New River State Park

Yesterday, we made a rather long trip to New River State Park - a new destination for both the Science on the AT course and Duke TIP (which meant, of course, that our trip there did not follow the most efficient route - it took us almost an hour and a half to get there, and only about 45 minutes to get back... knowing where you're going - and driving downhill - makes such a difference). Swimming and other water activities are strictly prohibited by Duke policy, so it was a to-the-knees-please kind of river adventure. Still, I heard "that was the best field trip ever!" more than once, so I suppose the policy didn't put too much of a damper on the fun. The purpose of our trip was to conduct aquatic sampling (read: catching bugs and other invertebrates) in the river as a proxy for measuring water quality (some species only live in pristine waters; find them, and you've got yourself some high-quality H2O). New River is recognized for its water quality, so we found plenty of cool and unusual critters.

P.S. Remember the creepy-crawly from our hike to Linville Falls? We saw plenty of his cousins in the New River. It turns out that he was a Dobson fly larva, crawling up on land to pupate. I'm afraid metamorphosis won't do him any good; they're just as creepy-looking when they emerge. 

It was a fun trip. The kids really liked it, and I'm not one to complain about a chance to put my toesies in some water (although, we had to wear our tennis shoes in the river - park policy this time - and I doubt mine will ever fully dry or recover aromatically). Actually, I was surprised by how well everyone handled the instruction to go catch as many bugs as possible. After some initial hesitation, they became expert rock-flippers, seine-net-users, and crawdad-grabbers. I think we might have scouted out a new field trip destination for many future TIPsters.