of highly skilled professionals, Dr. Don solicited help from our local BRFAL Chapter of Virginia Master Naturalists.  Armed with tape measures, a compass, a GPS, some marking flags, a huge clipboard and some large sheets of 4 to the inch graph paper, we headed fearlessly out to begin our mapping project.  With a modicum of training provided by Dr. Don we started our mapping project.  Then we started again, this time doing it a little better.

After about 4 hours of bumbling along, we managed to map about ½ of Jack-O-Lantern and none of Gill’s creek.  But all in all, we done good.  We will be back to finish up armed with our extensive experience.

Rich Brager

Dr Don barking orders

The Map

Learn more about Booker T Washington's Birthplace here.

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Our next chapter master naturalist basic training will be September 2013! If you are interested, take a peek at some of the documents on this blog (top and right side bar) or drop us a line at mail: BRFAL.VMN@gmail.com