Campground Cleanup, Part Deux!

Good news, for those of you who missed the sunshine and camaraderie this past weekend -- we have confirmed a second weekend project to continue cleaning up storm debris in the Longmire Campground!

We will plan to begin work at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 15, meeting at the Longmire Community Building. (Turn past the old stone-foundation Administration Building at Longmire -- the one with the flagpole in front -- and cross the Nisqually River on the suspension bridge. The Community Building is a few hundred yard further along the river.)

The rumor about this project has spread, so we already have several individuals and families that are interested in joining us. If you'd like to do so as well, please RSVP to Kevin_Bacher@nps.gov or 360-569-6567. Also let us know whether you plan to camp. We can provide free campsites and access to the shower building. We also now have five platform tents set up that could be used, each with two cots. The campsites will hold RVs up to about 25' in length.

Our project will involve cleaning up winter storm debris -- we began the process this past weekend, but there are still sites and stretches of the campground road on the back of the loop that need to be cleaned up -- and gathering existing piles of storm debris to dispose of in a large bin for removal to a more appropriate site. We have wheelbarrows, rakes, and brooms. We have a small supply of gloves, but recommend bringing your own if you have them. Be sure to bring water, snacks, and a lunch as well. We'll work until the drop box is full, or until you all run out of steam!

See you there!

Photos from the Longmire Campground

Longmire Campground Volunteers 2013, a set on Flickr.

On June 8, volunteers helped set up the Longmire Volunteer Campground for the season. Here are a few photos to enjoy from the event!

Tents Up!

A hard-working batch of geocachers and Mount Rainier Volunteers gathered together today in the Longmire Campground for the annual spring cleanup and installation of five platform tents which serve as temporary housing for volunteers throughout the summer months. The event was officially billed at Geocaching.com as a "CITO" (Cache In, Trash Out) and was the seventh annual gathering of this type at this location. The work went smoothly. Participants ranged in age from pre-school kids to senior citizens, each contributing their best efforts to the project. Go, Volunteers!

The Volunteer Program is hoping to enlist a second cleanup team to remove storm debris next weekend. Stay tuned to this blog for updates, and if you're interested in participating, please contact Kevin via Kevin_Bacher@nps.gov for more details.

Longmire Campground opening tomorrow -- both geocachers and non-geocachers are welcome!

"Mostly sunny, freezing level near 13,500 feet." That's the weather forecast for tomorrow in Mount Rainier National Park! If you're looking for something worthwhile to do on a gorgeous day, consider joining us for our annual Longmire Campground Opening volunteer project. We'll be setting up platform tents and picking up storm debris that has accumulated in the campsites over the winter. It's fun, low-key work, and only takes a couple of hours; by lunch time, we'll be ready to sit in the sun and eat our picnics along the Nisqually River.

As is our tradition, this year's campground opening is sponsored by local geocachers. However, the project is not limited to geocachers. And, it's also a great opportunity to find out about geocaching if you've been curious!

For more information, visit the geocache page for this event here. RSVP by sending an e-mail to Kevin_Bacher@nps.gov, or just show up at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 8. For those of you without GPS units, meet at the Longmire Campground. Enter Mount Rainier National Park by the southwest (Nisqually) entrance -- let the rangers at the gate know you're volunteering so that they don't charge you a fee -- and drive six miles to Longmire. Turn right just past the National Park Inn and follow the road marked "dead end" until it crosses a suspension bridge. A few hundred yards further you'll come to a small building and parking lot. Park there and follow the campground loop counter-clockwise to meet up with the volunteer team.

If you'd like to extend your weekend, consider camping in the Longmire Campground after your work day. Camping is free for working volunteers, and volunteers have access to the only public showers in the park!

We hope to see you there!

MRNPA - The Mine Trail, Part Two

The June 15th MRNPA trails work party hopes to finish up the project begun on May 18 repairing the Mine Trail at Carbon River, and would appreciate your help.

The Mine Trail trail begins approximately 1.25 miles from the entrance on the Carbon River Hike and Bike Trail. It is a .26 mile trail leading to an old mine once owned by Washington Mining and Milling Co. These days the mine is closed off, but the history remains. Trail work will include maintenance and widening and smoothing the trail tread.

MRNPA volunteers will meet at the Carbon River Entrance to Mount Rainier National Park at about 8:30 AM.  Be ready to move out by 9:00. Park inside the gate, and please don't block the parking spaces available to the public. Bring your lunch and plenty of fluids to drink, work gloves and safety glasses and a full set of rain gear. A few vehicles will be used to shuttle people up the road.

Anyone using an aggressive tool (Pulaski, ax, shovel, etc.) or working near someone who is using them is required to wear a hard hat and safety glasses. Safety glasses and hard hat are strongly recommended but not required for people working with less aggressive tools.

