February 2026 Newsletter
the power of PLACE
Director's Letter - February 2026
February is a time to reflect on water at its source. National River Day and World Wetlands Day, both on Feb. 2, remind us that everything downstream depends on what happens upstream — at the headwaters. Snowpack becomes wetlands. Wetlands feed rivers. Rivers sustain ecosystems, agriculture, and communities far beyond the mountains where they begin…
Ian Billick | PhD
Executive Director, RMBL
sciencestories
Waiting for Snow in Gothic: RMBL’s Patient Urgency in the Face of Climate Disruption
On Nov. 14, 2025, I drove the short distance from my apartment in Mount Crested Butte to Dr. David Inouye’s cabin in South Gothic. At that point in this dry year, the Gunnison Basin measured 16 percent of average…
Staff Spotlight – February 2026
Mapping Change: Ian Breckheimer Tracks Water and Vegetation in a Changing World
In the mountains surrounding RMBL’s Gothic campus, snow settles into alpine basins, melts into wetlands and soils, gathers into rivers and ultimately flows to communities far downstream…
Alumni Stories – February 2026
Voices of RMBL: Kara Cromwell
In 2012, I spent my first summer at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL), and it was often a lonely one. My research project was streamlined enough that I didn’t need a field crew, and no other graduate students from my program at the University of Wisconsin worked in Gothic. I spent early mornings…