We won!

Great news, everyone! I got a call this afternoon from Joy Pietschmann, the Servicewide Volunteer Coordinator for the National Park Service. She informed us that our volunteer program here at Mount Rainier has won one the Service's highest awards: the George B. Hartzog Jr. Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service!

Every year, one volunteer individual, one group, and one program are selected nationwide. This year's individual award winner is Dr. Jennifer Dow, who has worked with many of the Alaska parks to provide and develop partnerships to provide medical training and rescue services. This year's volunteer group is the Flight 93 Volunteer Ambassadors. Our program won for our outstanding success in working with volunteers following the flood of November 2006.

In other words, you--you!--are the reason for this award, all 1,724 of you! I am as proud as I can be. I'll keep you posted as I get more details.

Lots of new news

I'm off to Washington D.C. tomorrow for a week of awards, workshops, conferences, and, yes, a little bit of sightseeing. But it has been a busy week, with lots of news to pass on to you.

Donations: First, check out these awesome paintings painted by volunteer Allan Dreyer! Four of these paintings have been donated by Allan to Washington's National Park Fund, to be auctioned off at our gala reopening ceremony at the Paradise Inn next month. Allan has a real gift for painting Mount Rainier's landscapes, and capturing the play of light on snow and trees. If you're attending the auction, watch for his work. Some of the remaining paintings will be donated to offices at the park, and others will be available for sale.

Wonderland Repair: Plans have been released for repairing the Wonderland Trail in the Carbon River Valley. You're all encouraged to comment on the proposed environmental assessment. Find the complete press release here, and submit your comments online at parkplanning.nps.gov. (Choose Mount Rainier from the drop-down menu.)

Potluck Brunch for Meadow Rovers: If you're a Meadow Rover, or think you might like to be one, join us for brunch at the Mountaineers Clubhouse in Tacoma on May 10:

May 10, Sat., 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. – Potluck Brunch hosted by the Tacoma Branch Hiking & Backpacking Committee and the Mt. Rainier Sunrise Volunteers In the Park (VIPs), at the Tacoma clubhouse, 2302 N. 30th Street, Tacoma, WA 98403. All Mountaineers members are welcome to attend this event to find out about volunteering at Mt. Rainier National Park and to help the Sunrise VIP's kick off the 2008 Meadow Roving season. There are a number of Tacoma Mountaineers who volunteer at Sunrise during the summer, as well as other Mountaineers who volunteer at Paradise and in the backcountry on a year round basis. Opportunities at the Park abound - check out the volunteer opportunities listed on the Park website, http://www.nps.gov/mora/supportyourpark/volunteer.htm. It's a terrific "job"! If you have just a couple of days a month (weekends or weekdays) there is something for you to do at MRNP. If you've done all the trail maintenance and rebuilding that your body can handle, meadow roving might be just the ticket to get you out and let you give something back to the Park. Bring something yummy to share for brunch. We'll plan to start serving food at 9:30 a.m. Doors will be open by 8:00 a.m. if you want to come early to slip your treat into the oven to heat it up. Coffee, tea, juice, tableware will be provided. Questions or for directions, contact Amy Mann, agmann@comcast.net, 253-759-2796 or Martha Scoville, garyandmartha@harbornet.com, 253-752-5014.

News links: Perhaps some of you saw the notice on the Washington Trails Association blog or in the News Tribune newspaper about the ski hut that burned down near Ashford. Many of you, I know, love to ski on these trails, so this is a great loss. The Akron, Ohio newspaper had a short feature on our lead climbing ranger, Mike Gauthier. And Volunteer Eric Degerman has a detailed post on the blog of the Tri-City Herald, commenting on our especially snowy year here at the park.
Still snowing: Speaking of snow, it remains very snowy at Longmire, with more in the forecast. Paradise, of course, has been snowy too, though not quite on the record pace we've set at lower elevations. Ranger Stefan Lofgren writes, "There has been some interest in how this year's snowfall is shaping up compared to other years. We have just over 800 inches currently and two more months. If we get average amounts for April, May, and June, that will put us up to near 900 inches by June 30th." Here's a breakdown of the top 10 years so far:
1. 1971-72: 1,122
2. 1973-74: 1,071
3. 1970-71: 1,027
4. 1955-56: 1,000
5. 1998-99: 963
6. 2001-02: 855
7. 1975-76: 854
8. 1968-69: 829
9. 1974-75: 820
10. 1996-97: 795
Digital Photography Class: Our Museum Curator, Brooke Childrey, writes:

