Storm Damage In Longmire Campground

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Yesterday's storm resulted in a temporary closure of the Park, and while most of us were home watching the gauges on the Nisqually, Cowlitz and Carbon Rivers, havoc was being wreaked by high winds in the forests. Longmire Stewardship Campground was hit hard, dozens of trees snapped off or toppled across the loop road. Campsites are filled with the debris of broken branches.

As shown in the second image, Park personnel were out assessing the damage this afternoon. Crews were already at work removing the trees obstructing the campground roads.

Campground cleanup is an issue we deal with every spring, but seldom is it of this magnitude. This year, the call for volunteers will be "all hands on deck!"

 

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Mount Rainier National Park Associates: Jacks and Jills of All Trades

The volunteers at Mount Rainier National Park Associates have many talents: trail work in any and all weather conditions, invasive species removal (or conquering alien invaders), revegetation of once destroyed meadows, and advocating for Mount Rainier National Park.  MRNPA has been a longtime partner of Mount Rainier, and over the years have played a crucial role in preservation of the beautiful resources that we all share in the park.  This year, MRNPA has volunteered 468 hours doing trails projects, 84 hours participating in the annual "deveg" day, removing exotic species, and 170 hours replanting native species in the former Sunrise Camp.  This totals to 720 hours of volunteering, equating to a value of $16,610.40!!

A huge thank you is in order to the Mount Rainier National Park Associates for all of their hard work and their longstanding dedication to the park over the past 30 years! 

 

Interested in learning more about MRNPA?  Seeing some of the projects they have participated in over the years?  Learning how to sign up for the next projects?  Visit www.mrnpa.org today!

2015 Annual Activity and Expense Report

Department of the Interior

National Park Service

Volunteers In Parks

Annual Activity and Expense Report

Mount Rainier National Park

Report Date: Nov 13, 2015

Fiscal Year: 2015

Volunteer Coordinator and Park Information
Total Volunteers: 1,767
Alpha Code: MORA
VIP Coordinator: Kevin Bacher
VIP Coordinator Phone: 360-569-2211
Coordinator Email: kevin_bacher@nps.gov

Volunteer hours by category:
Administration: 129.00
Campground Host: 2,331.00
Cultural Resource Management: 6,694.00
General Management: 0.00
Interpretation: 12,760.00
Maintenance: 16,238.00
Natural Resource Management: 14,061.00
Protection/Operations/Law Enforcement: 8,388.00
Training: 1,966.00

TOTAL: 62,367
SCA Hours after 6/1/2015: 3,171
GRAND TOTAL (comparable to previous years): 65,538

Program costs by category:
Housing: $ 14,081.00
Meals: $ 6,353.00
Recognition/Award: $ 0.00
Supplies: $ 1,819.00
Training: $ 0.00
Transportation: $ 2,924.00
Uniforms: $ 4,131.00

Volunteer Program Highlight
Although the record low snowpack on the mountain this past winter had many negative qualities, the volunteer program saw a boost in volunteer hours in the extended summer season. Partnerships in the park continue to be one of the largest contributors to the volunteer program. In mid-August, the Longmire Stewardship Campground was filled to capacity with 137 people from REI locations across the state engaging in three days of stewardship and education. The trails program hosted an additional 30 individuals from REI on separate occasions. The Washington Trails Association coordinated 100 more volunteers than last year, totaling almost 5,000 hours. Improvements continue in the Longmire Stewardship Campground, while Citizen Science programs, including the Cascades Butterfly Survey, MeadoWatch, and amphibian surveys, continue to be some of the most popular for volunteers. The Meadow Rover program had its most popular year to date, bringing in more volunteers and hours than any year to date. Looking toward the next 100 years of the National Park Service, the volunteer program has engaged youth through the Student Conservation Association’s Community Crews, The Washington Trails Association’s Youth Volunteer Vacations, and the Washington Conservation Corps. In addition to the numbers reported here, six individual SCA interns contributed 3,171 hours of service after June 1, 2015.

Training
How many people at the park require VIP Program Mgmt Training: 20

Optional Information Regarding Housing VIPS and Campground Hosts
Number of Campground Hosts: 11
Number of VIPs housed in Permanent Structures: 41
Number of VIPs housed in Trailers: 10

Trailer Pads for Volunteers: 12

Other Information
Number of SCAs: 35
SCA Hours: 6779
Number of Artists in Parks: 0
Artist in Parks Hours: 0
Number of International VIPs: 4
International VIPS Hours: 240
Number of Volunteer Senior Ranger Corps: 0
Volunteer Senior Ranger Corps Hours: 0
Number of Boy Scouts: 38
Boy Scout Hours: 208
Number of Girl Scouts: 11
Girl Scout Hours: 66

Wait, There is a Trail Here?

Even though it may be raining in your neck of the woods, those visiting Paradise recently have been seeing lots of that beautiful snow falling from the sky.  With the first snowfall of the year comes some of the first skiers, snowshoers, and sledders.  Personally, I cannot wait to get out there and start rolling around in the snow (I may have already made my first snowball of the year...hint: I did), but we need to remember that just a few inches under that frozen surface are thousands upon thousands of fragile plants.  Many visitors to Paradise may not realize it, but by walking off of the paved trails and sledding thorugh the meadows, they could be wiping out scores of vegetation.  With this amount of snow on the ground, the trails can still be recognized by the way they are smoother than the vegetated areas around them.

