Chattermarks

It’s the second day of Mountain School and our group, the Flying Squirrels, sits spread out along the Sourdough Creek Trail at the Environmental Learning Center with journals and pencils in hand. The forest is seemingly quiet, Fawn Creek tumbles softly along its path in the background and the occasional douglas squirrel rouses student attention with his yapping alert call. Angelyna is writing tirelessly, attempting to take in all that she’s seeing around her. Ben has his head to the sky, perhaps noticing the wind playing up in the tops of the giant western red cedars. I notice Maxim with his face right up to a lichen, alternating between intense moments of observation and quick strokes of the pencil as he sketches in his journal. The first notes of my wolf howl to round up the students are immediately echoed by nine voices, and promptly followed by nine pairs of feet padding up the trail. “What have you been wondering about?” I ask.

Developing sensory awareness and the desire to observe and learn from the natural world are critical components to the Mountain School experience. Sit spots, like the ones that the Flying Squirrels were practicing, are opportunities for students to be still for a few quiet moments in the woods, engaging all of their senses while taking note of what is going on in the world immediately around them.

» Continue reading Sitting with Nature

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

Sixteen high school students hailing from Oregon and Washington arrived in the North Cascades on June 26th to begin an unforgettable adventure. These young leaders came to participate in the third year of Cascades Climate Challenge, one of North Cascades Institute’s youth programs. The youth started off by splitting into two groups to go on 12-day backpacking and canoeing trips on and around Ross Lake. For many, this was the longest time away from home, the first time paddling a canoe, and the most physically challenging experience they have had.

CCC2 stands on a bridge over rushing Lightning Creek

CCC1 canoers “raft up” in the mouth of Devil’s Creek

Students learned many new skills each day, in addition to lessons about climate change, invasive species, presenting and naturalizing. Everyone took turns cooking meals, cleaning up following Leave No Trace guidelines, building fires, and leading the group. Spending so much time in North Cascades National Park (NCNP) provided a great opportunity for hands-on service work, and a chance for the students to give back to the park they were learning and living in. Mike Brondi, volunteer coordinator for NCNP, met up with both groups to teach them about invasive reed canary grass, which the students pulled in order to promote native grass growth. They also planted native seeds to restore the banks of Dry Creek and cleared the trail between Hozomeen and Willow Lakes.

Members of CCC1 manage to fit six people in a bear box

Students took turns cleaning up after each meal

Each group’s 12-day trip included waking up at 5am one morning to climb up Desolation Peak, gaining breathtaking views of snow and glacier-capped mountains, at the expense of one thousand vertical feet per mile. Youth who had been strangers on the first day supported each other like family, encouraging one another to the top of the mountain. This was just one of innumerable moments of awe and inspiration on the trips: listening to eerie loon calls at Hozomeen Lake, paddling silently to the mouth of Devil’s Creek, or holding 20,000 year old pieces of wood flattened by glaciers, preserved in clay next to the Skagit River.

Canoes float below Desolation Peak, about to paddle their hikers to the Desolation trailhead

CCC2 poses in triumph, with Jack Mountain and Ross Lake as a backdrop

After the two smaller groups completed their “backcountry” trips, they reunited at the Learning Center for the luxuries of “front country” camping, and ten days of focusing more intently on the science of climate change and its impacts on the North Cascades. Students met with specialists like NCNP geologist, Jon Riedel, to learn how climate change is affecting the park’s glaciers, Gina DiCiccio, NCNP climate change intern, and Katie Fleming from the Cool School Challenge. Their lessons allowed students to explore a variety of ecosystems, including Baker Lake, Baker River, Thunder Knob, Rainy Lake and Diablo Dam powerhouse.

By the end of the trip, students were experts at tent construction

Students hiked the still-snowy trail to breathtaking Rainy Lake for lessons about glacial landforms

After some rainy nights camping at Newhalem campground, resulting in the overnight formation of tent lakes, the group returned to the Learning Center for their culminating project: putting together an hour-long presentation and lessons on their experience, what they learned and how the students will be applying their new knowledge when they return home. The students shared this with the Kinship Conservation Fellows, a group of eighteen international leaders who are actively working to integrate a practice of conservation and environmental awareness into business. The students in turn got to learn about some of the kinds of jobs they could pursue to help preserve the environment they are so passionate about.

A student snorkels in Ross Lake, looking for small red-sided shiner fish

Twenty-two days after these sixteen students first came to the Cascades, they had to find a way to say goodbye to both a place and a community that had become a home and a family. As instructors, we hope that the students left with as much inspiration and confidence as they gave us. Getting to teach, lead, and mentor such exceptional young adults is a privilege. Spending three full weeks 24/7 watching these youth grow individually and as a group is a process that, while exhausting, is simultaneously one of the most rewarding experiences an educator can have. These bright-eyed and enthusiastic youth remind me of myself at a younger age, which gives me hope that they will continue becoming leaders that will not settle for “business as usual” and a planet that cannot support the systems and amazing organisms we cherish. NCNP maintenance foreman Gerry Cook shared the following words with the members of Cascades Climate Challenge, which they have all taken to heart: “I cannot change the world, but I can change the world around me. And if we change the world around us, we will change the world.”

Mountain School is not yet over but the summer youth program team is already pulling big shifts and long hours in preparation for the arrival of the Cascade Climate Challenge and North Cascades Wild students. Countless calories must be packed and cached, payloads of gear have to be inventoried, cleaned and organized and mounds of student information needs to be reviewed and entered into spreadsheets. We assembled a few photos shot during the week to give folks a behind-the-scenes look into summer youth programs.

Ian, Amy and Kevin review equipment options.

(12 x 10 x 8) + (2 x 20 x 4) = ??? Tasha evaluates the food-packing progress.

Ian and Scott inventory and grade the condition of the equipment.

Amy outlines the structures and goals of the two summer youth programs in a presentation to new staff.

Still smiling, Kate prepares a bucket to be cached at the Ross Lake Resort.

Ian lays out the objectives of an instructor skills session.

One of the many spreadsheets and organizational charts we create and use.

102, 103, 104… Program T-shirts are inventoried.

Still packing food. Clint orders Codi to quit dancing and get back to work. Fortunately, she is ignoring him.

Stewardship and friendship were at the heart of the efforts during the third North Cascades Wild spring day trip in May. More than a dozen participants from Whatcom and Skagit counties came together at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center as a final chance to meet with their peers before we set out together in the wilderness this summer.

Some program participants met earlier this spring to volunteer a day of service at North Cascades National Park’s native plant nursery and also attended the Migratory Shorebird Festival at the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. This day’s trip was set aside for NC Wild participants and staff to volunteer during North Cascades Institute’s annual Stewardship Weekend, an event bringing volunteers of all ages together to assist in plant restoration efforts on Learning Center grounds. It was also a chance for NC Wild youth to familiarize themselves with both canoe and paddle, as it will serve as a mode of transportation for the program.

This summer these students, as well as others from Northwest Washington, will embark on 12-day backpacking and canoe wilderness expeditions in North Cascades National Park and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. During these trips participants will focus on leadership development, community building, sense of place and stewardship. Spring and fall day trips, such as this one, provide a chance for students to build community through service work.

» Continue reading Building Community Through Stewardship