Hi Folks:
Last year I tried to schedule a photography class for park staff with John Chao and Loren Schmidt our VIP Photographers. Well, we finally have a class date--Two actually and field sessions.The class will be held on May 16th and repeated on June 27th. The class is a half day (9am -noon). Field sessions will be scheduled for July and August with each of the participants in the class, so that the groups are small and work with your summer schedule.

This class is open to all park employees (Perms, Terms, Seasonals, VIP, Interns, SCA, etc.). No camera is necessary at the first class. For the field classes, I will try to have extra digitals available for those who do not have one. If interested in attending, Please check with your supervisors first and then drop me an email or voice mail letting me know whether you want to attend the May 16 class or the June 27 class.

That's all for now, folks. More news rumored to be on the way later today, and I'll try to post an entry or two from Washington next week as well.

Preparing for the Cooperative Conservation Workshop

I'm preparing for a short presentation at the Cooperative Conservation Workshop in Washington D.C. next Tuesday. My challenge is to come up with a PowerPoint presentation lasting five minutes or less that introduces our volunteer program and the success it achieved through our partnerships with the Student Conservation Association and the Northwest Parks and Public Lands Storm Recovery Coalition last summer. That's a challenge! We were so successful that it's hard to boil down to 5 minutes. Here's what I've come up with. It's 28 slides, but I think if I move through them briskly and resist the urge to enthuse over the people and projects pictured in every image, it'll probably meet the criteria...

I'm looking forward to my trip to Washington D.C., meeting all the other Cooperative Conservation Award winners, and hearing about their projects. It sounds like key people in the agency could be there, including Secretary Kempthorne, and maybe even some of our members of Congress. What a great opportunity to promote the important work of volunteers in our National Parks and other public lands!

Volunteers Respond: Preliminary survey results

Our survey of volunteers is now complete. Thank you to all of you who responded with your comments and insights! There were 157 responses total. Jill Baum and I are sifting through the numbers and written comments, and probably will be doing so for some time. This is a treasure-trove of information that will allow us to identify your greatest concerns and challenges and how to overcome them. It will help us to focus our training efforts this summer. It will help us to determine what's working really well, which we should hang onto, and what's broken and needs fixing.

I'm sure many of you will be interested in seeing the results, too. Here is the first piece: the summary of responses. This contains only the numerical responses. The written commentary is on a separate spreadsheet, which I will post as well as soon as I have a chance to review it and make sure that any potential privacy concerns (e.g. names mentioned) are addressed.

Here are some highlights from the summary:

• Our responses came from a great cross-section of volunteers, including about equal parts those that volunteered only once, those that volunteered 2-5 times, and those that volunteered 6 or more times last year.


• 43% of respondents volunteered less than 20 hours last year, while 25% volunteered more than 100 hours. (We appreciate every one of those hours, by the way, even the smaller numbers.)


• Most volunteers live between 51 and 100 miles from the park. Fully 28% of our volunteers travel more than a hundred miles to get here.


• 42% of our volunteers camp overnight when they volunteer.


• 70% would be interested in carpooling or public transportation.


• The biggest challenge that prevented people from volunteering was schedule conflicts, followed closely in second place by a related concern, lack of time.


• 96% of our volunteers said they were somewhat or very pleased with their experience.


• The favorite volunteer task, by far, was trail maintenance, followed by meadow roving and backcountry patrol. (I wonder if this is partly because more people had experience with trail maintenance last year than any other activity?)


• Summer weekends are the best time for most people to volunteer. However, a healthy percentage look for opportunities during the winter or on weekdays, as well. The same is true for the best times to participate in volunteer training.


• The most popular training opportunities are plant identification, wilderness first aid, ecology, geology, and meadow restoration, followed by trail maintenance, backcountry travel and safety, map and compass use, interpretive skills, and historic preservation.


