A personal view of Mount Rainier and climate change

Cleve Pinnix chats with visitors at the
Grove of the Patriarchs in 2008.

Cleve Pinnix has been associated with Mount Rainier for a long time. He's served as a park ranger, a volunteer, and a board member for Washington's National Park Fund. He's hiked and backpacked all over the Mountain.

The Mountain is the thread that runs through the course of our lives. We’ve never lost that sense of awe, looking from tidewater to see the summit shining nearly three vertical miles into the sky.

Recently, he wrote an Op Ed for The Bellingham Herald, responding to the recent special report in The Olympian and The News Tribune called "Losing Paradise." His personal perspective, over half a century of experience with Mount Rainier, is unique and thought-provoking. Among other things, he answers the question "what can I do?"

The question since reading the newspaper’s report has been: “What can we do?” Mourn the loss of access to the most precious place in our lives? Accept that the changes in the park are irreversible? We think not. We believe there are ways to work for positive change.

Read more in The Bellingham Herald at http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2015/01/28/4099513/a-personal-view-of-mt-rainier.html.

Aiding Paradise: Volunteers are helping us understand and prepare for climate change

Volunteers make survey measurements
on the Nisqually Glacier

Many of you have already read the excellent 16-page special section in The News Tribune that came out last month called "Losing Paradise: Climate Change is Changing Mount Rainier." If you haven't done so, it's an excellent read, covering everything from the science behind climate change (both what we know and what's still uncertain) to its effects on the mountain's glaciers, rivers, plants, animals, visitors, and caretakers.

The one tiny flaw in this exceptional and comprehensive story is that nowhere are volunteers mentioned -- at least, by that title. But anyone who knows anything about Mount Rainier knows that volunteers are intimately involved in everything we do, and that is certainly true of our efforts to understand and prepare for climate change.

This mountain is one of the best places on the planet to study the local effects of changing climate, and as the article suggests, it has attracted a swarm of graduate students. Many are independent researchers, working with their universities under research permits. Others are hired as volunteers or interns by the National Park Service through programs like the Geoscientists-in-Parks program, a partnership with the Geologic Society of America (whose interns have contributed greatly to Mount Rainier over the years, and whose 2015 positions are accepting applications until February 3rd). Scott Beason, a park geologist, began his career as a "GIP" intern. John Beyeler and Rebecca Rossi, who spent the summer of 2013 gathering stream data in the Carbon River channel, and who are featured on the cover the special section in the News Tribune, sitting on an island surrounded by the rushing river, were two more such interns. Emily Knoth and John Russell, 2014 interns, are photographed conducting surveys at Longmire. Mitch Haynes, pictured mapping the Nisqually Glacier, was a 2014 summer volunteer working with park geomorphologist Paul Kennard.

MeadoWatch volunteer Karen Murante
surveys wildflowers on Mazama Ridge

Volunteers help in other ways, too. They survey sensitive animal species on our wildlife crews, and serve as Citizen Scientists, documenting the changing populations of amphibian surveys in wilderness lakes and ponds. "MeadoWatch" volunteers monitor the timing of when flowers bloom and set seed, and its Park Service and University of Washington facilitators are working with NASA satellite imagery to develop predictive snow melt models. The volunteer Cascade Butterfly Survey tracks fluctuations in butterfly populations over the years. Even casual park visitors can get involved, by submitting their geotagged photos for researchers to analyze. The deployment of volunteers gives us hundreds of data points where, if we relied solely on paid staff, we would have only dozens.

And, of course, when the rivers rise, causing damage like that of the November 2006 floods that wiped out roads, bridges, trails, and campgrounds, volunteers respond to make repairs. Miles of trail were rebuilt almost entirely by volunteers; it's no exaggeration to say that large swaths of the park would still be closed off without the help of partners like the Washington Trails Association and Student Conservation Association who helped organize work crews. Community groups representing REI, Boeing, Starbucks, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, church groups, military units, geocaching clubs, and dozens of others joined hundreds of individuals to grade and build and brush and plant.