If you can attend and have not yet contacted John Titland, please drop him a note at volunteer@mrnpa.org to indicate that you are coming and tell him how many volunteers you are bringing with you.

Volunteer Newsletter, June 2013

Longmire Campground Still Needs Hosts!

Are you looking for a summer position as a campground host? Longmire Volunteer Campground needs you! Specifically, we're looking for someone to live in the campground in their own RV and coordinate the use of 31 tent sites, 2 group sites, and several Park-provided platform tents. As host, you will be taking reservations and assigning campsites, making sure guests are aware of campground regulations and that they comply with them while making sure everyone feels welcomed and supported. Your duties will consist of dealing with challenges as they come up (illegal campers, people who've lost their keys, loose dogs and so on), maintaining, cleaning and restocking a comfort station with three showers, and assigning/retrieving keys from campers, and keeping the campground free of camping litter.

 

It's a full-time, 40-hour-a-week job, with flexible hours since you'll need to be on call whenever volunteers arrive or need assistance. For more details, fill out an application today at volunteer.gov or contact Kevin Bacher directly at 360-569-6567 or Kevin_Bacher@NPS.gov.

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

 

MRNPA Trails Project at Carbon River

 

The June 15 Mount Rainier National Park Associates (MRNPA) volunteer trails work project will be working on the Mine Trail at Carbon River, continuing the work done on May 18. MRNPA volunteers will meet at the Carbon River entrance at about 8:30 AM.  Volunteers should park inside the gate in order to leave parking spaces available to the public.  If you are interested in participating, please contact John Titland at volunteer@mrnpa.org and let him know how many people will be in your group.

 

CITO the Mountain

 

Are you a member of the growing group of people who enjoy geocaching? If so, join us on Saturday, June 8 at the Longmire Campground and help set up platform tents and clean up storm debris from the winter. This annual event is one of many loosely-defined "Cache in, Trash out" events organized by geocaching.com. For details of this year's event, visit coord.info/GC4CM5H.

 

Recruiting for MeadoWatch

 

Love hiking and viewing Washington's alpine wildflowers? Interested in gaining an understanding of how scientists study the potential impacts of climate change on native plants? If so, MeadoWatch (a program developed by the University of Washington Biology Department) would love your help this summer! Wildflower surveys will occur between late June and late September (depending on the snow season), and will start and end at Reflection Lakes. Volunteers will collect information on plants, and in return, will get free entrance to Mt. Rainier National Park, and the option of camping 1-2 nights without charge at the Volunteer Campground at Longmire during the survey.

 

For more information, please visit the MeadoWatch website at

https://sites.google.com/a/uw.edu/meadowatch/

 

or contact Anna Wilson, MeadoWatch Coordinator at mwatch@uw.edu.

 

Wilderness Volunteers

 

Wilderness Volunteers will be giving something back to Mount Rainier National Park over Sept. 8-14, 2013 as they pitch in to help with revegetation of a popular area near Sunrise. Volunteers will be tent- and car-camping at White River during the project. If you're interested in becoming involved in this frontcountry effort, you're invited to learn more at the Wilderness Volunteers website. Come and enjoy the views while helping with this much-needed restoration.

 

Adopt-a-Highway Litter Patrol

 

 Litter is an ongoing problem, and we want to have our gateway to the Mountain looking nice for our Fourth of July visitors. Therefore, we'll be conducting another litter patrol on Saturday, June 29 as part of our partnership with the state Dept. of Transportation's Adopt-a-Highway program. They limit us to twelve participants, so if you're interested, sign up soon! Gloves, safety vests, bags and "long-armed grabbers" will be provided. Hard hats are optional, so if you want to wear one, bring your own. Contact Crow at Petrina_Vecchio@partner.nps.gov for more details.

 

More Trail Projects -- something every weekend!

 

The MRNPA will be working on several trails projects this year. In addition to the work scheduled on the Old Mine Trail on June 15, another project to be announced is proposed for August 10. Stay tuned to the blog for further details! The MRNPA will also be removing exotic plants on July 13 and will hold 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.

 

In addition, the Washington Trails Association (WTA) continues to partner with us to lead trail maintenance projects throughout the park every Friday and Saturday through the summer. Visit WTA.org and click the "volunteer" link in the banner for a full list of projects throughout the state, and look for the ones marked "Mount Rainier." You can sign up to help right there on their website!

 

Meadow Rover Training

 

Meadow Rovers, we have two training sessions coming up for you as well. The first is for incoming Rovers and will be held on Saturday, June 22. The training for experienced Rovers is on Sunday, June 23. Further details will be posted here and also in an upcoming Volunteer newsletter.

