Cerra Grande

Up until 1970, the forests in New Mexico would ignite in a fiery burn and reset the canopy every 7 to 15 years. But then that stopped, and the forest grew thick and dense, and by 2000, forest rangers felt it a good idea to start a controlled forest fire. Smokey the bear disagrees...

What follows was later named, The Cerra Grande, or the big fire. Of course it got out of control and the entire city of Los Alamos had to be evacuated. The thousands of people displaced, the unfortunate few who didn't make it, and the millions of dollars of damages to property weren't even the worst consequence. You see, when topsoil is burnt it becomes hydrophobic, and with no vegetation to soak up rain water, the city had an even worse problem on their hands - how to control the rain season (late summer). More damages ensued....

Now, in 2008, what remains are only the signs of such an epic fire. Above is a picture I took of a hike to the top of the Cerra Grande, a mountaintop named after its own fiery demise.

Getting here and Day 1

So this summer I set out to Los Alamos, NM to start a two month long internship at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. I arrive last Wednesday, and by this afternoon (Friday) I realized how exciting and fun this experience will be, so in an attempt to remember it forever (and share my experiences with you all) I decided to start a blog.

I by no means am an eloquent writer, but I hope to make this lively and interesting. Plus, I will share with you the research (I'll keep that to a minimum) and more importantly, all of my activities outside the work.

First... getting here was quite a taxing event. The night before I left, my roommate and I finished packing our room into storage units (yes... plural, we scavenged space from several friends and somehow made money on the deal) at around 3 o'clock in the morning. My flight was at 4 pm that day, and was delayed 2 hours, putting me into ABQ (I dare not try and spell the whole city) at around 1 in the morning. That translates to 3 in the morning on the east coast, so after another 2 hour drive to Los Alamos in a rent a car I was pretty taxed. About 3 hours of sleep later the landlord was knocking on my door asking for the first month's rent and had the cable guy ready to set up the internet.

Later I met with my advisor, Dr. Gary Xie, who seems incredibly nice and outgoing. He is making an extra effort to make sure my time here is enjoyable - he is lending me a mountain bike, asked if I had enough clothes, and gave me a quick tour of the town.

At 7,000 ft about sea level, Los Alamos presents a unique, high-altitude training opportunity. I will plan to take advantage of that, and will swim at their olympic size pool as much as I can. Alot of other exercise will include biking, and most excitingly, hiking. The trails out here are ridiculous, I will upload pictures as soon as I can.

Alright, that seems lengthy enough for a first post. My next post will center around my impressions on a book I just read in the public library about the founding of Los Alamos, and consequentially, the building and testing of the first atomic bomb. There are some interesting anecdotes to that story!

Best,
Kevin