You can make a difference! Volunteer with our MeadoWatch, Butterfly Survey, or Citizen Science programs to help gather data for researchers. Share your photos of flowering plants (how simple is that)! Work with our Trail Crews, and with our partners at the Washington Trails Association, to continue repairing and maintaining damaged trails. Support the work of other partners like Washington's National Park Fund and the National Parks Conservation Association. Join other volunteer efforts throughout the year, and encourage your employee associations, church groups, civic groups, and community organizations to contribute. Together, we can make a real difference. See you on the Mountain!

Declining numbers, but a rising road

It's nice when the news is always positive and the numbers are always rising, but in the real world that doesn't always happen.

That's the short version of an e-mail interview I did last week with Jeff Mayor at The News Tribune, talking about our volunteer statistics for Fiscal Year 2014, the results of which were published in Sunday's paper. Our number of volunteers and our number of volunteer hours are both down over the previous two years, and as a government agency we report those numbers transparently. I proposed some possible reasons for the declines -- budget cuts limiting supervisory capacity, a waning sense of urgency as the 2006 floods recede into history -- and more answers will likely come from a deeper dive into the statistics when I get a chance to do so later this winter. It's hard to put a positive spin on smaller numbers, and to do so would be disingenuous.

Still, I'm not by nature a pessimist. I see great and positive things happening with our volunteer program, and great potential for its future. A 5% decline in our number of volunteers still means we maintained 95%, and those individuals had a tremendously positive impact and, by and large, extremely positive experiences. I could list specific examples at length. Our MeadoWatch and other Citizen Science programs have exploded in popularity. Hundreds of volunteers continue to help maintain our trails, with the help of partners like Washington Trails Association. The Student Conservation Association brought teams of youth volunteers to the park for their 20th year, and received a Director's Award for their partnership. Our Emergency Roadside Assistance ("Raven") program saved innumerable vacations by retrieving keys locked in cars and pumping up flat tires. Starbucks and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts (oh my!) spread out across the landscape to do good works. And on and on.

I'm really excited about next summer's volunteer program. We've learned, over the past few years of thinner budgets, where the weak links are in our park programs and how to shore them up. We're making progress toward finding funding sources, and strategically applying what we have, to be as effective as possible with our efforts. Volunteers remain key to our success. Quoting Jeff Mayor quoting me: "As budgets have grown leaner, volunteers are an increasingly vital part of our operation," Bacher said. "They’ve always been invaluable as partners with us in protecting the park and serving its visitors, and now more than ever."

So, no, I'm not discouraged. Onward and upward!

- Kevin Bacher
Volunteer Program Manager

Rediscovered trail sign documents 1925 Boy Scout volunteer project

...and one of those Boy Scouts, apparently, was Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard! Read all about it on The News Tribune's website:

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/03/10/3088497/ex-worker-at-rainier-helps-track.html

I'll try to track down a photo of the sign to share with you all.

The Boy Scouts continue to be significant volunteer partners, 89 years later. Last summer, 66 Scouts contributed 433 hours of volunteer service at Mount Rainier.

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.

Life and Death on Mount Rainier

Few people realize what an important role volunteers play in Search and Rescue efforts at Mount Rainier National Park. In fact, every time there's a major incident, one that lasts more than the initial few hours, a veritable batallion of volunteer rescuers show up to help. Our own Nordic Patrol volunteers, members of the Washington Ski Touring Club, who patrol the Paradise area on skis every weekend, are almost always some of the first to respond. They're followed by Tacoma Mountain Rescue, Olympia Mountain Rescue, Seattle Mountain Rescue, volunteer bloodhound teams, and more.

Even fewer people know that volunteers are part of an innovative effort by Lead Climbing Ranger Stefan Lofgren to prevent search and rescue events from happening in the first place. These volunteer "PSAR" -- Preventative Search and Rescue -- rangers patrol the upper meadows and lower climbing routes, talking to people on their way up the Mountain, and making sure they have good information about what they're getting into. It often doesn't stop people from walking further into danger -- but when those first signs of trouble come up, they're more likely to think back on the ranger's advice and turn back.

