Longmire Campground Improvements

What's new in the Longmire Stewardship Campground? For starters, we've refurbished a number of campsites by gravelling tent pads and pull-ins and adding picnic tables built in the old CCC style. New fire pits have been installed at selected locations, including one specifically designed to be ADA-accessible. The group site has also been improved, with benches arranged so that volunteers can gather and socialize around a common fire. The rocks lining many pathways have been reset to better define the routes to the comfort stations, and much of the debris has been removed.

What plans do we have for the future? The middle comfort station will be restored and a picnic shelter will be built just north of the group site. Both projects should be completed by the end of the season and will be ready for use by volunteers next year.

Sites are available to volunteers who are actively working in the Park and should be reserved at least two weeks in advance of your anticipated tour of duty. You may specify which site you'd prefer, but remember that the best ones fill up fast! Platform tents are also available if you would prefer to camp off the ground. Contact Kevin_Bacher (at) nps.gov for more information.

Planning for National Trails Day

National Trails Day is June 5, 2010. As that date approaches, several projects are beginning to take shape. Pencil these into your calendar, and watch for details, coming soon on this blog!

Glacier Basin Trail Construction: Our major "Trail" project will be on the Glacier Basin Trail under the direction of our partner, the Washington Trails Association. This project isn't on WTA's project calendar yet, but it's being planned, and will be one of the major kickoff events for this year's trail volunteer program.

Longmire Campground Opening: Utilities are tentatively scheduled to be turned on in the Longmire Volunteer Campground about May 22nd. We're working on final arrangements to hire a pair of campground hosts who would begin about that time, and who could use some assistance, off and on through the week, in getting winter storm debris picked up and the bath house cleaned and ready for volunteers to use. On June 5, we'll tip the plywood platforms down onto their foundations and set up our collection of wall tents. Unlike last year, there shouldn't be any snow to shovel first in order to make that happen!

Picnic Table Relocation: A long-term goal for the Longmire Campground has been to install historic-style picnic tables (the heavy "half-round" log style common throughout the park) in the campground's 32 sites. Funding for this project, and for installation of additional concrete grills, has been hard to come by; but a solution has finally been approved (one first suggested by a volunteer a year ago): Dig out the picnic tables buried in silt at Sunshine Point, and move them to Longmire. This will be a major project, involving digging, carrying, transport, and probably disassembly and reassembly.

Signing up: As soon as WTA posts its National Trails Day event, volunteers can sign up through their website. Watch this blog for details of how to register, as an individual, for events at Longmire, which will be posted as soon as we work out the logistics of our projects. Groups should call me to express their interest, at 360-569-2211 ext. 3385, with information about approximately how many people to expect.