Chattermarks

Last weekend, North Cascades Institute partnered with North Cascades National Park and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest to offer the North Cascades Youth Leadership Conference, “A Confluence of Young Leaders” Nov. 12-14 at  the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center. The conference included students from nearby communities such as Seattle, Mount Vernon and Concrete, Wash., as well as representatives from as far away as Wenatchee, Wash., and Pendleton and Astoria, Oreg. All of these students have participated in a program on public lands such as Cascades Climate Challenge, North Cascades Wild, International District Housing Alliance WILD, or Youth Conservation Corps. Many of the student leaders are first generation Americans, born in places like Bhutan, Cameroon, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Mexico, Nepal, the Philippines and Somalia. All of them were motivated by the power of the North Cascades environment and came to this conference to further develop their leadership skills so that they can help protect this special place. I went hoping to inspire the 48 high school students to become even stronger environmental leaders, and I left inspired by their hope and leadership.

» Continue reading A Confluence of Young Leaders

September 25th marked a special day for North Cascades Wild.

It was a day of reconnection—seeing the friends that were made over the past summer’s 12-day trips in North Cascades National Park and Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. It was a day of remembering—recalling the beauty of the locations visited, the dedication of the people met, the laughing at silly photos. It was a day of reestablishment of a sense of place—reminding each other of the value of remaining stewards of our public lands and giving back, whether it be a Wilderness or a public park.

The 2010 North Cascades Wild Reunion was held at Seward Park in Seattle on a beautiful fall weekend day. Students from Skagit and Whatcom counties, Shoreline, Seattle, and Tukwila all gathered together at the Seward Park Audubon Center with the intention of connecting, yet again, but in a new time and setting.

» Continue reading North Cascades Wild’s service in Seattle

The final North Cascades Wild trips of the 2010 summer embarked on their Ross Lake adventures during the middle of August. A total of eighteen students from Skagit, Whatcom, and King Counties and six instructors spent twelve days forming community, practicing leadership and outdoor skills, doing stewardship work, and learning about and exploring their extended backyard. Highlights from the trips include canoeing on Ross Lake, a silent canoe in Devils Creek Canyon, meeting and working with North Cascades National Park employees, backpacking, exploring ideas of wilderness and Wilderness, star gazing, shared laughter, meeting supporters of NC Wild on the Ross Lake Mule, campfires, and hiking Desolation Peak.

Trip 5 on the dock at Ross Lake Resort. Title photo: North Cascades Wild students canoeing on Ross Lake.

Trip 6 at the Ross Dam Trailhead.

For our stewardship projects, these trips worked with North Cascades National Park trail crew to expand Deer Lick camp to accommodate larger groups (such as North Cascades Wild!). Students and instructors swung Pulaskis and sledgehammers, wrestled root wads out of the ground, dug out layers of duff in order to create new tent pads and trails to them, built a new cook site and campfire ring, and rerouted a trail to the toilet. Mike Brondi, North Cascades National Park, led students in collecting seeds to be grown at the NPS nursery in Marblemount, removing invasive species, and replanting an area using plants grown at the nursery from seeds collected by previous NC Wild groups. Mike also taught the students about the importance of fire to some tree species in the North Cascades ecosystem, specifically lodgepole pines to open their serotinous cones, by burning potato chips and showing how the cones opened up as a result of the heat. Students also had the opportunity to assist with research being done in the park. From canoes and snorkeling in Ross Lake, students observed red sided shiners and recorded information about their location and behavior, as well as collected data about the water.

Jason, Jealisa, Cleo, and Marcus with one of the roots they removed at Deer Lick.

» Continue reading The end of summer on Ross Lake

This is a time of transition.

The warm summer season is changing as rapidly into a drenching autumn as is my progression from the residency with North Cascades Institute to the academia of Western Washington University. As the leaves of vine maples alter their hues from green to orange, I find myself pulled from the slow-paced grandeur of North Cascades National Park to the fast-paced flurry of the city of Bellingham.

It seems as if during these transitions there is no definitive line that is crossed from one season to the other, no time to look back, only to move forward into the next, into another.

But even as the final two quarters of my graduate residency are about to commence and, in only a matter of six months, conclude themselves as well, I find myself already looking back, gazing out onto the memory-scape of this landscape, of this past year’s journey when I called the North Cascades my home. Here, I came full circle.