There was a great article in the News Tribune on Sunday about Carrie Tomlinson, our current PSAR volunteer.

For $20 per day, lodging at Longmire and 16 college credits, she spends weekdays at Paradise splitting her time between snowshoes and her desk, answering questions and relaying information, among other duties.... "You have the people who are 'Go big or go home,'" Tomlinson said. "But sometimes it's better to not go big so you can go home."

Read the whole article on the website of The News Tribune. And if this sounds like a great job to you, we hope to hire more PSAR rangers this summer. You can also volunteer with the Washington Ski Touring Club's Nordic Patrol or with a local Mountain Rescue unit!

"Reflection, seeds of recovery at Mount Rainier"

Volunteers are featured significantly in a multi-page set of articles in The News Tribune today.

Allan and Rose Evans, park volunteers from Graham, met Anderson shortly after she was hired in 2008. “We want to be here,” Rose Evans said. “I think being here honors her.”

National Park Service workers from as far away as Georgia helped run the park, and local volunteers chipped in. Tacoma Mountain Rescue stationed two climbers at Camp Muir and another team in Longmire to respond to search-and-rescue situations. “This place is sacred to a lot of people,” said Scott Schissel, a Tacoma Mountain Rescue volunteer headed to Camp Muir. “It doesn’t matter if you are a climber, a hiker or just somebody who wants to visit a national park; it’s pretty devastating to think something like this could happen in such a pristine and hallowed place.”

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/01/07/1973769/reflection-seeds-of-recovery-on.html#storylink=cpy

Standing on the shoulders of giants

I was surprised and incredibly humbled, today, mid-way through two weeks of annual leave with my family at Christmas time, to turn to the last page of the News Tribune and find my name among several others listed as "Outdoors Giants of 2010." It's all for coordinating the work of more than 2,000 volunteers this past year.

But none of that would have been possible without the help of so many partners from the community -- the Washington Trails Association, Student Conservation Association, Mount Rainier National Park Associates, Washington's National Park Fund, Discover Your Northwest, Washington Ski Touring Club, Japan Volunteers in Parks Association, Boy Scouts of America, Seattle Parks, Tacoma MetroParks, REI, Boeing, the Backcountry Horsemen, Nisqually and Pathfinder Schools, Evergreen State College, the list goes on and on and on. And of course special thanks must go to my partner this summer, Evan Escamilla from SCA, who as an intern was so instrumental in keeping everything on track and running smoothly.

An none of it would be possible, either, without the help of hundreds of other individual volunteers, too numerous to even begin to name here. Browse through the blog entries from this past year for a small sampling of all the people who actually did the work, building trails, curating photographs, assisting visitors, rebuilding rock walls, surveying amphibians, creating promotional videos, planting native plants and tending them in the greenhouse, again the list goes on and on and on.

These are the true Outdoors Giants of Mount Rainier, and I feel positively Llliputian in comparison. Thank you, everyone, for a great year!

The end of an era: Trail foreman Carl Fabiani retires this month

If you've hiked a trail at Mount Rainier National Park, you've probably benefited from the work of our trail foreman, Carl Fabiani, who has built and maintained trails here, and more recently supervised such work, for 45 years--almost half the history of the park. If you've volunteered on a trail crew, you have certainly benefited from his efforts; Fabiani's legendary commitment to exceptional trail standards pervades everything we do, and his dedication to working with volunteers has allowed hundreds or even thousands of people to participate in that legacy.

Read all about Carl's career at Mount
Rainier in The News Tribune, with photos
like this one by Dean Koepfler

The News Tribune, yesterday, published an excellent article about Carl's career, in light of his impending retirement later this month. Meanwhile, a staff retirement party is planned for Thursday the 21st. If anyone would like to send good wishes to Carl, or say a few words about what his work has meant for you, leave them as a comment on this post or e-mail them to me, and I'll make sure he receives them.