• Good numbers of volunteers made at least occasional use of all of our volunteer resources except our volunteer handbook. I wonder if that's because it's not useful, or because few people have copies of it?

I promise much more feedback as I have more of a chance to sift through your responses and comments!

Now Recruiting: Volunteer Program Assistant

Duties: Mount Rainier National Park is looking for a capable individual or individuals who can assist with the day to day operation of a very active volunteer program.

Last year, we worked with 1,724 individuals who contributed 84,038 hours of volunteer service. We currently have 300 additional names in our prospective volunteer database. We work with dozens of groups, multiple partnerships, and most of the park's various programs. Volunteers come from as near as Ashford and as far away as Russia. Every active or prospective volunteer requires a database entry, correspondence, updates on park news, various kinds of paperwork, training, supervision, housing, and uniforms. We're looking for someone who can help with these basic tasks, freeing the Volunteer Program Manager to work on long-range planning, project coordination, recruitment, partnership building, fundraising, budget wrangling, and other management tasks. Specific projects might include (roughly in order of priority):

• Answering volunteer correspondence
• Recording data from volunteer applications, work agreements, and timesheets into a computer database
• Sorting and filing paperwork
• Organizing and maintaining our equipment storage area
• Helping the Student Conservation Association's Mount Rainier Recovery Corps with projects, including organizing equipment, building platform tents for volunteer housing, or preparing and serving meals for teams of volunteers
• Assisting with special events such as National Trails Day, National Public Lands Day, volunteer training, and volunteer appreciation picnics
• Assisting with preparations for special groups, including the Youth Conservation Corps and the Japan Volunteers in Parks Association
• Creating or updating written and online reference materials for volunteers and their supervisors
• Taking photographs and/or digital video of volunteers in action, for park records and recruitment, and posting these files on the park's website
• Maintaining and contributing to this volunteer program blog and/or newsletters
• Developing new online tools for volunteer program management and recruitment

Exciting things are happening with Mount Rainier National Park's volunteer program. You can help us to maintain our role as a leader among NPS volunteer programs nationwide!

Location and Housing: Housing is not available for this position. Commuting is required. The park's volunteer program is based out of Longmire, in the southwest corner of the park. Some of the work could be done remotely via the World Wide Web.

Time Commitment Required: Up to three volunteers are needed who can commit a total of 16 to 24 hours per week.

Skills required:

• Attention to detail.
• Ability to work comfortably with computer databases and websites.
• Strong written language skills.
• Ability to follow directions carefully, but also to work independently.
• Creativity and problem-solving.

Other Information: Homeland Security regulations require that volunteers working on networked computer systems complete a basic background check. Numerous training opportunities are available to volunteers, including volunteer program management, wilderness first aid, CPR, trail construction, risk management, Leave No Trace, and others.

For more information: Contact Kevin Bacher, Volunteer Program Manager, at 360-569-2211 extension 3385.

To apply: Visit our listing on volunteer.gov, where you can submit an application online. For a listing of other volunteer opportunities at Mount Rainier, visit our volunteer projects page. For volunteer opportunities in your area, visit volunteer.gov and search for your zip code.

Spring Break Roundup, part 2

More news from my in box this week:

Volunteer Program Management Training: Mount Rainier National Park will host training in volunteer program management on May 28 and 29. This 15-hour course will focus on the nitty-gritty details of recruiting, hiring, and supervising volunteers, as well as running a volunteer program. It's targeted first to NPS supervisors, but would also be valuable training for anyone who wants to work with volunteers--including volunteers interested in taking on leadership roles. Click here for the complete training announcement and nomination form.

Snow and other winter hazards: Ohanapecosh might open late due to the heavy snowpack. One of our seasonal housing apartment buildings was damaged a few weeks ago when snow pushed over the chimney; it won't be habitable until the furnace venting has been fixed. And it looks like the opening for Skate Creek Road, between the west side of the park and Packwood, will be delayed because of an extensive rock slide across the road. WASDOT has projected tentative opening dates of May 9 for SR 123, and May 23 for SR 410.

New Visitor Center Sneak Peek: Climbing volunteer Rebecca Agiewich got a preview of the new visitor center under construction at Paradise. Read her report, with lots of pictures, on the Mount Rainier Climbing Blog.

