By Hugh Saffel, Washington’s National Park Fund Volunteer
Paradise got its name because of the wildflowers. We’re restoring the meadows so it will keep living up to that.
Ask visitors to Mount Rainier National Park to give you their most iconic memory and many will grab their phone and scroll to photos of the wildflower meadows of Paradise. These thousands of acres of blooms provide a spectacular contrast of color to many of our favorite photos of the mountain. The alpine and sub-alpine meadows are some of the most accessible in the Cascade Mountains.
Unfortunately, this accessibility has led to decades of heavy use and off-trail hiking, leaving many of the areas trampled and bare.
Reviving and maintaining these meadows for future generations is one of the many important park projects Washington’s National Park Fund donors make possible.
Anyone who has done some hiking in wet country can appreciate why there is a need for this restorative work. With melting snow and rain, trails often get muddy. So, all of those feet tend to seek drier ground along the route. This erodes and expands the trail.
Off-trail tramping also adds significantly to the scarring of the meadows. While many of these plants are extremely tough, able to survive the crushing weight of dozens of feet of snowpack, a misplaced step can quickly snap even hearty heather branches setting their growth back years.
A growing season that is typically no more than three months long means that these plants don’t have enough time to recover on their own. This gives us a very small window to accomplish our goals.
Beth Fallon, Ph.D., is the Plant Ecologist at Mount Rainier National Park. She says, “Restoration starts with protection and conservation of the existing meadow system. This includes maintaining and building trails that create a system that is easy to follow and encourages visitors to stay on the trail, even in the snow.”
This program involves staff and volunteers supplementing and stabilizing the soil in the meadow, then spreading seeds and planting plants. These plants are 40,000 native seedlings that have been grown from seeds collected in the meadows.
These meadows are also home to all kinds of creatures — another reason it’s so important to maintain this important ecosystem.
Black bears roam the meadows for huckleberries. White-tailed ptarmigan, the red fox, and wolverines roam the meadows in all seasons. Marmots are frequently munching on these plants, including some of the ones we’ve just planted!
The meadows provide us with an amazing experience of zones in a very short hike. You start near the tree line with sub-alpine firs. Quickly you move into a lush herbaceous meadow with huckleberries. Then as you move into the alpine area you leave the trees behind and experience heather with patches of snow still covering some of the ground. The sights and sounds and smells are all distinct. Lush areas of flowers buzzing with bees transition to areas still impacted by winter.
You get to experience all this, along with the animals who live here.
This important work wouldn’t get done without support from Washington’s National Park Fund. Donations support everything from the propagation of seedlings to paying the seasonal restoration staff for four weekends of volunteer efforts. It even supplies the tools and knee protection mats.
Not only does the Fund help us achieve our annual goals of restoring sections of the meadow, but it also helps us involve more people in the effort.
—Beth Fallon, Plant Ecologist at Mount Rainier National Park
Importantly, this project accomplishes more than just planting the plants. It helps Mount Rainier National Park engage more people in the effort and build more stewardship in the park. The more people the park can involve in these projects, the more they will understand the commitment it takes to maintain these special places.
The National Park Service aims to include marginalized and underrepresented people in this work in the parks. By working with groups like the Northwest Youth Corps and including students from local schools, young people are exposed to experiences that are new to them and are given the opportunity to see themselves in a scientific career.
Mount Rainier National Park restoration staff guides their learning in meadow ecology and restoration, providing a special opportunity for these young volunteers to have hands-on experience reviving the meadows and developing a connection to these special places they can continue to visit throughout their lives.
Washington’s National Park Fund appreciates the hands-on activities provided in programs like this meadow restoration. Although there are many scheduled activities through schools and the Youth Corps, there are still opportunities for group and individual participation. Giving your time is a great way to give back to the parks.
If you’d like to support more projects involving science and research or volunteerism and stewardship — visit our project portfolio at wnpf.org/projects.
See you out there!
Editor’s Note: This article also appeared in National Parks Traveler.