By Alex Day, Director of Marketing & Communications
Mount Rainier’s iconic Paradise Meadows aren’t just a breathtaking destination — they’re also a hub for groundbreaking restoration work.
With heavy visitor traffic threatening this sensitive ecosystem, researchers and park staff are pioneering ways to restore and safeguard this beloved high-elevation landscape – and through our multi-year Together for the Parks campaign, donors are playing an important role in protecting these fragile flowers.
Washington’s National Park Fund (WNPF) has proudly supported Mount Rainier’s impressive ecological restoration program for over a decade, as well as the dedicated volunteers who help power it through the park’s Volunteer Program.
More needs to be done to protect these fragile meadows in the long run. The Restoring Paradise initiative within WNPF’s Together for the Parks campaign seeks to fund a three-year cooperative agreement with researchers at the University of Washington.
Together, the research team, in collaboration with the park’s scientists and ecologists, are uncovering what works — and what doesn’t — in restoring the meadows. From analyzing past restoration plantings to studying seed banks, their research is laying the groundwork for more effective restoration in the future.
This effort is all about turning knowledge into action. With early funding from WNPF, UW researchers, led by Dr. Jonathan Bakker and graduate student Allie Howell, have already joined forces with Mount Rainier’s resource managers and outlined a plan of work.
Howell has started gathering data from restoration plantings funded by WNPF in 2021. With her own graduate research and support from the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center, she’s testing innovative methods to give these meadows a fighting chance in the face of increased visitation.
As part of the project, UW Rare Care lent a hand this summer with an intern focused on data collection, making this a collaborative effort at every level.
Why does this work matter? The meadows at Paradise see thousands of visitors every year, and off-trail hiking can leave lasting damage. Currently, the park’s ecologists race against time to replant native plants in the meadows after the damage has occurred in hopes that the meadows will return to their former glory.
Each season, the park’s ecological restoration team partners with volunteers to plant a mind-boggling 40,000 to 50,000 plants. And this enormous effort all occurs in a very short growing period: September through mid-October, when the snow has mostly melted out and after the peak summer months when droughts often impact water levels in the park.
Kim Popek is the supervisor of the Ecological Restoration Program at Mount Rainier National Park. She says, “We just can’t do as good of a job as nature does. So, we do our best and we are able to give the meadows a boost, but keeping the damage from occurring in the first place is the most effective – it’s a lot more effective than doing the restoration work after.”
That’s part of the impetus for this multi-year meadow research effort. By identifying the best restoration techniques, this project is investing in cutting-edge research to inform boots-on-the-ground action, ensuring that Paradise’s meadows aren’t just repaired — they’re equipped to withstand future impacts from growing visitation, ensuring the long-term management of park resources for visitors to enjoy for generations to come.
From monitoring plant survival to improving planting strategies, the lessons learned here will ripple out to benefit restoration efforts across the park and beyond.
Washington’s National Park Fund is the official philanthropic partner to Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic National Parks. With your help, we raise private support to preserve and protect Washington’s national parks, funding scientific research, youth and family experiences, and projects that will keep these parks strong and vital now and forever, for everyone.
A special project WNPF is raising funds for as part of the five-year Together for the Parks campaign, Restoring Paradise is a bold plan that includes the restoration of Mount Rainier National Park’s Paradise Meadows, rehabilitation of a main portion of the popular Skyline Trail, construction of a new 1.2-mile connecting trail from the lower parking lot and picnic area up to the Jackson Visitor Center, and rehabilitation of the historic Slate Comfort Station just off the Paradise Parking area. You can learn more about how the campaign supports this project at togetherfortheparks.org.
Cover photo by Kacee Saturay.