Share The Wonders

The linked article was written by Russ Aguilar, a participant in the NPS Academy who volunteered at Mount Rainier Naitonal Park during the summer of 2010. Profoundly moved by his experience, Russ says, "I became an Environmental Studies major and completed two more SCA internships, one at a small wetland-prairie refuge in northern Minnesota with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and one at Yellowstone. The Yellowstone internship was part of NPS Academy, a collaborative program between SCA and the National Park Service that introduces college students from diverse backgrounds to national parks and the range of career opportunities within NPS...There are many things that each of us can do to help save the natural world, and I think the biggest of them all is sharing the joy that nature brings you with others."

Read the full text of his story here: Sharing the Wonders of National Parks.

Looking for a Park Ranger in Paradise

Early summer above Paradise

Opportunity Summary: 
What could be better than being a ranger in Paradise? Mount Rainier National Park is looking for a highly-capable full-time volunteer to patrol trails and assist with emergency response in one of its busiest and most beautiful districts.

Opportunity Description: 
Serves as a volunteer park ranger working out of Paradise in Mount Rainier National Park. This person will work closely with the West District Rangers helping with visitor management in one of the busiest areas of the park. This includes: patrolling the high use day-use trails, parking vehicles, enforcing park regulations and responding to emergency incidents. They will provide visitors with information concerning safety, area information, travel routes, historical and natural features, outdoor ethics and authorized use of recreational areas. They will perform foot patrols in both backcountry and frontcountry areas of the park, making visitor contacts and providing resource information and education. This person also serves as a member of the park’s emergency response for medical and search and rescue incidents based on type and level of certification. They may also assist with monitoring of the activities of concessionaires, special permit holders and commercial use licensees for compliance.

This position will be active from June to September, and will include park housing. Candidates should be in excellent physical condition and capable of hiking long distances in rough terrain or over snow. Experience and certifications in emergency response, law enforcement, and/or visitor services are all helpful. For more information, contact Daniel Camiccia at 360-569-6652 or Daniel_Camiccia@nps.gov.

Apply online now!

Nordic Patrol Wraps Up 2012-13 Winter Season

Phil Hertzog resetting a trail pole, photo by Barry Shepherd

On March 31, the Mount Rainier National Park’s Nordic Patrol wrapped up its 2012-13 winter season in the Park.  The Nordic Patrol is made up of volunteers supplied by the Washington Ski Touring Club (WSTC). Our volunteers patrol the backcountry trails of the Park on weekends and holidays.

On a typical weekend, we reset all of the trail poles on the marked backcountry routes and then head out to make visitor contacts.  Our primary mission is to be the eyes and ears for the Park’s Rangers and to conduct PSAR (Preventative Search and Rescue). We often assist visitors with directions, provide trail maps, educate backcountry users on Park rules and check overnight camping permits. Occasionally we also help on searches and rescues. In addition to the marked winter trails; our volunteers can be found up on the Skyline trail, Panorama Point, Mazama Ridge, Reflection Lakes, Edith Basin, Tatoosh Range and Cowlitz Rocks. This season we had 47 volunteer Nordic Patrollers out in the backcountry who put in over 1,081 hours. 

If you are interested in volunteering for Nordic Patrol, visit http://wstc.org. To join Nordic Patrol, you must be competent in companion avalanche rescue, a member of WSTC, and able to ski and navigate the backcountry high country mentioned above.

A big thank you to the volunteers who came out on Nordic Patrol and made this a safe and uneventful winter season in the Park’s backcountry.

Phil Hertzog,
Nordic Patrol Co-coordinator

MRNPA Work Parties for Summer 2013

On April 27th, the MRNPA has a great day planned on the Tahoma Woods Trail. This 1.3 mile loop trail, used extensively by residents and NPS personnel and Education Center activity groups, is in need of attention due to vegetation overgrowth along the trail corridor. The day’s project priorities include the removal of encroaching vegetation, downed trees and other debris from the corridor. In addition to Park Headquarters, Tahoma Woods is also the location of the greenhouse facility where the seedlings for the meadow restoration program are grown. Sometime during the volunteer day on April 27th, the group will have the opportunity to visit the greenhouse.

The group will be staging at the Tahoma Woods housing area tennis court between 8:30 and 9:00 AM. From Elbe, take SR 706 3.5 miles toward Ashford. At the Park Headquarters sign, turn in and then take the first right. Proceed straight ahead to the tennis court.

If you plan to attend this April 27th trails work party, please respond by email to volunteer@mount-rainier.org to let the supervisor know you are coming. Please provide the number of volunteers who will accompany you. If you have your own hard hat and/or safety glasses, you are asked to bring them. Safety equipment will be provided for those who do not have their own.

Future MRNPA projects include trail work projects on May 18, June 15 and August 10, removal of exotic plants on July 13 and a revegetation project at Sunrise on September 7. If you are interested in participating in any or all of the above activities, please contact volunteer@mount-rainier.org or visit MRNPA's website at mrnpa.org.

What's a Volunteer Worth, Anyway?

Well, the current value of volunteer time (provided by Independent Sector) makes the 74,615 hours of service donated by last year's 1804 volunteers worth $1.65 million. The new value of volunteer time by the hour is $22.14, a 35-cent increase from last year. And that's just the money figures! Their estimate didn't include sunny smiles, great attitudes, and the rest of the bonuses which come with your willingness to volunteer!

Volunteers Wanted for Litter Patrol!

