Your hosts for the occasion will be Volunteer Program Manager Kevin Bacher (K2D2) and Volunteer Coordinators Crow (Hoppingcrow) and Joshua. Our Campground Hosts have yet to be chosen for the season, but hopefully will be on duty by this time as well (anyone looking for a summer job?). Those of you who are returning this year will be familiar with the two projects we have on the agenda. There's no snow to shovel this year! Here's what we'll be doing:
Building Platform Tents: Over the wet, stormy winter, the park's wall tents are taken down and stored, and the platforms on which they are built are covered with tarps. Rebuilding the tents in the spring is not especially difficult, but it requires many hands! Last year, we added three brand new wall tents, and several of the older tents were taken out of service. Pole lengths were standardized and poles were color-coded to make this job easier.
Campground Cleanup: Winter also brings down a lot of forest debris which need to be picked up and removed from campsites and trails. The accumulation of fir needles and twigs needs to be swept off the roads and paths in preparation for their use by guests.
Safety: As with all volunteer events, safety is our highest priority. We will conduct a safety briefing at the beginning of the project, and provide you with hard hats and gloves. You are welcome to bring your own personal safety equipment if you have it.
Weather Alternatives: The CITO will proceed rain or shine, though poor weather may abbreviate our efforts. The campground is currently snow-free. Here's a link to a current weather forecast for the Mountain. With enough hands helping, both projects should be completed by noon or 1 PM, leaving plenty of time for caching afterward.
Time and place: Meet at the posted coordinates (the campground hosts' site #1 at the north end of the Longmire Campground) at 9:30 AM on Saturday, June 8. To find the site, turn at the Longmire Museum and drive across the historic wooden suspension bridge.
Camping: The Longmire Campground is a perfect location for spending the night (no charge for volunteers), and if we get the platform tents built, you'll even be able to rest off the cold ground! Tents and small RVs (ideally 24 feet max) are also welcome. There are no hookups, but we'll have access to hot showers in the bath house. Please RSVP if you plan to camp, and let us know what kind of site you need.
Food and Clothing: Long pants, boots, and work gloves are recommended (we'll provide gloves if you don't have your own). Bring rain gear and layers depending on weather. We'll provide hard hats and tools. Bring water, a sack lunch, and snacks. Temperatures can drop into the 30s at night, so bring hats, gloves, and warm clothes if you plan to camp.
Entrance Fee: The park entrance fee is $15 for a one-week family pass, though this is always waived for working volunteers. Identify yourself as a volunteer working on the Longmire Campground project and the rangers at the gate will wave you through.
Socializing and goodies: We'll have a small geo-raffle after lunch. Geo-goodies are being collected for the raffle and donations are welcome, so please e-mail me if you have anything to contribute.
Other opportunities: To learn more about Mount Rainier, visit the park website or the Rainier Volunteers Blog, where you'll find many other opportunities to volunteer throughout the summer. For example, join the Washington Trails Association the previous weekend (June 1) to help out on National Trails Day, or sign up with Crow to help with a Longmire Grounds Cleanup project on May 28 or Adopt-a-Highway Cleanup on June 29. Other opportunities this summer that are tailor-made for geocachers include backcountry maintenance on cabins and fire lookouts, and several citizen science projects monitoring amphibians, butterflies, and plants.
Good news, too -- we received two grants this winter that will allow us to buy the materials necessary to build and install new, historic-style picnic tables and fire grates in the Longmire Volunteer Campground! Watch the volunteer blog for projects to construct these improvements -- and possibly a second, late-summer CITO to work on it as well.
And, of course, many great geocaches are available locally, including several virtuals and earth caches in the park and traditionals, multis, and puzzle caches just outside the park boundary. Bring your GPSr and come prepared!
Thanks for helping out! Join us to get some good work done, meet new geofriends, and CITO The Mountain!
History and Background: The genesis of this project began in November 2006, when heavy rainfall caused damaging floods throughout the park. In September 2007, Team Misguided organized the first annual Mount Rainier Recovery CITO Event, which received positive feedback from park staff as well as local press coverage. The crew built trails, removed debris, and did some replanting. In June 2008, hydnsek organized a great sequel, another Mount Rainier CITO, this time helping to shovel out the Cougar Rock Campground, which was buried by a record spring snowpack. Their amazing work allowed the campground to open two weeks earlier than it would have otherwise. In 2009, another heavy snow year, geocachers at the CITO The Mountain event dug out campsites at the Longmire Volunteer Campground and set up platform tents for volunteers to use through the summer. Participants in CITO 2010 cleaned up storm debris and, again, set up platform tents for the summer. CITO the Mountain 2011 and 2012 included similar projects.
Organizing the event is K2D2, a local geocacher who also happens to be the Volunteer and Outreach Program Manager at Mount Rainier National Park. As in years past, we'll be staging in the historic Longmire Campground, tucked away in the forest on the south side of the Nisqually River at Longmire. This site served as a public campground for more than 30 years before closing in the late 1960s when the more modern and more easily accessible Cougar Rock Campground opened. In 2009, thanks to the help of geocachers and other volunteers, the campground reopened for use by volunteers and other special groups. Its 31 individual sites, two group sites, and half-dozen platform tents are used throughout the summer by volunteers and other working park partners as a base of operations while working in the park. It even has a bath house with showers--the only public showers in the park, but only available to volunteers!