Training the Corps

SCA Flood Recovery Corps members Hannah O'Connell and Jill Baum use a crosscut saw to clear a fallen tree from a trail in the historic Longmire Campground

Field Notes

More trail projects are coming soon! Watch the project listings on SCA's Mount Rainier Recovery website for a long list of trail projects to be completed in June and July. Additional projects will be listed on the Washington Trails Association's website.

Other projects are getting close to being ready to post as well, including:

• Wayside Exhibit Installation
• Greenhouse Assistance
• Exotic Plant Removal
• Backcountry Cabin Maintenance and Resupply
• Roadside Flood Debris Cleanup
• Seed Collection

We've had a very successful week, with public projects at Paradise, Cougar Rock, and Ohanapecosh. We'll be working in the Longmire Campground over Memorial Day weekend--a project suitable for families--and then hitting the trails big-time the following week for National Trails Day on June 2nd.

Lots of things are happening, so keep watching the website for updates!

Interesting Times

There is an old Chinese curse (or so they say) that goes, "may you live in interesting times." Whatever else you may say about this past winter, we are definitely living in interesting times! The great flood of November 2006 may have swept away roads, trails, and even campgrounds in Mount Rainier National Park, but it also swept in a tremendous opportunity for positive change and growth in the park’s volunteer program.

Mount Rainier’s volunteer program has thrived over the years, despite the fact that we have not had a full-time position dedicated to managing the program since 1999—and that was a volunteer. I’ve coordinated the program for the past 4 ½ years as a collateral duty, averaging about 30% of my time, and with the help of a seasonal employee for a few months during the summer. We’ve averaged more than 900 volunteers per year (about 200 individuals and the rest as part of organized work parties) who contribute about 40,000 hours of volunteer time.

It quickly became apparent, after The Flood, that 30% of my time wasn’t going to be enough. I was, if you’ll pardon the pun, flooded with offers of help, far more than I could respond to (and if you were one of the people I didn’t get back to in a timely manner, I humbly apologize).

The Student Conservation Association (SCA) offered to form a partnership with us and to provide extra staff and internship positions in areas like trail repair, revegetation, and volunteer coordination. They also posted a notice on their website asking for people to sign up on a mailing list as potential volunteers. They received more than 700 responses in the first three weeks.

Clearly, we need a new way of doing business this year. The first steps have been to make my position full-time, and to hire a program manager through the SCA to help. Jill Baum will arrive April 4th, and with her assistance I look forward to beginning to catch up on all the e-mails and phone messages that have accumulated. This expanded volunteer program website is another important step, as it will give Jill and me a means to communicate with all of you at the same time. So send me your questions and comments! I’ll address them here and try to keep you as up to date as I can with our progress toward placing volunteers on the ground in the park.

In that vein, here’s what’s next: We have begun compiling a list of volunteer assignments, both long-term needs and short-term projects that people can participate in for an afternoon, or a weekend, or even a full week at a time. I’ll start posting those projects on this website as soon as I can nail down the details, with the earliest project probably starting in late April or early May. Jill will help me to work out the logistics of providing campsites, equipment, transportation, and crew leaders. We may call on our seasoned volunteers from past years to help provide leadership for new members of our volunteer team. It’ll take some time to get off the ground, but by July, hopefully, we’ll be in full swing, with teams of volunteers all over the park working side by side with national park rangers to protect the resources of Mount Rainier National Park and serve its visitors.

Very interesting, indeed. With your help, we’ll turn that curse into a blessing!

The Mount Rainier Recovery online event calendar

From Jill Baum, Program Director; Ali Saperstein, Communications Coordinator; and Kevin Bacher, Volunteer Program Manager:

Greetings, Mount Rainier enthusiasts!

Many thanks to those of you who have already visited the Mount Rainier Recovery online event calendar and signed up to provide valuable service to Mount Rainier National Park! Our online service event calendar provides a diverse array of volunteer projects, and we are adding more continually. There are many benefits to volunteering, including free Park admission and overnight camping for the duration of your volunteer project. Visit the calendar today to sign up!

