Student Conservation Association Partnership with
Crew Leaders – Michelle Hessey, Max Gordon
Crew | Dates | Project Location |
Session I | June 28 – July 12, 2010 | Glacier Basin Trail Re-Route, |
Session II | July 19 – Aug 2, 2010 | South Puyallup River Trail, |
Session III | Aug 9 – Aug 23, 2010 | Glacier Basin Trail Re-Route, |
The Crews
The 2010 Mt. Rainier
Session I
1. Lena Easton-Calabria – SCA School Year Alum from Seattle , WA
2. Ariana Dionisio – SCA School Year Alum from Seattle , WA
3. Camilla Senter – SCA School Year Alum from Seattle , WA
4. Colleen Cirilo – SCA School Year Alum from Seattle , WA
5. Victoria Yuen – SCA School Year Alum from Seattle , WA
6. Emily Chan – SCA School Year Alum from Seattle , WA
7. Yvonne Chan –N. Cascades Climate Challenge Alum from Shoreline, WA
8. Sarah Salvador –N. Cascades Climate Challenge Alum from Shoreline, WA
Session II
1. Emily Ostrove – SCA School Year Alum from Seattle , WA
2. Desiree Silapaxay – NCWild Alumni and SCA School Year Alum from Seattle , WA
3. Laura Humes –N. Cascades Climate Challenge Alum from Shoreline, WA
4. Bellevue , WA
5. Martin Horst – SCA School Year Alum from Seattle , WA
6. Bill Lau – SCA School Year Alum from Seattle , WA
Session III
1. Elise Greiner – Seattle , WA
2. Thalia Chhan – Seattle , WA
3. Jennifer Chhan – Seattle , WA
4. Yulo Leake – Seattle , WA
5. Jared Johnson – Seattle , WA
6. Mohib Kohi – SCA Community Crew Alum, Seattle , WA
7. Christina Jarmick – Two year SCA Alum and MORA Alum from Seattle , WA
These students were led and supervised by SCA Crew Leaders Michelle Hessey of Washington , DC and Max Gordon of Seattle , WA Washigton , DC
Accomplishments
Session I
We focused on the first 100 feet of the Glacier Basin Trail. The trail had been completely washed away during the floods of 2006 when it rained 18 inches in 36 hours. Starting in 2008, Mt. Rainier National Park Glacier Basin
We started by grubbing and digging duff. We had to cut roots, remove trees, fill in holes with rocks, and cover the trail with mineral soil. We spent many days digging and bucket brigading mineral soil and rocks. We also worked on constructing water bars with rocks at tricky drainage points on the trail.
Session II
We built a turnpike over a very wet section of trail. At first, the park had built a boardwalk, but the boardwalk was rotting and had become covered with slippery moss. Our project was to rip up the old boardwalk and replace it with a turnpike.
We ripped up an 80-foot boardwalk and replaced it with a turnpike. In order to complete this task, we had to fill in the muddy areas with rocks to raise the level of the trail so the turnpike would not sink. We had to haul small boulders from a nearby river bed to form the border of the turnpike. Then we placed geofabric along the inside of borders and covered it with fist-sized rocks. Once we made a layer of fist-sized rocks in the geofabric, we folded the geofabric over like a burrito wrap and covered it with more fist-sized rocks and gravel. The geofabric was placed there to prevent the gravel from filling in the gaps between the rocks and preventing the water from passing through.
Session III
The crew was working on the second section of the Glacier Basin
Most of the trail work was evening and raising the grade of the trail. We worked on clearing big boulders out of the trail with rock bars. The rocks that were too big were blasted to pieces by the park staff. We also grubbed areas that were not so rocky, and spent a lot of time collecting and stockpiling rocks to use to fill up holes left by huge boulders.
Description of Project | # of Structures | Total Length in Feet | Person Hours |
New trail Construction | |||
Reroutes - Glacier Basin Trail Re-Route | 300 ft | 950 | |
Tread and Drainage Work | |||
Maintenance (blowdowns, widening/ sidehill, brushing, clearing drainage structures, etc) | 20 ft | 114 | |
Waterbars, Drainage ditches, dips, culverts (Rock, Timber, Prefab) | 7 water bars | 190 | |
Construction | |||
Turnpike | 1 | 80ft | 528 |
Youth Development
Most of these students joined the SCA Mt. Rainier crews after completing the SCA School Year program in Seattle , WA Mt. Rainier National Park
For many of these students this was their introduction to sleeping outside under the stars (and rain clouds!), cooking dinner, positive role models, Leave-No-Trace ethics and the rewards of working hard outside. These students had this amazing experience and will remember Mt. Rainier National Park Mt. Rainier
All three crews focused on environmental education components such as reducing food wastes, watershed connections, local flora and fauna, etc as well as participated in teambuilding games and activities. They also learned a lot from the rangers that guided the work projects at the different sites. All three crews participated in the Shadows of the Past tour at Longmire and spoke with Jim Ross about future job opportunities at Mt. Rainier National Park
Crew Highlights
- Jim Ross welcoming each crew to the park and talking about future job opportunities
- White River Campground ranger talks about glaciers, wildlife, and the geology of Mt. Rainier
- Shadows of the Past tour at Longmire.
- Solo walks along the Wonderland Trail to get connected to the natural phenomenon of the park.
- Plant identification through an activity called "Each one, teach one" in which each member taught all the other crew members about a specific plant.
- Visits to Sunrise
- MORA II hiked 5 miles round trip after work one day to the look-out at Gobblers Knob to see the sunset over Mt. Rainier South Tacoma River
- MORA III was visited by by Congressman Dave Reichert
- Glacier Basin Ranger James Montgomery talked about job opportunities at the park
- SCA intern Kenton Curtis taught the crew about ways to get involved with SCA that were different than trail work.
- They learned about plants and trees in the park, how to work together as members of a team, how to cook outside, and how to handle tools and build trails.
- Each crew member was the leader for the day. This person decided who would work on what task during the day, decided what time we would take lunch and breaks, and decided how long the breaks would be. The leader of the day was also responsible for talking to the agency partners (along with crew leaders) to figure out what our goals and tasks for the day would be.
Thank you
Much appreciation goes to Mt. Rainier National Park
Photos
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