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Maya Stokes, who grew up in Eastvale, just outside Corona, had never been camping before April 2024.

But the ��ɫ���� student got her first taste of the experience while doing research for her landscape restoration class at River Ridge Ranch, at the foothills of Sequoia National Park in Tulare County.

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“I was really, really scared at first. I never lived in a remote place. I had never been fully immersed in nature,” said Stokes, a fifth-year student (and minor) who just finished her final semester this past fall and is graduating in May. “You could hear coyotes howling at night. You never know what’s out there at night. I wondered, ‘Am I well-equipped to do something like this?’ It was kind of a culture shock. I was struggling a little bit, with just being outdoors. I got the hang of it, though.”

She returned to River Ridge Ranch for a seven-week stay last summer, obtaining a stipend to do more research, which was possible through a National Science Foundation grant secured by ��ɫ����’s geography department.

“Being there with friends, I just got used to it over time. And the stars were so beautiful at night. I feel like I learned so much, and I made really good connections, and I published research that I feel very proud of. It’s helping me now that I’m about to graduate. It’s really nice to get paid and do research and just be out in nature .... I’m happy I was able to get that experience.”

Stokes is one of hundreds of students since 2018 who have ventured out to River Ridge Ranch, a 722-acre nature preserve and ranch about 203 miles – or three hours – north of the ��ɫ���� campus.

Through geography and environmental studies classes, plus a seven-week summer session, students are trekking out into nature with academic goals in mind. Many are experiencing camping for the first time. Urban kids are going out to rural areas, bridging the rural-urban divide.

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The ranch setting is diverse and scenic, located at the base of Sequoia National Forest, which contains some of the largest trees in the world. Various ecosystems exist there, and the Tule River – a major provider of water to the San Joaquin Valley in Central California – runs through it.

River Ridge Ranch is a special place, preserved from development for research, camping and recreation. It is run by Gary Adest, a former biology scholar who has taught at CSU Los Angeles and UC San Diego, and his wife Barbara Brydolf, a conservation biologist.  

“People who own large landscapes can be both thoughtful ecological managers, and make a living at the same time,” Adest said. “I am a lifelong educator and researcher. I like to shine light on subjects, and that means educating people.”  

��ɫ���� geography and environmental studies faculty are also conducting research at the ranch. They bring their classes up there, up to 36 students at a time, and the students do research, guided or assisted by the faculty and teaching assistants.  

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River Ridge provides a largely untouched landscape where students can do true field work, collaborate with each other and with faculty, and get a sense of what it means to live in the wild. The ranch does have three minimally furnished cabins, bunk beds, indoor and outdoor kitchens, showers and waste facilities, as well as Wi-Fi. It is equipped to welcome students with disabilities.  

“The (students) are understanding and applying the scientific method through the whole process, learning how to articulate research questions, and communicating the data they find,” said Mystyn Mills, an assistant professor of geography who takes students to the ranch every semester. She added that the students are creating reports from their research and doing presentations, including crafting posters.

In some cases, like Stokes’, undergraduates who visit the ranch are getting their research published, which is rare for undergraduates in any field.  

The geography and environmental studies faculty who regularly trek up to the ranch include Mills, Paul Laris, Scott Winslow, Angela Wranic and Benjamin Hagedorn.

Visiting the ranch has become part of the curriculum for ��ɫ���� students taking various geography classes, including graduate courses in geographic information science, as well as ESP 400: Environmental Science and Policy Capstone Project. The NSF grant is called Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU).

Laris said he hopes the ranch can serve as a training ground for students to study rural environments and learn how to become land managers, rangers, conservation scientists, nature researchers and more. They can also use cutting-edge technology, such as drones, to conduct research in a safe environment.

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“You can study all kinds of effects – climate change, long-term effects of fire, cattle grazing, soil carbon, animal behaviors,” Laris said. “Students can compare their data with students who came before and see if there’s a change in data. Also, students can get to know each other, the faculty can get to know students. Getting students outdoors, sitting around the campfire, everyone gets to know each other – that’s a really valuable experience.”  

Briana Riley, a fourth-year environmental studies and policy student, has been to the ranch several times to study scavenger species, or “animals that eat already dead things.” She has used her talents in photography to capture the movements of animals that normally avoid humans and/or are nocturnal.

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“If you have the opportunity to go there, I think you should,” Riley said. “You get so much out of it. There’s nothing in environmental studies that can give you the same output. It’s such a good opportunity.

“Everyone that’s there cares about you. Everyone is there to help you. You couldn’t be in a safer environment.”

Riley, who aspires to pursue a career in wildlife preservation, added that River Ridge Ranch has been a rare opportunity to “get off the grid.”  

“It forces you to be out there in nature, and off your phone,” she said. “I love being disconnected. I was barely on my phone this past summer, and I loved it.”