Chattermarks

By Andrew Pringle, Skagit District Interpreter, North Cascades National Park Complex

The second annual Youth Leadership Conference, hosted by North Cascades Institute, North Cascades National Park Complex and Mount Baker-Snoqualamie National Forest at the Environmental Learning Center in North Cascades National Park took place November 11th-13th, 2011.

The event brought together more than 60 diverse high school and college students from across the region who had recently participated in stewardship programs on public lands in the North Cascades Ecosystem. Fourteen different organizations partnered to present the students with a range of new opportunities.

In addition to the three host organizations, they included Mount Rainier National Park, Olympic National Park, The Student Conservation Association, Western Washington University, Seattle Parks and Recreation, Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group, Northwest Youth Corps, The Oregon Zoo, Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Alderleaf Wilderness College and The Wilderness Awareness School.

These partners are developing the next generation of public land stewards and agency employees. By deliberately connecting existing programs and partnerships, they are creating a continuum of meaningful experiences, a pathway to stewardship. This is in support of National Park Service’s “A Call to Action”, which charts a new direction for the National Park Service as it enters its second century in 2016.

Ultimately, these partners hope to create a constituency of engaged citizens, no matter their profession. The Youth Leadership Conference is one stop along this pathway. Students can sign up for educational programs and learn about getting into college, seeking out internships and applying for jobs. The three-day event is fun and inspiring, and now you can enjoy the experience in this new video:

North Cascades Youth Leadership Conference 2011

North Cascades Institute is very excited to finally share with you a multimedia piece made in celebration of our 25th anniversary. “The High Ridge: Celebrating 25 Years in the North Cascades” was created by three staff members from our marketing/communications department — Christian Martin, Jessica Haag and Amy Wilcox — in partnership with Benj Drummond and Sara Joy Steele of bdsjs.com. It aims to tell the story of where the Institute originated from, how it has evolved over the past quarter-century, what we hope to accomplish in our teaching and natural history work and where we’re going next. Not an easy task, especially in only 11 minutes!

The piece features interviews with Institute founders, instructors, board members and friends, including Tom Fleischner, Saul Weisberg, Jonathan Jarvis, Robert Michael Pyle, Libby Mills, Chuck Robinson, John Miles, Jeanne Muir and Brian Scheuch. Special thanks to Bill Frisell and John Reischman for providing the music, and countless photographers for sharing their work.

Watch it now in high definition — full screen viewing essentail!

We’d really love it if you helped spread this story around — you can share this link: http://ncascades.org/discover/multimedia/high-ridge

Sara wrote up a blog post outlining some of the creative process it took to produce this piece:

When the Institute first approached us about creating a story for their 25th anniversary, they didn’t necessarily have a workshop in mind. But the more we discussed the project – along with the organization’s expanding needs, staff interest and new website – building in-house capacity to produce videos and multimedia made the most sense.

The workshop took place over five days on Canoe Island in the San Juans. In the months leading up to our week together, three Institute staff members – Amy, Christian and Jessica – purchased a video camera and learned how to use it, conducted a dozen interviews, transcribed them into more than 60,000 words, and sorted through archival footage.

Read more at http://bdsjs.com/blog/2012/01/multimedia-workshop-the-high-ridge/

Written by North Cascades Education Intern, Matt Kraska.

It’s hard to believe it has already been two weeks since Thanksgiving. As many North Cascades Institute staff said their goodbyes and left to spend Thanksgiving with family and friends, others were saying hello as they arrived at the Environmental Learning Center for the Thanksgiving Family Getaway. Families traveled from a variety of places to spend a few days celebrating and feasting together. In contrast to our fall Mountain School programs that fill the dining hall with 5th– 8th grade youth, this event was filled with folks of all ages.

The giant snowman built in the middle of the amphitheatre, a tribute to the winter wonderland of the North Cascades.