 

Safety Training

 

The All-Park Safety Training is open to both paid employees and to volunteers and will be held at Columbia Crest School on June 26, 1-4 PM with an optional fire extinguisher session afterwards. Speaker Dave McEvoy (Director, Aerie Backcountry Medicine) will address Risk Normalization and Working at Mount Rainier. For more information, contact brandi_stewart@nps.gov.

 

4th of July Parade

 

Looking for something unique to do on Independence Day? Join the volunteer program in representing Mount Rainier National Park at the annual 4th of July Parade at noon in Eatonville! If you're interested in walking with our group, send an e-mail to Jim_Ross@nps.gov.

 

What's Been Going On

 

You may have noticed that the links to the Volunteer Calendar at the top and right of the blog page are not working properly. A new version can be found here http://rainiervolunteers.blogspot.com/2013/05/calendar.html or if you have Google calendar yourself, subscribe to ours and keep up to date on a daily basis.

 

Coming up: Longmire Campground upgrades! We've received grant funding from two different sources, and as soon as the paperwork is finished and supplies are purchased, we'll be organizing work parties to build picnic tables and install fire grates! Watch the blog and newsletter for details on these upcoming projects.

 

On a personal note, I'd like to thank my coworkers -- Ingrid Nixon, Lee Snook, Fawn Bauer, Patti Wold, and especially Crow Vecchio -- for stepping in at the last minute to cover for me this last week of the month while I had minor surgery. It wasn't the time I would have chosen to be away, but I couldn't have chosen a better team to keep things running in my absence!

Washington's National Park Fund

As we enter the Memorial Day weekend, here's a lovely video put together by Washington's National Park Fund, whose fundraising efforts provide indispensable support for Mount Rainier National Park's volunteer program. Thank you to the Fund -- and to all of you who support Mount Rainier, Olympic, and North Cascades National Parks through them!

Longmire Campground Cleanup Event

Many of our Volunteers take advantage of the privilege of staying in the historic Longmire Campground while they're working on projects in the Park. Some come in motorhomes and campers. Others "rough it" in tents for a weekend or a week, depending on their assignments, but every winter brings down a new carpet of limbs, twigs and fir needles which need to be cleaned up before the campground officially opens.

For the last six years, members of Geocaching.com have contributed their efforts in tidying up for the June opening, and various other groups have pitched in later in the year, creating piles which now need to be consolidated for removal by maintenance crews. In addition, there is last winter's shed of branches to gather and rake up, and the platform tents need to be erected. Lots of work for many hands!

We're asking you to help! The date is June 8. The time is 9 AM. There will be a break for bring-your-own lunch, fun and games after the event, and of course there's the opportunity to socialize with your friends. Bring your own gloves, and keep an eye on the weather report to determine appropriate clothing. Please join us. RSVP to Kevin_Bacher@nps.gov or to Crow at Petrina_Vecchio@partner.nps.gov.

And just a reminder: we still need Volunteers to help clean up winter's deposits in the Longmire housing area on Tuesday, May 28. Event begins at 9 AM. RSVP to Crow if you'd like to participate.

Rainier Volunteers Calendar

New volunteer calendar

As you may have noticed, the calendar embedded at the bottom of this blog no longer shows any information. You may have noticed other things that have gone awry and uncorrected -- outdated information and obsolete links, for example (though the majority of information is indeed accurate).

The reason for these inaccuracies is that the National Park Service recently converted its e-mail system to Google, and in the process, any existing Google applications (blogger and calendar, for example) that had been managed using an NPS e-mail address became inaccessible, and anything for which that e-mail address provided the only administrative access became un-editable. This is a valuable lesson: Make sure every application has at least two administrator accounts, ideally based on different sources! In retrospect, I should have given administrative priviledges to my personal e-mail address in addition to my government one. If I had, I would still have administrative access. Alas, I didn't, and I don't... so for now, the original Google calendar, and the layout and settings for this blog, are inaccessible.

We are working to fix this problem, and I am confident that we'll get it resolved as soon as we can figure out which tech guru to ask to flip which switch.

In the meantime, I have created a new volunteer program calendar, which I will post separately, and which will be populated with all of the many volunteer events coming up this summer. There's a lot to put on your calendar, so check us out and see what you want to be sure not to miss! Check back frequently, as well, because there are many events (citizen science, backcountry maintenance, volunteer picnics, and much more) which have not yet been given specific dates. These will be identified in later blog postings and volunteer newsletters... and shared on the new volunteer calendar. Better yet, if you have Google calendar yourself, subscribe to ours and keep up to date on a daily basis.

See you out on the trails!

- Kevin Bacher, Volunteer Program Manager