Here are some highlights of what you’ll find:

Family Projects
By popular demand! Spend Memorial Day weekend outdoors making a difference with the whole family. Designed for volunteers age 8 and older, the first Family Project weekend on our calendar will be focused on restoring the historic basecamp at Longmire.

Trail Maintenance Projects
More coming soon! Have you enjoyed hiking in the Park in the past? Many trails throughout the Park are currently unsafe to hike on. Beginning in June, come earn the satisfaction of working with a team to re-open a section of trail to restore access to the Park for other visitors.

Meadow Rover Training
Critical need! The fragile subalpine meadows near Sunrise and Paradise will be as vulnerable as ever this year. Come join us June 23 for a day of learning as part of the Meadow Rover program. A perfect opportunity for people who live close to the Park, this training will enable you to volunteer on a regular basis to help to preserve these beautiful meadows.

We hope that you’ll sign up for one of these or another of the many wonderful opportunities to get involved and lend a hand. We look forward to seeing you at the mountain soon!

The season begins!

And, they're off! May 5th felt like the starting gun for a race that we've been preparing for for six months. Everyone was so happy to be back in the park once again--none more so than the employees, who've all breathed a great sigh of relief that the first part of our recovery effort has been completed.

Quite a few volunteers helped us out on opening day, interpreting the events of November 2006 and welcoming back park visitors. We're grateful for their assistance. We'll be looking for more individuals to fill this role in coming months, so watch our long-term projects page for details.

Much flood-recovery work remains to be done, and now that we've started running, we still have a marathon to complete. Roads and trails are still melting out all over the park. Summer staff members are arriving daily, getting trained and oriented, and helping us plan for the ongoing recovery efforts that will last through this summer and next. Many of those plans include volunteers.

Many volunteer projects have already been identified, filling a healthy piece of the calendar, especially in June. Many more projects are in the planning stages and should be added to the list soon. In some cases, we simply need to work out the details of when supervisors will be available and trained and where to get supplies. In some cases, we have to wait for the snow to melt before we can properly assess what needs to be done. In a few cases, especially projects involving the park's maintenance staff, the supervisors involved have simply been overwhelmed with the job of getting the road to Paradise open by May 5th, and have not had time to plan beyond that yet.

This will change dramatically in coming weeks. Meanwhile, the projects we've already posted have been receiving a very positive response. There are still a few that haven't completely filled, and more are being added almost every day, so keep checking the list if you haven't yet found a way to get involved. Trail maintenance and other backcountry projects, including campsite repairs, will be added as the trails melt out and we can properly schedule projects. Lots of exotic species management projects are in the works, and we hope to add a full schedule of culvert maintenance in coming weeks too. Some of these may not sound very exciting at first glance, but all of them serve critical roles in the protection of park resources. What good are pristine meadows if they fill up with dandelions, and what good are our million-dollar road repairs if the culverts that protect them remain clogged with debris? These are projects that individuals can point to with pride and say, "I helped make that happen!"

We have many long-term projects in the works as well. Just this past week we've advertised for individuals to help with projects from library assistance to groundskeeping. Our Meadow Rover program trains individuals to patrol Paradise and Sunrise, assisting hikers and reminding them of the importance of staying on the trails in those sensitive subalpine areas. We'll be offering training in this program at both Paradise and Sunrise on June 23. We've scheduled projects to locate and pack out the remnants of old telephone lines, water pipes, and plane crashes in the park's wilderness areas. We're exploring the possibility of training teams to maintain backcountry cabins, or to help with the restoration of historic rock walls built by the Civilian Conservation Corps back in the 1930s.

Also remember that our partners with the Washington Trails Association are sponsoring volunteer projects in the park, and have a list of their own projects that you can sign up for. Olympic National Park has its own set of projects, many of them related to flood recovery, that may be of interest. In the greater Mount Rainier watershed, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge have volunteer programs too. There's plenty of work to be done, and we look forward to seeing you out there!

