Ronto, Sean 2006 Journal June 16 Great Falls Basin, China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, Inyo Co., CA Ted and I met Tom Campbell and a team of archeologists from China Lake and drove to the junction of the road to Mt. Maturango Peak and the road to Birchen Spring. A fuel truck met us there and we waited until a helicopter arrived. The archeologists wanted to look at several petroglyph sites and we wanted to put pitfall traps into several springs in Great Falls Basin below Argus Peak. We all got into the helicopter at 10AM (it fit 9 people) and flew south. Ted and two friends of Tom were dropped off somewhere in the general area of Deep Canyon Spring and then I flew north. The east slope of Argus Peak coming down into Great Falls Basin seemed to have superior spring habitat in nearly every canyon, and some springs appeared to have surface flow and larger trees (probably cottonwoods). A GIS contractor named Dave and I were dropped off in the canyon west of Willow Spring at 10:30AM. We hiked down off the small flat ridge where the helicopter landed into the stream area. There were several pools of water with Bufo punctatus larvae in them, some of which were extremely small and shallow and others of which were at least a foot deep. There were probably at least a hundred tadpoles between all the small pools. I found 2 small toads and collected one (SMR99 - use GPS from trap 3). We walked upstream to find good areas for traps. Most of the streambed was either dry sand or damp sand, with isolated pools of water. Thick, tall grass and clumps of willow bordered the stream. We had a hard time finding areas that were moist and shaded but out of reach of flooding.