Just finished our ISDSI Retreat with students and staff up at Mok Faa waterfall, part of the Doi Pui/Doi Suthep National Park.  This semester we focused on really minimizing the activities during the retreat to allow lots of free time, time to go swim in the waterfall, take a nap, and just get to know each other.  We did a couple of sessions on risk and responsibility, how to respond to an emergency in the field, and how to develop good judgment–activities designed to be fun, interactive, working as teams, and learning some good lessons that will be useful later.

The waterfall at Mok Faa is cool and flows year-round.  We’ll see if it manages to do it this year.

Dry fields north of Chiang Mai.

Hot season is starting early.  Usually it isn’t until March that the weather is this hot, but it started a couple of weeks ago.  We’ve still got cool nights, but the days are getting hot.  The dry weather is allowing people to burn leaves, grass, and whatever it is they want to. While bad air quality is usually blamed on “tribal people” (like most things), from what we can see it is mostly urban burning and burning in the lowland fields as they prepare to plant their dry season crop of soy or garlic.  Dust from construction of roads (and ever popular activity) also is a big factor.

Every year there is a point where you can’t see the mountains around Chiang Mai, and last week you couldn’t see them.  This week seems a bit better, but it is still getting bad.  There is a lot of talk that it is dryer than last year, and there are concerns about forest fires. We’re also wondering how low the Yom river will be this year when we paddle it.  Usually it never goes dry in the section we paddle, but there are often low parts where we have to do some hauling of the boats.

We’ll know soon enough.