Chattermarks

It’s that time of the year when North Cascades Institute is gearing up for another year of exciting programs for youth and we’re actively recruiting students to be a part of North Cascades Wild, Cascades Climate Challenge and Mountain School in 2011. Please help us spread the word to parents and teachers about these amazing opportunities.

North Cascades Wild

Recruitment is underway for North Cascades Wild, our successful youth development and wilderness conservation program in partnership with North Cascades National Park and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. While the due date for Skagit and Whatcom students has passed, we’re currently recruiting 9th -11th grade students from Seattle, Tukwila and Lake Forest Park — applications are due April 15th.

North Cascades Wild is a tuition-free program for 9th-11th graders from Seattle, Lake Forest Park, and Skagit and Whatcom Counties. Established in 2006, the program features:

* 12-day summer canoe camping, hiking and conservation service trips in North Cascades National Park and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest
* Spring and fall Saturday outdoor/service field trips (for Skagit and Whatcom County students)
* a fall Reunion, and
* the opportunity to attend a 3-day Youth Leadership Conference in November at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center

Students earn 30 community service hours after completion of post-program requirements while receiving training in leadership development, conservation service, community building and natural and cultural history. Students are eligible for job and internship opportunities on public lands after their participation in the program and can also build their Senior Culminating Project into their experience. The program is intended to be a gateway program for students, to turn them on to stewardship, leadership and community building and while developing their sense of place through the study of natural and cultural history.

For an application, please contact Amy Brown, North Cascades Wild Program Coordinator, at 360-854-2582 or
abrown@ncascades.org.

Cascades Climate Challenge

Know a high school student interested in the environment and science? Tell them about Cascades Climate Challenge!

Cascades Climate Challenge is a tuition-free program dedicated to turning today’s youth into climate change leaders for communities in the Pacific Northwest. North Cascades Institute conducts the program in partnership with North Cascades National Park and the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

Students meet in North Cascades National Park and spends three weeks in the North Cascades during either the July or August session, where they study climate change science in the field and develop their presentation skills. Hiking to glaciers, interviewing scientists and resource mangers, and participating in service projects with park personnel all allow the students to connect with the park and see the effects of climate change up close. In the final part of their summer experience, students create and teach lessons to an outside audience in preparation for their fall service projects.

Each year, 40 high school students from Oregon and Washington are selected on the basis of teacher recommendations, service and leadership experience, an essay application and a personal interview. Students from a wide range of communities and backgrounds are encouraged to apply. Applications, more information, photos and a cool video are all online at www.ncascades.org/programs/youth/climate_challenge/. You can also keep up with the latest news by “Liking” Cascades Climate Challenge on Facebook. For more details or questions, contact us at nci@ncascades.org.

Mountain School

Learn in the mountains this year! Mountain School, our award-winning environmental education program for elementary, middle and high school students and teachers based at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center, has a few slots available in April and May. With blooming flowers and extended daylight hours, spring is a wonderful time to visit the Environmental Learning Center.

Looking ahead, we also have opportunities for classrooms in the fall.

For questions or to register, contact Aneka Singlaub, Youth Outreach Coordinator, at 360-854-2595 or aneka_singlaub@ncascades.org . For more information on the program, including a fun video, visit www.ncascades.org/school.

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Last but not least, check out our new Youth Leadership Conference video, featuring alumni from the aforementioned programs!

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

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

Oh, to be young and wild and free. That common saying, which most of us recognize, is wholly applicable to the wilderness of the North Cascades and of the youth adventures carried out by the first two trips of this summer’s North Cascades Wild program.

After spending 12 days exploring North Cascades National Park (NOCA) by boat and boot, through canoeing and backpacking, 17 students and six instructors, each divided into two trips, had quite the journey to recount.

(Title) Canoeing is a core component of the youth program North Cascades Wild (Above) Trip 1 dressed to impress at Ross Lake Resort

Trip 2 goes wild for NC Wild at Ross Lake Resort

» Continue reading Young, WILD and free

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

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

Last weekend 43 volunteers gathered at the learning center and pulled on their work gloves.  Shovels, pulsakis, buckets and pruning shears in hand, these volunteers joined NCI staff and North Cascades National Park employees in readying the learning center campus for a busy summer season.  Stewardship projects completed over the weekend including mulching plants in restoration areas around campus, pulling alders along the road, clearing the play field of stumps, cataloging library books and removing invasive species.

Mike Brondi sharing his knowledge of restoration and native plants

» Continue reading Pulling alders, mulching and making friends