From Reindeer to Rainier: Check out a free presentation subtitled "People and Climate Change from the Nordic Countries to the Pacific Northwest" on Tuesday, April 22 at 7 p.m. at the Seattle REI. This far-reaching discussion includes input from UW scientists, volunteer glacier monitors in Iceland, and North Cascades Superintendent Chip Jenkins.

A report from Tamaki Yasuoka: Tamaki is a member of the Japan Volunteers-in-Parks Association who spent a few weeks volunteering in the Jackson Visitor Center at Paradise last summer. Her report, attached here in PDF format, is a colorful and informative look at the experience of an international volunteer at Mount Rainier. We work with several such volunteers every year; they take a lot of extra planning and logistical preparation, but the benefits can be very rewarding, both for the volunteer and for the park.

Day Hiking: Mount Rainier: That's the title of a new book of day hikes published by Dan Nelson and reviewed by the National Parks Traveler blog. 1% of the proceeds from the book are donated to the Washington Trails Association, a major partner with Mount Rainier National Park in our volunteer trail maintenance and repair following the storms of November 2006.

Association of Partners for Public Lands lauds Cooperative Conservation Award: We were recognized by APPL in their monthly newsletter. That awards ceremony is coming up in just two weeks, on April 21, in Washington, D.C.

Spring Break news roundup

I doubt many of you noticed, but I've been away from the office for the past week, vacationing with my family over Spring Break. I'm still catching up on my e-mail and phone messages, and there are a few issues that have come up over the past week that need to be dealt with, mostly involving logistics for the large number of volunteers we expect to host in the historic Longmire Campground this year. Which, ultimately, is a good thing! And I have little doubt that the inevitable snags will be far less complicated to resolve that those we dealt with last year in the immediate wake of our great flood.

Meanwhile, here's a roundup of the flotsam and jetsom in my in box this morning:

Snow at Paradise... and Longmire: Washington Ski Touring Club member Lynn Tucker sent an e-mail to backcountry supervisor John Piastuck last week, asking about the schedule for their traditional removal of the poles marking ski routes at Paradise. His response: "Due to the heavy snow we are going to leave the poles up for awhile. When the road crew starts spring opening on the Canyon Rd, we will grab those poles. I imagine visitors will be using the Nisqually for another month at least. 21 feet of snow up there now." Wow, that's a lot of snow!

Our daily report says 243 inches as of this morning, including 15 inches of new snow overnight, with an estimate of 790 inches total for the snow year so far (July to June). There are still 62 inches of snow on the ground at Longmire, including 7 inches fresh overnight.

According to the Western Regional Climate Center, the average snow depth for Paradise on this date is 177.2 inches, and for Longmire, 8.1 inches. The record depth for this date is 328 inches at Paradise, in 1956, and for Longmire, 39 inches, in 1997--so our current snow depth at Longmire has shattered the old record. Average cummulative snow depth for this date at Paradise is 606 inches, so while we're on track for a banner year, it probably won't break the record of 1,122 inches set in 1972.

Guns in Parks: The issue of whether guns should be allowed in National Parks has been a very hot issue recently, with press coverage nationwide. Guns are currently not allowed in the parks, except for those carried by our law enforcement rangers, but revised regulations have been proposed that would make them legal. As a government employee, I cannot take an official position on this issue. Private citizens certainly can, however, including NPS volunteers. One of our own, George Coulbourn, an NRA member who volunteers at Carbon River, has weighed in and has generated lots of commentary in newspapers and blogs across the spectrum. Here's a sampling from my Google News alerts:

"Gun debate plays out at Mount Rainier National Park," The News Tribune, March 26 (and updated March 27 here). Reprints so far, with plenty of online responses and commentary, include Free Republic (March 27); the Casper Star-Tribune (March 29); and the Jackson Hole Star-Tribune (March 29, and updated March 31). Blog responses include "More on National Parks," Snowflakes in Hell, March 28; and "The Gun Banner Game Plan," Ride Fast & Shoot Straight, March 29.

More later...