One of my favorite trail experiences -- hiking home
from Mystic Lake in a torrential late-September
rainstorm in 2005

 On a personal note, I fell in love on the trails of Mount Rainier... both with The Mountain, and with my wife, back in 1994 and 1995, on the east side Wonderland Trail, the Silver Falls Trail, and the Northern Loop. I shared many wonderful adventures with friends on the park's trails: exploring at Indian Henry's, hiking the west side Wonderland Trail in the rain, hiking back from Mystic Lake in the rain (with the superintendent) as the Carbon River began to flood, hanging out at Mildred Point and Panorama Point and Shriner Peak and Mount Fremont. You rarely think of the labor that goes into such trails as you trudge over them, but the reconstruction of the Glacier Basin trail over the past two years has opened my eyes. That work has been done by Park Service trail crews, by contract crews from WCC, by teams of interns from the Student Conservation Association, by partners like WTA, by groups of boy scouts and employee groups and service clubs, and by literally hundreds of volunteers, all ultimately under the leadership of Carl Fabiani.

Thanks, Carl, for all your hard work; and happy trails.

VIP Program in the News

Our recent volunteer video has gotten some attention from the media at The News Tribune and Bellingham Herald.

Our own Kevin Bacher was quoted; "These videos, donated to us as a labor of love for Mount Rainier, allow us to spread those messages more widely and more effectively than we could with our own resources. We expected that we’d end up with something worthy of putting on YouTube, but what we actually got was this amazing production in high definition that is suitable for television broadcast. Having these videos means we have an opportunity to convey our message to a larger audience, to share the story of the amazing work that volunteers are doing every day to help us protect our resources and serve our visitors.”

Read the full article at http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/06/06/1215179/videos-promote-volunteer-work.html

The goal: Nearly $350,000 for parks

The goal: Nearly $350,000 for parks The News Tribune

Washington's National Park Fund seeks to raise $350,000 to support projects at Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic National Parks, including youth programs, outreach, and volunteerism. For the person who has everything, consider supporting a good cause on their behalf!

WTA Volunteers forge ahead at Glacier Basin

"Although much of the Glacier Basin Trail reroute at Mount Rainier National Park has been completed, it won’t be until next season that the work is finally done."

Thus begins a nice article in the News Tribune yesterday, which properly attributes much of the work that has been done on this major flood recovery project to volunteers who have worked in partnership with the National Park Service and the Washington Trails Association.

WTA's efforts have been a major asset at Mount Rainier over the past three years, especially on the Glacier Basin project. Our records show 496 WTA volunteers in the park this summer, who contributed 5,292 hours of service, not counting travel time. Both of those are record numbers: even in 2007, the year following our big flood, WTA's work totalled a mere 4,971 hours; and last year, the previous record year for volunteer participation, only 336 volunteers participated.

We're still compiling the final numbers for our program this year, but there's no question that WTA will be responsible for a large percentage of our total volunteer hours, and an even larger percentage of our total numbers.

WTA's efforts are made possible, of course, by hundreds of individual volunteers; but they are also supported by major grants from Boeing Corporation, which has committed $60,000 to WTA in 2010. Their support is also invaluable! (Individual donations are also welcome.)

We look forward to continuing these productive partnerships at least through 2010, so keep an eye on the WTA website next spring to find more opportunities to participate. There are few things more rewarding that building a trail that will be used for generations to come!

What's new at Mount Rainier National Park

Lots new at Mount Rainier this week: road repairs, changes at Sunrise, volunteer program updates, changes at Ohanapecosh, wildlife issues, new historical interpretation programs, new regulations about guns in the park, astronomy programs, and wildflowers getting ready to bloom. Read all about it in the News Tribune!

What's new at Mount Rainier National Park | The News Tribune

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Volunteers for work parties needed for National Trails Day | The News Tribune

Volunteers for work parties needed for National Trails Day | The News Tribune

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Volunteers needed for Mount Rainier planting session

Volunteers needed for Mount Rainier planting session

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Snow-going Work

The News Tribune on Sunday had a great article about what it's like to work at Mount Rainier in the winter time. They interviewed and featured four employees at the park: Marne Mcardle, an interpretive ranger; John Piastuck, a backcountry ranger; Joe Palmer, a snow plow operator; and Vicki Brand, a waitress at the National Park Inn. They also included a section on how you can participate as a volunteer during the winter. Check out the whole article, along with photos, on The News Tribune website.

