Volunteer Program: Supporting Passionate Park Stewards

This project is partially funded. Mount Rainier’s volunteer program is a powerful force for providing vital project support and creating advocates for the park’s mission. Each year more than 2,400 volunteers donate nearly 70,000 hours to the park – an effort worth an astonishing $1.8 million in services and a priceless investment in building community connections. Volunteers perform backcountry patrols, wildlife surveys, astronomy and other guest interpretive programs, geologic research, and archeological work. Funding will help cover the cost of supplies, housing, uniforms, and vehicles, as well as the interns integral to coordinating this key program.

Red Bus Repairs: Getting Park Visitors to Stehekin

This project is fully funded. About the project: Accessible by foot, ferry, or floatplane, the Stehekin Valley offers gorgeous waterfalls, historic landscapes, and numerous trails into the Stephen Mather Wilderness. Red Buses provide the means for visitors to access these remarkable places and unforgettable experiences. Visitors to Lake Chelan use the four Red Buses as a shuttle to and from backcountry adventures to the North Cascades and the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail. Day-users take the buses to view spectacular Rainbow Falls or visit the historic Buckner Orchard, where they can pick apples during the late fall. The unpaved roads and wide variety of weather conditions have taken their toll on this vital transportation system. Repairs are needed for three buses, including cracked frames, emergency latches for windows, numerous seals, and other safety repairs.

Tribal Youth Develop a Native Conservation Corps Program

This project is partially funded. Getting out into the field with park staff is incredibly empowering for students, building confidence and inspiring ideas for nature-related career paths. We’d like to make this opportunity available for native students in communities adjacent to the park, who have inhabited and honored these lands since time immemorial. This project, targeted for summer 2023, will recruit two youth interns (ages 16-18) from the Quileute Tribe to work with an interpretive park ranger to develop a Native Conservation Corps (NCC) program at Olympic National Park.

The interns will help develop and test activities and experiences for future NCC participants such as working with resource managers and scientists, communicating with park visitors, participating in conservation projects, and even designing NCC uniforms and selecting participant gear and supplies. After this planning year, in 2024 the program will expand to welcome 7-10 tribal youth each year. The NCC will be modeled after successful tribal youth engagement programs in other national parks, offering opportunities for interns to share their cultural heritage and perspectives with park staff and park visitors and be exposed to a variety of career opportunities in resource management and conservation, science, and visitor services. This program will be valuable in fostering greater connection and partnerships between the park and local tribal communities.

Meadow Rovers: Safeguarding and Sharing the Magic of the Meadows

The spectacular subalpine meadows above Paradise and Sunrise are some of the premier draws for guests to Mount Rainier. Caring for these fragile ecosystems while providing a safe and memorable visitor experience requires just the right balance of vigilance and education – and the park’s 200 Meadow Rovers are up to the task! These dedicated volunteers donate nearly 9,000 hours and make close to 200,000 visitor connections annually as they share the story of the meadows and help visitors be good stewards of the park’s sensitive plants and animals. And all this effort has been paying off. Since the Meadow Rover program began 20 years ago, fewer people are venturing off trails, reducing both meadow damage and Search and Rescue incidents. Support for this program will ensure this positive trend continues.

Cascades Butterfly Project

Over the last decade, a team of community science volunteers has dedicated thousands of hours in pursuit of blooms and butterflies as part of the Cascades Butterfly Project’s monitoring of the region’s high mountain meadows. Once a week each summer, volunteers survey specific areas within the Cascades and record numbers and abundance of butterfly species, the timing of peak butterfly flight periods, and bloom dates of host plants. These data provide critical insight for researchers to compare timing of butterfly emergence and plant flowering over the long term to detect the impacts of climate change. Funding will enable the Cascades Butterfly Project to continue to track butterfly trends and support volunteers as they conduct survey work and talk to visitors about butterfly stewardship and climate change.

Makah Youth Cultural Resource Monitoring Project

Several significant archeological sites containing dozens of petroglyphs and the remains of seasonal villages lie within or adjacent to Olympic National Park and are extremely important to the cultural heritage of the Makah Tribe, whose land abuts the park boundary. These sites are accessible from trails within the park, most notably by hiking the popular Ozette Triangle Loop. As visitation to the area and public knowledge of these cultural resources increases, so comes the possibility of damage to these unique sites. Visitors have etched their names on image panels, causing permanent damage. Seasonal high tides and storm surges that have been exacerbated through rising sea levels have also eroded a number of important archeological sites in the area, leading to incalculable losses. This project will support three youth members of the Makah Tribe in the stewardship of these cultural resources by conducting weekly monitoring of four sites to document changes – both through vandalism and natural erosion. By being an active presence in the area they will also provide education and deter damage when visitation is highest, protecting these at-risk sites for future generations.

Roadside Assistance Volunteers: Help is on the Way!

Imagine packing up your family for a much-anticipated adventure to Mount Rainier, only to face the frustration of locking your keys in the car during a visitor center stop or getting a flat tire on the road to Paradise. Thanks to the park’s Roadside Assistance Volunteer Network (RAVEN), visitors in such situations can get a helping hand and quickly get their fun back on track. In addition to aiding stranded motorists, the Roadside Assistance team helps with traffic control in emergency and non-emergency situations and provides ranger support during Search and Rescue incidents when appropriate. All of these efforts free up first responders so that they can tend to the most critical calls. Funding will ensure that this vital program continues with five volunteers stationed throughout the park.

Bear Essentials Safety Program

A bear encounter can be a highlight of a national park visit – as long as it occurs safely. North Cascades rangers prioritize efforts that help visitors know how to recreate properly in bear country, especially in front-country campgrounds where it’s all too easy for bears to associate human activity with a free handout. Through the Bear Essentials program, rangers use the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service educational bear trailer to teach visitors about proper food storage and bear stewardship. Their campground programs and one-on-one interactions provide critical information to keep people safe and bears alive in the park. This program is now more important than ever as campground usage rises, especially in numbers of first-time visitors who may be uninformed about proper bear-friendly behavior.