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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

Psychologist Warren G. Bennis once said, “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” Sixty-three high school and college students and fourteen conservation organizations did just that November 11-13th for the second annual North Cascades Youth Leadership Conference. Brought together by common goals to improve their leadership skills, learn about future opportunities, and reconnect after their original conservation experiences, these dedicated individuals were the heart and soul of the weekend. Hosted by North Cascades Institute in partnership with North Cascades National Park and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, the second annual conference built upon last year’s success. As part of the planning committee, I came into this weekend excited for an energetic, life-altering experience with youth and adults like. I was not disappointed.

High School sophomores, juniors and seniors and college freshman from the Pacific Northwest converged in the heart of the North Cascades to reminisce, learn, and explore the beauty of this fall landscape. Most of the students had participated in North Cascades Wild, Cascade Climate Challenge, Student Conservation Association, Youth Conservation Corps, Mountain School, and other conservation-based programs.

The event was a success due to the hard work of our staff and partners. The North Cascades Institute, National Park Service, US Forest Service staff, Western Washington University graduate students and other partner organization representatives dedicated their time as small group leaders and mentors, lodge chaperones, Masters of Ceremony, breakout session leaders, and logistics coordinators.

» Continue reading Recounting the 2nd Annual Youth Leadership Conference

With the start of a new school year, autumn is often a time of new beginnings. For North Cascades Wild participants, the season is a chance to reconnect and continue building on experiences from the past summer.

From June through August, 50 high school students from Whatcom, Skagit and King counties spent 12 days canoeing, backpacking and completing stewardship work. In addition to outdoor skills and stewardship, participants acquired skills in leadership, community building and natural history. Trips were held in North Cascades National Park and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

During the 12-day trips many challenges were overcome, accomplishments made and lasting friendships created. In order to prepare students for their experiences over the summer, spring day trips were held to introduce participants to the NC Wild program. Throughout this fall season, several weekend day trips occurred that provided NC Wilders opportunities to continue strengthening these recent experiences and re-engage with the NC Wild community and North Cascades landscape.

» Continue reading NC Wild: Fall Experiences Build on Summer’s Past

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.”

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

Who would have dreamed that a national forest, a housing non-profit and an environmental education organization would team up to provide Seattle-based Asian and Pacific Islanders with meaningful outdoor experiences? Starting in 2001, the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, the North Cascades Institute and the International District Housing Alliance began a partnership that has expanded over the years to include intergenerational learning for elders, stewardship projects for youth and paid internships for youth. The partnership sparks a better understanding of the connection between the forest and urban environment, and provides mentoring and leadership opportunities.

The United States Forest Service recently awarded these partners with the 2011 Urban Communities in Conservation Award. The conservation award is part of the Forest Service’s Wings Across the Americas program, which works to conserve birds, bats, butterflies and dragonflies.

Each of the three partners plays a distinct role in the program. The first partner, the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in the Puget Sound Region of Washington State, is the largest urban forest in Region Six of the Forest Service. The staff works directly with the program’s youth to get hands on experience in a natural setting, often their first time outside the urban environment. The second partner, the North Cascades Institute, is a non-profit organization focusing on education. The International District Housing Alliance, the third partner, is a non-profit organization located in Seattle’s International District…that has successfully worked to improve the quality of life for Asian and Pacific Islanders by providing community building and housing related services to low-income individuals and families.

Youth and elders from Seattle’s International District learn about old growth forests and tree ecology from Rockport State Park staff

» Continue reading Institute Receives USFS Conservation Award

Many hands make light work.

An old saying at the forefront of my mind throughout the first North Cascades Wild spring day trip. A dozen NC Wild participants, several North Cascades Institute instructors and national park staff came together for a day of stewardship work at the North Cascades National Park native plant nursery in Marblemount. In addition to providing some service to the nursery, the effort was also a chance get to know each other and begin building community among NC Wild participants and staff.

These students from Whatcom and Skagit counties, 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 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.

In the North Cascades, signs of spring are before us, as the dark, cold days of winter slowly transform into longer, warmer days, signaling the time to prepare the Park’s nursery for the busy growing seasons of spring and summer. This meant much work was needed to de-winterize the facility and promote healthy plant growth.

» Continue reading NC Wild Springs into Stewardship

Though I was born in San Diego, California it doesn’t feel like home.  For the last eight years I have lived and traveled in Japan and Chile.  Each successive place in which I have lived or traveled has been nice, and my heart has slowly been pulled away from the sunshine and blue skies where I spent my youth.  Since moving to the Pacific Northwest in June I have been quietly lulled to comfort by rainy days, cold temperatures and good coffee.   Each adventure and experience in which I have participated reinforces the sanctuary of western Washington.

At the turn of the year I participated in an avalanche safety and training course with American Alpine Institute, a Bellingham-based climbing school and guide service.  The three-day class consisted of different components of avalanche safety, practical snow science, beacon practice and rescue scenarios.  The majority of the course was spent in the locally famous backcountry adjacent to the Mt. Baker Ski Area.

Students study layers of snow and ice.

» Continue reading Adventures in My New Home

To explore your own backyards and expand your sense of place—this was the central goal of the 2010 North Cascades Wild’s (NC Wild) first fall day trip, held on Saturday, September 18th.

Sense of place. What is that? Ask any of this year’s students of NC Wild and they would be quick to tell you an answer. As one of the four core themes we emphasize in NC Wild, sense of place is embodied by a student’s increased awareness of and appreciation for the history—both through nature and culture—of a landscape. And the landscape of choice for September 18th’s day trip was that of Blue Lake and Dock Butte, in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

Easily bypassed for the more popular Mt. Baker National Recreation Area at Schreiber’s Meadows, tucked away among Pacific silver firs and Mountain hemlocks, Blue Lake and Dock Butte afford amazing access to subalpine flora and fauna, geology and hydrology, and astounding views of the North Cascades with only minimal effort.

(Title) Mt. Baker as viewed from the road ascending to the Blue Lake and Dock Butte trailhead (Above) Which way to chose? You can access both Blue Lake and Dock Butte from the same trailhead

» Continue reading NC Wild begins fall exploration

Every North Cascades Wild trip is special, from the deep bonds formed in new communities of friends to the service projects to students’ self-discovery and leadership development to views of glacier-capped mountains seen from sweatily climbed mountain peaks to learning how to canoe to the close connections students feel to public lands by the end of their adventure.

But North Cascades Wild Trip 3 was something completely new and different. After completing twenty successful North Cascades Wild trips in the Ross Lake area of North Cascades National Park, Trip 3 ventured out July 19th through 30th for twelve days of canoe camping, backpacking and service projects in a new location for us in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

What was so special about our North Cascades Wild trip on Baker Lake and in the Mount Baker NRA? Here are some of our favorite moments:

» Continue reading Getting Wild with the US Forest Service