The forest around Diablo Lake was blanketed with snow from days earlier, and there was more in the forecast for the weekend. All afternoon on Thanksgiving day the drizzle was on the verge of becoming snow, and soon enough flakes of white began to fall from the once gray sky. For many, this was the first snow of the year. Laughter filled the campus as everyone began catching snowflakes on their tongues, throwing snowballs, and building giant snow people. A little winter weather is sometimes all it takes to bring people together.

» Continue reading A Weekend of Warmth and Snow

Written by former NC Wild Student and Remarkable Young Leader, Kassandra Barnedt

The North Cascades – untouched, wild, remarkable, friendship, beauty, but most importantly life changing. Every trip to this mystical place is unique, but somehow these trips bring each one of us back to the same place. My journey with the North Cascades National Park began with family outings as a small child to the Newhalem Visitor Center. As I grew, so did my interest, and I began participating in youth programs. The North Cascades Wild Summer Youth Program was my first experience enjoying the wilderness of the North Cascades.

North Cascades Wild 2009 was two weeks of backpacking, canoeing, and hiking amongst breathtaking mountains and refreshing waterfalls. We also summited Desolation Peak at the north end of Ross Lake. The scenery was inspiring and the learning opportunities were great, but the thing that keeps everyone coming back were the relationships we formed while out in the wilderness. Something about the wild brings everyone together. Barriers are broken down and people learn to work together despite their differences. After this amazing two week journey I was left craving more of the North Cascades.

North Cascades Wild 2009 trip at lighting stock camp.

Searching for more opportunities to be involved with the North Cascades, I applied for an eight week job with the Youth Conservation Corps at the North Cascades National Park Nursery. We worked with National Park employees Mike Brondi and Cheryl Cunningham in the Marblemount  Nursery. I learned about seed collection, invasive species, revegetation, and how to clear roads. We even cleaned campsites and had the chance to work with staff in other maintenance areas. The summer was well worth the hard work. Again the next summer I could not resist and I applied to work as the Youth Conservation Corps Crew Leader.

» Continue reading Sharing My Love of the North Cascades

Gerry Cook caps 44 years of service with the US National Park Service with a beautiful retirement party at Eagle Haven winery

Story by special guest Elisabeth Keating.

On a sparkling October evening at a winery in the foothills of the North Cascades, over 300 friends and family members gathered to celebrate Gerry Cook’s 44 years of service to North Cascades National Park and to wish him well in his future adventures. Gerry has served the park in many roles since 1967, working initially as a ranger and a fire lookout in 1970 at Desolation Peak, 1971 at Sourdough, and 1972 at Copper.

And as a designer, Gerry’s buildings and shelters grace many campgrounds and gathering places throughout the Park, including the viewing platform and Goat Shelter at the Visitor Center, shelters at the Environmental Learning Center trails, the Hozomeen Shelter at the north end of Ross Lake, and many accessible campsites. He’s currently designing and building the Park’s West Portal Entrance, a beautiful and unique sculpture that will be completed in the spring of 2012 and will evoke the mountains, rocks, water and glaciers that set the North Cascades apart from other wild regions of the country.

I recently asked Gerry which creation was his favorite. “Of all my design projects, I enjoy the Rock Shelter at the North Cascades Visitor Center in Newhalem the most as it feels the most creative. The “West Entrance Portal” has been fun and different.” The Rock Shelter is also where Gerry and his wife Hannah were married.

Climate Challenge students explore Native American history at Gerry’s Rock Shelter. Photo by Elisabeth Keating.

The Hozomeen Shelter is another beautiful creation of Gerry’s. Photo by Elisabeth Keating.

» Continue reading Rock On, Gerry!

Pacific Crest Trailside Reader series Co-Editor Rees Hughes will be doing a reading from his new book Saturday, November 12 beginning at 7 p.m. at Village Books in downtown Fairhaven.

Exploring the people, places, and history of the Pacific Crest Trail as it ranges 2,600 miles from Mexico to Canada, The Pacific Crest Trailside Readers bring together short excerpts from classic works of regional writing with boot-tested stories from the trail. Be sure and join Rees on Saturday evening to support this great work! 100% of author proceeds go to benefit the Pacific Crest Trail Association. Read below for a summary of the anthology, as well as a wonderful excerpt from the book by Rees.