As of this writing, only about half of the vacancies have been filled for our April 20th Adopt-a-Highway litter patrol and the litter along State Route 706 is multiplying daily! Please join us in tidying up for Earth Day and the summer season! Contact Petrina_Vecchio@partner.nps.gov to reserve your spot.

We will be staging at Tahoma Woods (approximately three miles east of Elbe) at 9 AM. There will be a brief orientation before the patrol begins.

Cashier/Information Assistant Volunteer

Discover Your Northwest is seeking a cashier/information assistant for the educational sales area at Sunrise. DYN is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the discovery of northwest public lands, to enriching the experience of visitors, and to encouraging stewardship of these special places today and for generations to come.

Cashier/information assistant responsibilties include providing excellent customer service, assisting visitors with resource information, and cashiering. The position is available from late June until early September. Applicants should expect to work weekends and holidays. Retail experience and a background in customer service are preferred.

Send resumés to:
Mount Rainier National Park
Discover Your Northwest
55210 238th Ave. East
Ashford, WA 98304

A Friend of the Park

Late on Sunday February 24th, I received word that a long-time volunteer at Mount Rainier National Park, Jeanne Friend, had passed away. Due to illness, it's taken me a week to write this remembrance, but that has also given me a lot of time to think about what Jeanne meant to Mount Rainier, and about the many ways she contributed to this place that will have long, lasting, and positive effects.

With declining health, Jeanne last contributed hours as a volunteer in 2009 -- but that was her 27th year on our volunteer roles. I pulled her folder out of our archives and it's three quarters of an inch thick with time sheets, e-mails, volunteer agreements, photographs, and letters, many of them hand-written. Here's a little note with a time sheet reading "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family." Here's another from 2005, at the beginning of a new project, reading "Here I am back again! The Mountain keeps calling."

For most of her volunteer career, Jeanne's passion was with the revegetation program. She was actively involved with a Boy Scout troup in Everett, starting with restoration of the old Paradise Campground in 1983, and her folder includes photos of teams working on other restoration projects above Paradise from 1984 through 1997. Many of the still-healing patches in the meadows that you'll see during the summer, where errant boots created social trails and volunteer crews repaired them, were her doing, and that of her teams. She also served as a "Paradise Ranger Assistant" under Ranger John Madden, patrolling trails and helping in the ranger station full time from 1997 to 2000 and part-time in 2001 during the summer. In later years, she helped with the park library and curatorial collection, and conducted research into the history of Mount Rainier National Park alongside Bob McIntyre, Jr.

She has a total of 7,457.5 hours of time logged in our database. Some of her last time sheets, totaling eight or nine hours a month, include apologies for not turning in more time, and promises to try to do better.

In 2003, Mount Rainier National Park created a new award category for volunteers, called the Superintendent's Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service. Only a handful of individuals have received this most prestigious honor over the years; Jeanne was one of the first. What follows is the full text of the citation on her award:

Jeanne Friend is a Mount Rainier treasure. She came here as a widow with three teenage sons, camped at Cougar Rock, and began volunteering. In the beginning she did meadow revegetation, and when winter came she placed avalanche wands for the rangers. Ultimately, she gave every possible kind of support to the ranger operations at Paradise.

She made Mount Rainier her life for many years. Starting in May, she worked all hours, day and night. Officially, she has given 7,233 hours of servce to the Park over the course of 21 years. In fact, she often didn't report all the hours she worked. She routinely worked 10-hour days, and wouldn't go home at night if there was something that needed to be done.

Jeanne became a Gal Friday to John Madden and other rangers. New rangers at Paradise often learned the ropes from her: she knew what needed to be done, when it should be done, and where the equipment was to do it. She would anticipate jobs, have ready what was needed to do them, and then do them herself if necessary. This included directing traffic and shoveling snow from trails so visitors would stay off the meadows.

She was often the only person available during crises. In one instance she directed a helicopter landing; another time she was a great help in evacuating the Paradise Inn after a bomb scare.

She knows Paradise as few people do, and is a reference person on everything from flower indentification to geography and human history. She was a personal friend of Floyd Schmoe, Mount Rainier's first Park Naturalist, and she wrote a History of Paradise.

Jeanne is the quintessential Mount Rainier volunteer. She was not limited by any job description. She saw what needed to be done, and saw that it got done. Mount Rainier National Park is a better place for all of us because she was here.

Jeanne's work is now done, and her service is complete. But her spirit will linger here on the Mountain for many, many years, and we are all better for it. Rest in peace, Jeanne... and thank you.

Volunteers Pick It Up!

Mount Rainier's Volunteers teamed up with the Department of Transportation last fall to adopt the stretch of State Route 706 between Milepost 2 and Milepost 4. We have contracted with them to perform three litter patrols annually. Following our first pickup, the DoT posted signs acknowledging our service at both ends of the designated area. Look for them as you drive up to the Park!

It's time to start thinking about our next patrol which is slated for Saturday, April 20. The date was selected to coincide with Earth Day, April 22. Volunteer Coordinator Crow is looking for eight to ten "litter pickers" who can devote a couple of hours to help out. We will be staging at Tahoma Woods at 9 AM. Following a brief orientation, teams will be dispatched with bags and grabbers. If you would like to participate in this community service come rain or shine, please email Crow at Petrina_Vecchio@partner.nps.gov.

Volunteers contribute more than $1.6 million worth of work to Mount Rainier

From The News Tribune:

Volunteers contribute work "equal to the amount of time 150 seasonal employees would work during a typical summer. 'There’s no way we could afford to pay for that many people,' Bacher said. 'That (volunteer effort) is so important in these times when we are being asked to do more with less.'"

Click through to read the whole article.