Mount Rainier Reopens!

Mount Rainier staff and partners, including State Senator Marilyn Rasmussen (2nd from left), Congressman Dave Reichert (3rd from left), Congressman Norm Dicks (5th from left), and volunteers Alan Dreyer and "Damien" (3rd from right), open the Nisqually Entrance gate on May 5.

The Mount Rainier Recovery Initiative begins!

From Ali Saperstein, Communications Coordinator, Mount Rainier Recovery Initiative:

Mount Rainier National Park is opening! After an unprecedented 6 months of closure after November’s floods, the road to Paradise will re-open to the public following a brief gate-swinging ceremony at 9:00 am on Saturday, May 5, at the Nisqually Entrance.

While you’re enjoying the Park and witnessing the flood damage first-hand, you can also do your part to contribute to the restoration effort. We will be hosting two drop-in work projects to kick off the volunteer season. Come join us as we open the Trail of the Shadows by repairing eroded areas and brushing the corridor. Or, stop by historic Longmire Campground just to check it out or lend a hand with restoration and base camp construction. These projects will be ongoing all day, and everyone is welcome to drop in and help for as long as you like. We hope to see you there!

Eager to volunteer, but can’t make it to the opening? As of Saturday, May 5, a calendar of our first phase of summer volunteer work projects and online registration will be available on our projects page and on SCA’s Mount Rainier Recovery website. Visit the website this weekend to check out opportunities to clear trails, clean up wilderness areas, get campsites ready for visitors, and more.

We have received a tremendous response from so many volunteers already (upwards of 2,000!), and we hope to accommodate as many of you as we can. Planning a safe and successful volunteer program on this scale cannot be rushed, as it requires attention to countless details regarding logistics, tools and supplies, budgets, staffing, and more. With ongoing assessment, we will continue to develop our long-term work plan and add new projects to the calendar. If you are unable to attend a project during our first phase, be sure to check back regularly for new work projects as they are added to the calendar.

Thank you again for your commitment and concern for Mount Rainier National Park. We are excited to see you at the mountain soon!

REI Crew Opens the Trail of the Shadows

The first of many SCA-led volunteer projects was completed by a group of store managers from REI, who spent several hours in the rain on April 24 getting the Trail of the Shadows ready for summer visitors.

Field Notes

The volunteer program for summer 2007 continues to accelerate. As you’ll see on our project page, the calendar is starting to fill up with projects, especially trail repair, that will be accomplished this summer with the help of volunteers. We are immensely grateful for that assistance, and look forward to working with people who care about Mount Rainier as much as we do!

Most of the projects on the calendar so far are marked “full,” “coming soon,” or “to be determined.” There are good reasons for this. Most of the projects are listed “full” as soon as they’re posted because they represent existing relationships between the park and volunteer groups who have helped us out on a recurring basis in the past. By this writing, we’ve received offers of volunteer assistance from upwards of 2,000 new individuals and group members, and we hope to find projects for as many of those people as possible. But remember that Mount Rainier already worked with 924 volunteers last year, most of whom will be returning this summer. Supervisors have, naturally, assigned their first volunteer projects to the groups they already have established relationships with.

More projects will be forthcoming, and hopefully soon. There will certainly be lots more to do on the park’s trails than is currently represented on the list. These projects will proliferate as the snow melts over the next two months and the actual trail damage becomes visible. That will also help to resolve some of the “to be determined” designations. We won’t be able to assign specific projects on specific dates until we know when sites will be snow free and accessible.