 

Image from webcam facing the road to Paradise, 3:16pm, November 12.

 

In order to protect the stunning resources we have under all of that fluffy stuff, we need to have a solid five feet of snowpack, especially before we start to leave the trails or showshoe, ski, etc.  If any of you are interested in making your first snowball of the season in the upcoming weeks and helping out to protect the fragile meadows, please contact me (Ian) directly, and I will help you get everything set up!   

 

We are planning our Winter Operations training in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned for more information, both on this blog and on our Volunteer Facebook page!  If you have any questions or you want to come out and play volunteer in the snow, contact Ian at ian_harvey@partner.nps.gov !

 

 

 

A Snowy September Morning at Sunrise

Photo by VictorDallons

Today we are featuring a volunteer photo submission made by Victor Dallons of the snow covered bunk houses surrounding the Sunrise Visitor's Center.  During the beginning of his Roving, Victor found the bunk houses in their new coats on this early September morning. 

During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt's New Deal program strove to put Americans back to work, all while beautifying public lands.  One program, the Civilian Conservation Corps, was very prevalent in the park, creating many of the trails and buildings that can still be seen today.  The CCC Camp that was based out of the White River area began work on the block houses at Sunrise in 1939. 

Photo from Park Archives

This photo was found in the Mount Rainier Archives of a CCC member working on construction of one of the block houses seen overlooking the Sunrise parking lot today. 






Do you have any pictures from your volunteering this year?  Share them with us and you may be featured on the Volunteer Blog in the near future!  Send your pictures and stories to Ian at ian_harvey@partner.nps.gov

Thank you for your submission, Victor!

Free Entrance Day on Veteran's Day

For the last Fee Free Day of the year, all admission fees to Mount Rainier will be waived on Veteran's Day, November 11th.  Even if you aren't coming out to volunteer, come on out to the park to visit The Mountain before the snow really starts to stick!

Photo from Park Archives of Military training exercises on The Mountain during WWII.

Urban Wilderness Works May Have Found A New Home

With much North Cascades National Park burning throughout the summer, the leaders from the Urban Wilderness Works needed to find a place to share their love and passion for the outdoors, and very quickly.  Luckily, Mount Rainier was their next choice, as we were host to a crew of young adults from the greater Seattle area.  While they were here, the group, totaling only seven people, completed an astonishing 504 hours of trails work and educational projects.  That 504 hours translates into over an $11,000 value.  They were only here for two weeks, with nearly half of that time spent on a backpacking trip.  This just goes to show what dedicated and like minded individuals  can accomplish when trying new things.  And, with our fingers crossed, we hope that the people from the Urban Wilderness Works have found a new home at Mount Rainier National Park. 

Washington Trails Association Continues to Shine at Mount Rainier

Perhaps one of the best parts of the "make sure volunteer hours are entered" season is the ability to see how great of an impact our partners have had at the Park. 

The Washington Trails Association has been working on the trails at Mount Rainier throughout the last few decades, but on a very consistent basis since the Mount Rainier Recovery Corps work started in 2007.  Today, the WTA will hold weekend projects every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the summer months, going deep into September, as well as a variety of other projects throughout the warmest weather.  This year, the Washington Trails Association held Back Country Response Teams in the park, taking groups of volunteers deep into the backcountry to do some much needed trail work for a week at a time.  Additionally, they were also leading Youth Volunteer Vacations, which allowed high school aged children from across the country to come and experience our beautiful public lands.





 A grand total of 458 people volunteered through the Washington Trails Association this year, with 53 of them being youth under the age of 18.  This brought in 4,859 hours of trail work, done all over the park.  Based on 2015 figures, that equates to a value of $112,097.13!! 
Some areas of focus for this year's crews were the Wonderland Trail heading towards Summerland, the Glacier Basin Trail, the Wonderland Trail reroute along Emerald Ridge, and the Moraine Trail, among many others.

 

 

Although the WTA has packed up for the season at Mount Rainier, they will still be having volunteer opportunities throughout the state all year long!  If you are interested in the Washington Trails Association or continuing to volunteer with them throughout the cooler months, please visit www.wta.org !

Help identify historical photos!

Hi All:

The Bremerton Naval Museum dropped off several boxes of photographs that were donated to them but they turned out to not be about the Navy. Many of the images are of Mount Rainier, so they were easy to identify. But there are also many images that I can not identify as from Mount Rainier.

I could use your help identifying the images. Any that are not of Mt Rainier will be transferred to the appropriate park or national forest site.

Please swing by curatorial (T116) between 8 and 5:30 all this week and lend a hand.

Thank you,

Brooke Childrey
Park Curator
360-569-6784
brooke_childrey (at) nps.gov

Snow has Arrived at Paradise

A quick check of the webcams this morning show that the rain has shifted to that fluffy stuff falling from the sky, and Paradise has a new coat.  Remember, whether you are coming out to volunteer or just for a leisurely hike, be prepared for any weather conditions as the winter season is beginning.  Also, starting today, all vehicles, including AWD and 4WD vehicles, entering the park must have tire chains with them. 

 

 

Make sure to check out the Park's webcams before coming out to volunteer this winter to help you to prepare! Stay safe this winter, volunteers!