At the heart of these anthologies are modern day trail tales, stories taken from PCT hikers that recount trailside humor and traditions, “trail angels” and “trail magic,” encounters with wildlife and wild weather, stories of being lost and found, and unusual incidents. Revealing a larger context are historical accounts of events such as Moses Schallenberger’s winter on Donner Pass and pioneer efforts like the old Naches Road that ended up creating access to today’s trails; Native American myths and legends such as that of Lost Lake near Mount St. Helens; and selections from highly-regarded environmental writers who have captured the region in print, including Mary Austin in The Land of Little Rain; John Muir in The Mountains of California; and Barry Lopez in Crossing Open Ground. Readers will also enjoy a few more surprising contributions from the likes of Mark Twain and Ursula LeGuin.

Organized parallel to the geographic sections of the Pacific Crest Trail and presented in two regional volumes, The Pacific Crest Trailside Readers will entertain everyone from dedicated thru-hikers to lovers of regional lore.

- Trailside Press Release, October 2011

» Continue reading The Pacific Crest Trailside Reader

By Ana Maria Spagna

I’ve driven Washington’s Highway 20, the North Cascades Highway, for years. I used live in Rockport right along the highway, and I used to work for the national park that straddles the highway, and for one interminable summer when Laurie worked on the east side of the crest and I worked on the west, I commuted over the highway. I’ve been wowed by the mountains and soothed by the rivers, sure, sure. I’ve hiked from trailheads and watched wildlife and even taught writing at North Cascades Institute’s Environmental Learning Center on Diablo Lake. It was there, at the Learning Center, that I first thought seriously about the dams.

To reach the Learning Center you drive right across Diablo Dam. Overhead the power lines buzz. But when writers sat down to describe their surroundings, they usually wrote about birds or fish or trees or clouds. Never the dams. I was as guilty as anyone. The three dams that line the Skagit River, Gorge, Diablo, and Ross, are all more or less visible from the highway, but, in writing as in life, I’d mostly ignored them. Why? I knew the answer: because we nature-loving types have a kneejerk reaction against anything human-made. While we’re in the woods, we want to see the woods. But part of why people come to the Learning Center is to learn about things they know little about, to appreciate them anew. For me, I realized, that meant the dams.

So I was delighted this spring to see that my old friend Jesse Kennedy would teach a class at the Learning Center on the History of the Skagit Dams. Jesse can bring enthusiasm to any subject (you’d have to attend one of his defensive driving classes to believe me) and in this case, the subject could not have been more perfectly suited to him. Dr. Kennedy, who studied both ophthalmology and diesel mechanics extensively before migrating into cultural resources, described dam construction with an engineer’s precision and told the story of J.D. Ross and his battle to bring public power to Seattle with a historian’s heart. Turns out it’s a wild story with several wild subplots. Ross single-handedly fought off proponents of privatization and brought the dams in on schedule and under budget to provide more people in Seattle with more power sooner than in other American cities.

Ross was also a renowned expert on lilies and tea plants, who borrowed monkeys and albino deer from Woodland Park Zoo to place on islands in Diablo Lake. The animals, along with a colorful light show and a hearty chicken meal and a ride up the dramatic cable incline used in dam construction, served as attractions for generations of city folks Ross wooed upriver for inexpensive tours from the Depression through the 1960s. When he died, Franklin Roosevelt offered space in Arlington National Cemetery, but Ross had specified that he’d prefer to lie for eternity along Highway 20 in Newhalem. A plaque at the site quotes Roosevelt who heralded Ross as one of “the greatest Americans of our time,” which is particularly impressive considering that Ross was Canadian.

When at last we visited the dams, we saw a rare sight. The dams, overfull from late snow in the high country, were spilling. The spill would be dramatic in any case, all that water, all that power, but when Jesse turned our attention to the construction, the graceful concrete arc to keep the force of the water from shaking the dam to the ground, my heart swelled the same way it does to see the larches on Liberty Bell backlit in fall. Pure beauty. And this, I realized, was why I’d come. Sometimes it takes a little knowledge to nudge you out of your ideological safety zone, a few good stories, to make you see things anew, to make you think.

