WE HAVE MOVED!

http://RainierVolunteersNPS.tumblr.com
http://Facebook.com/RainierVolunteersNPS

Mount Rainier National Park's volunteer program is now on Tumblr and Facebook rather than Blogger. Please update your bookmarks and subscriptions.

All blog posts have been migrated to the new site, so you will still be able to find, on Tumblr, all of the resources that had been gathered here over the past decade.

Thanks,

Kevin Bacher
Volunteer and Outreach Program Manager
Mount Rainier National Park

Volunteer Blog moving to Tumblr and Facebook

The volunteer program of Mount Rainier National Park began this blog almost ten years ago, in the wake of the great flood that swept through the park in November of 2006. Since then, we've posted more than 1400 stories about the awesome work that volunteers do to help protect our park and serve its visitors!

At the time we opened this account, the National Park Service had very little presence on social media, so we were pioneering mostly uncharted territory. We selected Blogger as our blog platform for a variety of reasons including ease of use and our best guess that it would last as a website.

Over the years, the NPS caught up with us, and today, there is an official Park Service presence on many different social media platforms, including Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Periscope, Tumblr, Twitter, and YouTube. Mount Rainier has official sites on most of these, under the name "MountRainierNPS." The sites follow guidelines established to ensure uniformity and best practice, including the use of an NPS arrowhead as the icon or avatar for each site, and the suffix "NPS" at the end of each name.

Unfortunately, Blogger is not included in the list of approved social media sites.

Therefore, over the next week or two, the volunteer program will be migrating to Tumblr instead. Tumblr allows 250 posts per day, so the transfer from Blogger will take at least six days to complete. When it is done, we'll post a note here, permanently directing you to the new site. Meanwhile, you can check out the work in progress at our new address, http://RainierVolunteersNPS.tumblr.com.

Notice that our familiar "RainierVolunteers" name is now "RainierVolunteersNPS," in line with NPS standards. Otherwise, you can expect the same information-rich content as before, full of stories about volunteer opportunities and accomplishments and photos of volunteers in action!

Meanwhile, our Facebook page, formerly "RainierVolunteers," now also has the NPS suffix. Follow us on Facebook at http://Facebook.com/RainierVolunteersNPS.

We've experimented with Twitter and YouTube in the past as well, so those sites may also transition to our new name. We'll keep you posted!

Thanks for your continued support over all these years,

Kevin Bacher
Mount Rainier National Park

MRNPA Summer Schedule

Greetings,

Mount Rainier National Park  Associates will be conducting six volunteer work parties at Mount Rainier on six Saturdays during 2017.   Four of those Saturdays of doing trail maintenance work and two Saturdays we will be assisting a park  crew in doing "resource management".   We invite you to join us for a day or two of volunteer work, donating your time and effort, but also enjoying the amazing place that is Mount Rainier National Park and the company of some great people.

Please mark your calendars to join us on any, or all, of the following dates.  The locations will be determined by park staff about two weeks before the volunteer work party.

April 29th - doing trail maintenance   A great day to get that first spring outing at Mount Rainier.
May 20th -  doing trail maintenance
June 17th - doing trail maintenance
July 15th   The Deveg  -  A day doing exotic plant removal (also known as weeding).  This is a surprisingly fun Saturday
August 19th - doing trail maintenance during the day, followed by a pot luck dinner, and an overnight camp for the volunteers who have worked that day
September 9th  The Reveg  - A day doing planting of wildflower seedlings to re-establish alpine meadows.  This may be at either Sunrise or Paradise.

I hope to see you on one, or more, of these MRNPA volunteer work parties.

John Titland
Volunteer Coordinator
Mount Rainier National Park Associates

Leave No Trace Trainer Course

Mount Rainier Volunteer Brian Carpenter has announced that he will be giving a "Leave No Trace Trainer" course through the Mountaineers. The class is open to non-members and will include an easy overnight backpacking trip to Ancient Lakes in Eastern Washington. It is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, March 25-26. Participants will examine research covering recommended "best practices" and will discuss the spectrum of personal comfort levels, ethics and philosophies which determine how individuals make choices in the backcountry.  For more details, visit the Mountaineers' listing here: Leave No Trace Trainer Course. Course graduates will earn the nationally-recognized title "Leave No Trace Trainer" and will receive a certificate of completion. 

Fee is $40 for Mountaineers members, $60 for non-members. Participants must supply their own backpacking gear and food. Registration closes on March 20.