A Wild Snow Rover Appears

NPS / VIP Kelly Teale

 

 

Rambling around the Mountain in the winter, you may see many different sights.  Maybe a pika out for a quick stretch before heading back deep into the snowdrifts.  Maybe a raven singing its angelic tune overhead.  Possible even a very cold and confused black bear, but more likely is a warm and alert snowshoe hare.  But, if you are ever around Paradise on a holiday weekend, you will see many visitors in search of any or all of these things, usually to no avail.  What you are more likely to see out there are more and more of our volunteers, out in full force.

 

Many times our Snow Roving volunteers will be dressed to the nines in their warmest gear, trekking poles in hand, with a pack that appears to be almost too heavy to sling onto a back, full of the Winter Ten Essentials as well as a few other odds and ends (maybe a Meadow Stomper button or two from the summer?).  Sometimes you will encounter one of these wild creatures in their natural habitat: high up the mountain, surrounded by untrampled snow, blazing a path of visitors to find their way around.

 

NPS / VIP Teale

NPS / VIP Teale

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you were on the Mountain over New Years weekend, you know it was very busy (see: my last post), but even with hundreds upon hundreds of visitors flocking to the snowy subalpine meadows of Paradise, there was still a bit of peace and serenity to be found.  And VIP Kelly Teale was able to capture some of it, with a camera in tow.

 

This was Kelly's first time serving as a Snow Rover, but you may recognize her from the Education Center.  She is an Education Technician, developing and leading programs for students ages both in the park and all over the world through the Park's ever-growing Distance Learning Program.  Over the winter, in addition to having this new found love of Snow Roving, Kelly is also hard at work volunteering for the Park's Archives and Museum Collections, spending countless hours each day handling artifacts that helped to shape the park into what it is today.

NPS Photo / VIP Kelly Teale

 

I still want to hear about your story!  Have you taken any amazing photos while volunteering at Mount Rainier?  Want to share them with the world?  If so, send them to Ian at ian_harvey@partner.nps.gov and you too can be featured on our Volunteer Blog and Facebook Page, visited by millions of people every day! (Okay, that may be only slightly made up)