By Marjorie Walter, Guest Blogger and Board Vice Chair of Washington’s National Park Fund
Nothing beats a day spent hiking a trail through the spectacular subalpine meadows of Mount Rainier National Park – except maybe combining that hike with the opportunity to contribute to important research by volunteering as a citizen scientist.
That’s how I and a small group of other volunteers spent a day last fall, hiking from Paradise down to Reflection Lakes with Mount Rainier’s aquatic ecologist, Rebecca Lofgren, and collecting data on streamflow along the way.
Mount Rainier’s water supply is entirely dependent on the snowpack, so it’s important to monitor streamflow conditions to effectively manage that resource for the park’s human visitors. Streamflow information also contributes to understanding how shifts in the water supply affect the Park’s entire ecosystem, and tracking conditions over time helps predict the changes we can expect with continued global warming. The data we collected, combined with data collected by other volunteers, will allow for detailed mapping and modeling of the annual probability of year-round streamflow, or “streamflow permanence.”
Before we even arrived at The Mountain (as it’s affectionately known by locals), we participated in an online training session, during which Rebecca gave us an overview of the project, introduced the apps we would be using, and described the kind of data we’d be collecting. We also hashed out logistics, including COVID-related precautions. A few days later, we met up outside the visitor center at Paradise to get some hands-on practice before hitting the trail. We walked through how to use the location and data collection apps, and how to operate the GPS antenna we would be carrying, to ensure we were recording our observations at all the required spots.
We were on our way in no time, with the antenna in a pack and an iPad in hand, headed for our first location. Mist and clouds obscured the summit, but the profusion of wildflowers surrounding us more than made up for that. The trail meandered through meadows bursting with Rosy Spirea, Pearly Everlasting, Magenta Paintbrush, Lewis’ Monkeyflower, and Beargrass. The Blue-pod Lupine was especially lush, and we spotted several fat marmots gorging themselves on the deep purple petals.
Using the electronic map, we hiked along the trail toward each observation site, confirming the exact location with the linked GPS antenna. When we got to the right spot, we switched to the data collection app and recorded our observations about the particular location, including flow status; whether the stream bed was predominantly bedrock, fine or coarse sediment; whether the observation point was at a trail crossing and if so, the type of crossing; the depth of the water, if any; and the active channel width. We finished up by taking a photo of the location and then submitted the form before hiking to the next observation site.
The locations ranged from footbridges spanning creeks that tumbled over rocky beds, to small sandy channels running alongside the trail. Several of our sites had plenty of water flowing, while others looked like they had recently dried up for the season. At one location, some passing hikers stopped to chat – they were curious about what we were up to, with our iPad and measuring tape. They reported that the deep, boulder-filled channel choked with logs we were observing on the High Lakes Trail had been roaring with water just a few weeks earlier. By the time we finished our hike, we had logged data for over a dozen sites. Since then, other volunteers and Park staff have gathered data for many more, all contributing to a comprehensive look at the aquatic system of Mount Rainier National Park.
There are citizen science opportunities across the National Park system, ranging from analyzing materials in historic archives to documenting artifacts from excavations, collecting data for environmental studies looking at changes over time and various animal and plant populations, and more.
Donors to Washington’s National Park Fund have made possible a variety of citizen science programs at Mount Rainier, North Cascades and Olympic National Parks. In addition to the streamflow monitoring project at Mount Rainier, these include programs to monitor amphibian populations and restore aquatic ecosystems that have been affected by non-native Eastern Brook Trout that were stocked in several park lakes during the early 1920s. At Olympic National Park, citizen scientists have been documenting the population of Olympic marmots since 2010, in order to understand their declining numbers and develop strategies to protect this animal that lives only in this park. And at North Cascades National Park, the effects of climate change on high-elevation ecosystems are being studied with help from volunteers with the Cascades Butterfly Project, which tracks and documents butterfly populations in the subalpine meadows of the North Cascades.
In 2018, Washington’s National Park Fund provided $90,000 to support the volunteer program at Mount Rainier. That year over 2,500 volunteers contributed nearly 70,000 hours of service to the park—an economic value of $1.7 million, which is an impressive return on investment by any standard. Supporting volunteer programs, including citizen science, whether by donating or participating, is a great way to support our national parks.
This year, volunteerism and stewardship is the theme for our Auction for the Parks. Your participation helps fund these important projects, so the work can continue well into the future. Want to contribute? Consider bidding on an Auction package or donating to our Fund-A-Need.