Fundraising efforts support volunteers at Mount Rainier

The News Tribune has a nice article today about the fundraising efforts of Washington's National Park Fund, which, among other projects, is raising money to support volunteer efforts at Mount Rainier. If enough money is raised, donations will help pay for a seasonal volunteer coordinator and campground manager, who will work with the volunteer program manager (me) to plan and implement a strategic plan for our program. We've made significant gains in the wake of the great floods of November 2006, literally doubling the number of people who participate in our program, and greatly expanding our range of volunteer opportunities. We've done this with the invaluable assistance of the Student Conservation Association and its Mount Rainier Recovery Initiative. Now, we hope to make volunteerism a key part of every program in the park.

Here's an excerpt from the article, the full text of which is available on The News Tribune's website:

For Mount Rainier, the fund and park staff have identified six programs and projects valued at more than $230,000. The projects include efforts to connect more children and parents to the park through camping, to help restore Paradise meadows, to do a climate change study and to assist the volunteer program. “Wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could raise $1 million and then fund everything we’ve identified as a priority and more,” said Eleanor Kittleson, the group’s executive director.... Even with the economy in the tank, Kittleson remains confident the fund will be successful because of the approach they have taken. In the past, the message was “help us preserve our parks,” she said. “I’m saying that we’ll be more successful if we can establish a goal and tell a donor exactly where their money is going.”

Donations can be made through The Fund's website.

Student group marks second year of volunteerism at Mount Rainier

From The News Tribune:

During the last two years, 3,254 volunteers from around the country contributed a total of 154,168 hours to Mount Rainier National Park, an association news release said. That effort was valued at more than $3 million, park officials said. Volunteers worked on rebuilding the Wonderland Trail, restoring habitat, campgrounds and historic structures, carrying supplies to backcountry project locations, patrolling trails and assisting park visitors. The association also gave wilderness and project management training sessions to park staff and volunteers.

A good place to find further flood information

I'm checking around in the usual places, and as usual, when there's news at Mount Rainier National Park, the Adventure Guys (Jeff Mayor and Craig Hill) at The News Tribune are all over it. This is my second blog entry about the flood, but Jeff and Craig have posted several already... with pictures. (This one's of the flooding across the road at Kautz Creek.) Check them out at the Adventure Guys Blog. Some specific recent posts for those who don't read this right away:

11/12/08
Mount Rainier's Nisqually Entrance Closed
Mount Rainier Closed Today Due to Flooding
Mount Rainier Access Update
 
11/13/08
Crews Assessing Mount Rainier Roads
The Latest from Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier Remains Closed

Meanwhile, KOMO news reports that the automated rain guage at Paradise recorded 8.70 inches of rain yesterday!

National parks leader sees significant challenges

In today's News Tribune is an interview by Jeffrey Mayor with National Parks Conservation Association president Tom Kiernan, in which he addresses volunteerism in National Parks and the leadership role we play in that area at Mount Rainier:

“I think there’s huge potential for volunteer programs. But there is a bit of a challenge within the National Park Service and within communities in how volunteers can help.” Given the success of the coalition that led the recovery effort at Mount Rainier National Park, I asked if he thought it could serve as a role model for other volunteer efforts nationwide? “Yes. The effort here in the Northwest, from the coalition of groups, private companies providing money, the park leading the effort, getting Congress involved, it was the right chemistry of various interests coming together. The (National Cooperative Conservation) award the coalition received speaks volumes to the precedent potential,” he said. “The Northwest needs to be applauded. There seems to be an interwoven culture of the communities and the park service. There is a sense among all the players of the economic interdependency.” The challenge, Kiernan said, is doing a better job nationally to explain how citizens can get involved at a park. “I do hope it doesn’t take devastating things to rally the support, like the flooding out here,” he said.