These days, I’m thinking a whole lot about reclamation. More on that soon.

Originally published August 10, 2011 on Ana Maria’s blog.

Story and photos by Zach Montes

It is July 26^th and 55 degrees at the Ross Lake trailhead. The Cascade Climate Challenge participants, about to embark on a 12-day backcountry trip, will literally be challenging the climate. Fortunately, they look battle ready, wielding 3-foot loppers, and bow saws, their battered cooking pots strapped to bulging backpacks.

Under Gerry Cook’s lead, a group of park employees and learning center staff have volunteered to help these students reach their first camp site at Lightening Creek, more than 25 miles up Ross Lake. Together, we are in for a 3.5-hour boat ride with plenty of things to see and talk about along the way. At the Ross Lake trailhead, a handsome 8-point buck in full velvet saunters through the trees not 10 feet away. He grazes comfortably in the distance while the students make last minute pack adjustments.

» Continue reading A Trip on the Mule with Ranger Gerry Cook

By Mike McQuaide Originally published in The Seattle Times, August 3, 2011

Atop Diablo Dam, in the heart of the North Cascades, Sara Beaver unscrewed the top of her water bottle and, holding it out at arm’s length, prepared to demonstrate the dam’s unique anti-gravity properties.

“I’ve never tried this before,” said the North Cascades Institute naturalist, “but I’ve heard that it’s impossible to pour water down the front of the dam.”

Holding her bottle over the edge of the 389-foot-high dam, she tilted the bottle and poured. But instead of the water falling straight down as the law of gravity, as well as personal experience, would lead one to expect, the water sprayed horizontally, right back at her. Almost like she was squirting herself in the face with a garden hose.

Explanation for this “Mythbusters” myth confirmed-type moment? Westerly winds barreling down narrow Diablo Gorge run head-on into the front of the dam’s massive concrete wall (at one time it was the highest dam in the world) and have nowhere to go but up. So does something relatively light, like water from a bottle.

“It’s kind of a microcosm of the weather out here,” offered Daphnie Leigh, an interpretive ranger with North Cascades National Park, who was also with us atop the dam.

“Clouds coming in off the Pacific Ocean hit the mountains and, just like the wind has nowhere to go when it hits the dam, they rise and eventually cool, releasing all their moisture in the form of snow and rain.”

Ah, learning. Cool. We were spending our day on North Cascades Expeditions, a new-this-summer tour, combining van rides and short hikes, offered as part of the Skagit Tours operation of Seattle City Light, which operates this hydroelectric dam. Like Beaver, Leigh was providing various and sundry answers to the area’s hows, whys, whats and whens on this six-hour guided foray through this truly spectacular Upper Skagit-North Cascades part of the world.

» Continue reading See the wild side with new North Cascades tours

By Daniel Matthews

Editor’s note: Renowned Northwest naturalist Daniel Mathews, author of Cascade-Olympic Natural History, recently released a new field guide with a twist — “Northwest Mountain Wildflowers” isn’t the trailside book you might expect, but an iPhone app. Interested in this new format for field guides, we asked him to share some information on what the app does, what his motivations were in creating an electronic guide and whether or not he thinks there are any drawbacks to this technology.

I have released a field guide for iPhone and iPod touch, called Northwest Mountain Wildflowers, based on my books Cascade-Olympic Natural History and Rocky Mountain Natural History. It covers 514 species, illustrated with more than 830 photos, and it weighs nothing, or at least adds nothing to the weight of your mobile device if you’re carrying one.

It does not require being online or on a cell network, as the content is contained in memory, and it works just the same on iPod touch as on iPhone. (When the user does happen to be connected, they can use direct links from species pages to the same species in EFlora BC and the Washington herbarium website.)

» Continue reading New NW wildflower field guide for iPhones