State’s badly damaged national parks, forests need more help from volunteers

From today's News Tribune, a great summary of the flood damage that still remains in Washington's National Parks and Forests:

Why do our public lands need help? I can give you $65.9 million worth of reasons. That’s the current storm damage estimate for Mount Rainier, Olympic and North Cascades national parks, plus Gifford Pinchot, Mount Baker-Snoqualmie and Olympic national forests. Simply put, windstorms and rainstorms have battered public lands around the Puget Sound in the past two years. Consider these examples:

Check out the News Tribune's website for the full article. If you'd like to help out, here are links to the websites of the volunteer programs mentioned in the article:

Mount Rainier National Park
Olympic National Park
North Cascades National Park
Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest
Gifford Pinchot National Forest
Olympic National Forest
Washington Trails Association

Every one of us still needs help cleaning up flood damage, including Mount Rainier. Consider planning a statewide tour of volunteer projects... See the Northwest! Volunteer in our National Parks and Forests!

Volunteer program does well in park's budget planning process

This week, I've been finalizing the broad outlines of our volunteer program budget for the coming year. Like last year, our program is much bigger and more complex than it was two years ago! We now have a major partnership with SCA to manage, several grant applications pending, support from the Park Service's Centennial Initiative, and a big chunk of the flood recovery funding left over from last year's special appropriation in response to the November 2006 flood. Since my volunteer program manager position has become full-time, I've also taken on the responsibility of coordinating our Youth Conservation Corps program, and will probably end up playing a major role in the Japan Volunteers-in-Parks program too.

All of these elements have fared well in terms of funding. I'm sure the most important reason for this is that we demonstrated, last year, in no uncertain terms, what a good return on the investment we could provide. If you total up every piece of our volunteer operation, including staff salaries, equipment, and investments in infrastructure, we spent about $400,000 last year parkwide on expenses related to volunteers. In return, we received the equivalent of $1.6 million of service.

So, when SCA made their plans for this year, continuing our flood recovery partnership was an easy decision to approve. We are competing well for several grants, including NPS Special Project Funding and Youth Partnership Program funding, and with SCA's help recently won a $93,550 award from Boeing Corporation. Mount Rainier was selected as one of a few parks nationwide to receive a $48,000 base funding increasing to help pay for a full-time volunteer program manager position, rather than the 30% collateral duty we've had up to now. (I'm currently doing the job full-time, but under a temporary assignment.)

The park still has about $11.5 million left in our flood recovery account--a lot of money, but there's still a lot of work left to do. Like last year, we'll need to spend the money as efficiently and responsibly as possible. Every proposal for how that money would be spent was reviewed carefully, including our volunteer program. In the end, a few projects were cut, some were delayed, others were modified. But the volunteer program survived intact. We've set a good precedent, and I look forward to continuing to demonstrate the value of our volunteer partnerships in caring for Mount Rainier National Park.

Volunteers help with Northern Spotted Owl demographic monitoring

In my "in box" today is our division of natural resources' 2007 progress report on monitoring Northern Spotted Owls and their habitat within Mount Rainier National Park. The report is mostly methods and data, but it's the result of a lot of work by a lot of people. Like most things at Mount Rainier, those efforts include volunteers, especially since "demographic monitoring is labor intensive and often quite costly." A total of 166 visits were made to 31 monitoring sites in 2007.

Mount Rainier is one of the largest relatively undisturbed areas of Spotted Owl habitat in the western Washington Cascades. Declines in Spotted Owl populations have been documented throughout the region. Research here at Rainier and elsewhere suggests that factors in addition to habitat loss may be responsible, including possibly increased numbers of Barred Owls, climate change, and avian viruses. In addition, collisions with vehicles seem to be surprisingly common, with eight documented owl fatalities in or near the park over the past ten years, half of those Spotted Owls.

Last year's owl crew included Alyssa Herr and Emily Slayton, both of whom started surveying owls as volunteers a few years ago and then were picked up as paid rangers in 2007. Russel Gibbs has been helping with wildlife surveys of all kinds for years--Spotted Owls, Harlequin Ducks, etc.

By the way, if this sounds interesting to any of our readers, we're working on some new volunteer projects this summer surveying amphibians in backcountry locations. It would involve several days of work spread out over the summer. Watch this space or our job listings for an announcement, probably in June. (You can also e-mail me to get on our volunteer program mailing list.)