#wnpf

Happy Autumn, Volunteers! Here is a summary of our annual volunteer numbers for 2020:

Hours: 43,760.5 VIPs: 1,198

For comparison, here was 2019:

Hours: 69,481 VIPs: 2,420

Group volunteer participation was down especially dramatically this year, with a total of 314 people contributing 8,907 hours, when in a typical year we'd have twice that many people participating through WTA alone.

Overall, our volunteer numbers are 49.5% of what we reported in 2019, and volunteer hours are 63.0% of last year's.

The numbers are helped a bit by normal participation in October 2019 (since our report is by fiscal year, October through September) and over the winter pre-COVID (in spite of limitations from weather and the landslide that closed SR706 for a few weeks).

Many programs did not happen this year, or to a much more limited extent. The trails volunteer program, normally our most robust due to our partnership with WTA, was limited mostly to Northwest Youth Corps crews this year. In many programs, people chose to stay home due to COVID-19 risk, especially volunteers who belong to at-risk populations. Some programs that normally work with full-time volunteers or interns did not happen because we didn't have housing available. The Amphibian Survey citizen science program, like the WTA partnership, did not occur because we did not have housing for the supervisor.

At the same time, other programs continued, and adapted to offer safe alternatives for training and procedures, and the volunteers who did show up stepped up in a big way. We had only half our usual Meadow Rovers this year, but they turned in three quarters of last year's hours and 90% of last year's visitor contacts. The MeadoWatch and Cascades Butterfly Project citizen science programs remained robust, and a new bat survey program was welcomed enthusiastically by volunteers. (About a quarter of our volunteers participated in one or more citizen science projects.) And of course Mountain Rescue and Nordic Patrol were instrumental this year, not only with Search and Rescue but also Preventative Search and Rescue (PSAR) out of the new SAR Cabin.

Partners continued to help make it all happen: Washington's National Park Fund, the Mount Rainier National Park Associates, the Northwest Youth Corps, the Student Conservation Association, the University of Washington and The Evergreen State College. Other partners like WTA, The Mission Continues, and Starbucks couldn't safely participate due to the Pandemic but have expressed eagerness to return as soon as it's safe to do so.

We all hope for a more normal year next summer!

(from this ask game)

ohhh sea you’re gonna make me emotional :’)

it’s so wild that you say that’s something you’re envious of because i think you do witty prose SO well. like all of your characters feel so wonderfully voicey and like real, genuine people. which is, i think, even more impressive given all the fantastical scenarios you tend to work in!

In the fall of 2016, a national group called Tourism Cares spent a few days at Mount Rainier doing a whole lot of volunteer work. Their participants, all members of the tourism industry, came to us from as near as Seattle and as far away as Florida.

Along with their great physical labor, the group also donated $3400 to our volunteer program. We put $400 toward buying some tools for future volunteers to use while maintaining the historic landscape around Longmire, and $3000 toward the purchase of two radios for use by our Meadow Rover program.

The radios have finally arrived! I’m holding, here, one of two brand new BK brand radios that are now in our inventory and ready for the summer!

Meanwhile, through a beyond-generous donation by the estate of the late great Flash Parlini, and with the help of our fundraising partner Washington’s National Park Fund, we are in the process of buying 32 additional radios, which will aid both the Meadow Rover program and others all over the park, from Nordic Patrol in the winter to backcountry patrol in the summer, and from MeadoWatch to Hike with a Purpose to Amphibian Surveys. We look forward to receiving those soon, hopefully yet this summer!

Washington’s National Park Fund has a great article on their blog today about the cabin they are helping to fund construction of at Longmire for Search and Rescue Volunteers:

In 2016 - 2017, you helped Washington's National Park Fund raise $223,000 to help Mount Rainier restore a historic building to provide Search and Rescue volunteers a safe haven while they are in the parks.

As I'm sure you know, Search and Rescue provides a vital service to both park staff and park visitors by responding to any emergency. But when they are in the parks for long hours in inclement weather searching for lost hikers or avalanche victims, helping people in danger, there's often no place for them to go and recuperate, rest, or unwind -- all things that are so necessary to insuring they are best prepared to handle crises.

Here’s also a great video about the project. Thank you to everyone who has helped make this possible!

The picnic shelter in the Longmire Stewardship Campground is complete!

Craftsmen in Mount Rainier’s carpenter shop, under the leadership of Mitch Anderson, have been working on this project for two years now, in between other projects. With much of the rest of the park inaccessible in the winter, this is a perfect season for such work, and the final roof boards were laid earlier this week.

As you can see in these photos, though, this is not just a slap-dash 2x4 frame shelter. Our crew built the shelter in a manner that mimics the historic “NPS Rustic” architectural style found throughout the Longmire Historic District, including the campground. It uses massive wood beams, carefully carved to fit tightly together without need for steel bolts.

The shelter is large enough to accommodate several picnic tables, and is located in the middle of the campground -- at the north end of the tent sites, just south of the residential RV sites (where employees live during the summer), adjacent to the middle bathroom, and around the corner from the community fire ring and our primary group campsite. Water and electric are accessible from the RV site immediately next to the shelter.

The shelter was constructed, in large part, with funds donated through Washington’s National Park Fund, yet another example of the tremendous value we get from that partnership. It will be used by groups ranging from schools and colleges visiting for education programs, to tribal groups using the nearby Tribal Use Area in wet weather, to youth crews conducting training, to volunteer groups like Starbucks employees and Mount Rainier National Park Associates teams gathering after a work day on the trail.

Astronomy Volunteer Tom Pauly, pictured here with his wife Gracie, recently wrote a great article for the Washington’s National Park Fund website about their experiences volunteering at Mount Rainier. Read all about it -- and about the Fund’s support of night sky interpretation at Olympic National Park as well -- on their website!