My SCA counterparts and I have been meeting with park supervisors to come up with a wide range of other projects to add to the list as well. The ideas are almost endless. Every project, of course, requires planning. What needs to be done? What tools and supplies are required? Do we have these things on hand, or do we need to obtain them? Do we have enough money in our budget to obtain them, or do we need to wait for fundraising to occur first? Is the project eligible for flood recovery funds, or does it need to be paid for out of general operating funds? What level of supervision and training will be required? Can the project be done by a group independently, or will it require the assistance of Park Service crews? When are such crews available? Will prep work be needed, or follow-up? What priority does the project have in relation to other projects? Will campsites be needed for visiting volunteers? If so, how many, and are spaces available? Will volunteers need to be readily identifiable as volunteers (e.g. patrolling trails at Sunrise), and if so, how can we accomplish that? What safety issues need to be taken into consideration? How about weather contingencies? Will transportation be needed to the work site, and if so, how will that be arranged? How strenuous is the project, and is it suitable for families or groups? Could the project have an impact on sensitive natural or cultural resources, and if so, how can these impacts be mitigated?

You can see very quickly that planning a massive volunteer project is not, well, quick. Yet we are confident that, slowly, we’ll get there, and in another month or two there will be opportunities for volunteers to get involved all over the park on an almost daily basis. Meanwhile, the first of our SCA crew leaders has arrived for the summer, and more will be arriving shortly. The road from Nisqually Entrance to Paradise will finally open, after six months of closure, on May 5. The Student Conservation Association is perfecting an online signup program that should allow you to register for volunteer projects right from your computer, without having to send information to my already overburdened e-mail box. SCA staff are also helping out tremendously with the task of returning your phone calls and e-mail inquiries. (Imagine returning phone calls from 2,000 people without such help!)

Exciting things are happening. Keep watching this website for updates as they occur.

Field Notes

Park Ranger Alison Robb describes the proposed site for the Student Conservation Association Field Camp to SCA project managers Willie Ehrenclou and Jill Baum

It may not look like it on the surface, but behind the scenes, there's a tremendous amount going on in preparation for our summer volunteer season. Most significantly this past week, Jill Baum and Willie Ehrenclou, both project managers with the Student Conservation Association (SCA), arrived to help coordinate our volunteer effort for the summer. They have hit the ground running, and are busy identifying volunteer projects, hiring crew leaders, and developing a field camp in the old Longmire Campground where our crew leaders will live for the summer season. In addition, Ali Saperstein in the Seattle SCA office is assisting us part-time to improve our ability to effectively match up park supervisors with potential volunteers.

We sat down on Thursday with Carl Fabiani, Mount Rainier's Trails Foreman, to discuss specific projects for our volunteer opportunities calendar. In most cases, it's still too early to put anything definite down on paper yet, because the snow is just beginning to melt out at the lowest elevations, and because our trail crew leaders are just now coming on board for the summer. Carl's assistant, Julie Okita, will arrive April 16, and with her help, we should be able to start filling the early part of the calendar with specific trail projects. We know there will be lots of work to do--our patrol rangers recently discovered another 3/4 of a mile of trail washed out on the way to Glacier Basin, for instance, and our owl survey crews have reported several more bridges out on the East Side Trail.

We're starting to get projects from other programs in the park as well. Like the trails program, now that seasonal staff is starting to arrive, we're able to plan more effectively what our work for the summer will be, and how we'll add volunteers to the team. By the end of this month, we anticipate that we'll have a healthy list of short-term volunteer opportunities on our projects page.

We're also organizing our mailing list, so that as projects are identified, we'll be able to match them up with those of you who've already offered to help. Some of you may be getting return phone calls in the next few weeks, either with specific project proposals, or to confirm tentative project dates, with details to be determined later. We understand that you need to plan ahead too! It looks like, with a few exceptions, most of our work will begin in May: when our seasonal workforce arrives, when the snow melts a little more, and (a matter of no small importance) when our roads reopen. With more staff, we can better plan and begin to supervise our summer projects; with bare ground, we can better see what's damaged and what needs to be done; and when the first of our roadwork is completed--hopefully around the end of this month or the beginning of next, between Nisqually Entrance and Paradise--we'll actually be able to get to the places where we need to work.

I'll be joining my family for a week of spring break starting tomorrow, but Jill and Willie will be working hard in my absence to continue our preparations for the summer. I'll look forward to updating you on all they've accomplished when I return.