(Title) Waving goodbye to my North Cascades home (Above) Welcoming Bellingham

» Continue reading Coming full circle in the North Cascades

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

Summer is officially here, despite the gloomu weather’s persistence otherwise, and North Cascades Wild is near.  With training and packing behind us, this summer’s crew leaders embarked upon our recon trip giving us a taste of what adventures the future holds.

We set out Monday with the help of the Cascade Climate Challenge folks and a few happy NCI employees. Loaded down, we paddled all the gear and food – enough to feed one person for two years – to the base of Ross Dam.  After walking our canoes up the emerging replacement road we settled down for a snack while waiting for our friends at Ross Lake Resort to portage and taxi us up to Ross Lake.  Once our food was stored and tucked away we headed off in the direction of Big Beaver campground.  With help from the wind we made excellent time and arrived at camp for Gallo Pinto – a traditional Costa Rican meal – and our evening meeting before dusk.

» Continue reading North Cascades Wild Recon 2010

As spring slowly transitions to summer in North Cascades National Park, reminders of the adventures that await North Cascades Wild (NC Wild) participants are everywhere in the landscape. But before embarking on the 12-day backcountry journeys, these students must be  prepared.

Thanks to the third and final day trip of the 2010 spring season, eleven of the 54 high school youth that will be participating in this year’s NC Wild trips are now better prepared in both canoeing and service work.

On Saturday, May 22nd, participants from Skagit and Whatcom counties traveled to the North Cascades Institute’s Environmental Learning Center on Diablo Lake to spend a day with NC Wild instructors Amy Brown, Kelsi Franzen, Mike Parelskin and Corey White, and North Cascades National Park Volunteer Coordinator, Mike Brondi.

» Continue reading NC Wild pulls weeds & plants seeds of excitement

With the season of fresh beginnings overtaking the physical landscape of the Skagit Valley and North Cascades, the mindsets of those apart of this year’s North Cascades Wild program from North Cascades Institute, North Cascades National Park and the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest are brimming with excitement for a season of new life, new experiences.

North Cascades Wild‘s first of three spring day trips, held on several Saturdays throughout April and May for Skagit and Whatcom county-selected participants, commenced on April 17th at the North Cascades National Park Ranger Station off Highway 20 in Marblemount. Eleven students, representing towns within Whatcom and Skagit counties, joined North Cascades National Park’s Volunteer and Youth Programs Coordinator, Mike Brondi, native Nursery Manager, Cheryl Cunningham, and Institute instructors Amy Brown, Kelsi Franzen, Martine Mariott and Rebecca Ryan, for a day of connecting to their place and each other through learning and service.

(Title) The North Cascades Wild crew goes “wild” for wetland grasses at the nursery (Above) Karla, a NC Wild participant, examines plants in the greenhouse

» Continue reading NC Wild plants the seeds of spring

We’ve just now wrapped up our final events of our North Cascades Wild 2009 season. And what a season it’s been! Forty-seven students from Skagit, Lake Forest Park and Seattle participated in our summer wilderness 12-day canoe camping and backpacking trips on Ross Lake in North Cascades National Park. During the trips, students learned about and practiced leadership, community building, stewardship and natural and cultural history. We built and brushed trails, conducted Park-led research to count non-native red-sided shiners, cleaned campsites, picked native plant seeds, stuffed ourselves with huckleberries and thimbleberries, and hiked and canoed for miles. Together, we contributed more than 1400 hours of service to North Cascades National Park!

Students from Trip 4 built a new trail along Ross Lake in late July.

Trip 1 students canoeing on Ross Lake in early July.

Our summer season culminated in two events this fall: Our North Cascades Wild Reunion at Camp Long in Seattle on September 12th, and our final Day Trip for Skagit students on October 3rd.

» Continue reading A Fitting End to a Wild Season: North Cascades Wild 2009

The first two North Cascades Wild trips of 2009 have returned home after 12 days of backpacking, canoeing and service projects on Ross Lake.  Eighteen students and six instructors, divided into two groups, embarked on what has become an annual adventure at the North Cascades Institute.  The following is a chronicle of one of those adventures, North Cascades Wild Trip 1.

» Continue reading Twelve days on Ross Lake