Even though it may be raining in your neck of the woods, those visiting Paradise recently have been seeing lots of that beautiful snow falling from the sky. With the first snowfall of the year comes some of the first skiers, snowshoers, and sledders. Personally, I cannot wait to get out there and start rolling around in the snow (I may have already made my first snowball of the year...hint: I did), but we need to remember that just a few inches under that frozen surface are thousands upon thousands of fragile plants. Many visitors to Paradise may not realize it, but by walking off of the paved trails and sledding thorugh the meadows, they could be wiping out scores of vegetation. With this amount of snow on the ground, the trails can still be recognized by the way they are smoother than the vegetated areas around them.
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| Image from webcam facing the road to Paradise, 3:16pm, November 12. |
In order to protect the stunning resources we have under all of that fluffy stuff, we need to have a solid five feet of snowpack, especially before we start to leave the trails or showshoe, ski, etc. If any of you are interested in making your first snowball of the season in the upcoming weeks and helping out to protect the fragile meadows, please contact me (Ian) directly, and I will help you get everything set up!
We are planning our Winter Operations training in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned for more information, both on this blog and on our Volunteer Facebook page! If you have any questions or you want to come out and play volunteer in the snow, contact Ian at ian_harvey@partner.nps.gov !
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