Morning Watch

Day 309: I leave the car with an inordinate expanse of bare skin liberally doused in bug spray. I'm in atypical dress: shorts and a short-sleeved shirt to match the weather forecast, but I'll be on trail, not bushwhacking, so other than layers of SPF-50 and Deep Woods Off, I can leave my legs and arms unprotected. It's a little chilly at 5000', not yet far enough into autumn to be at a discomfort level, but even if it was ten degrees cooler, I'd likely be dressed the same, knowing what's coming later in the day and especially since at my high point, I'll be out on bare rock where the plants aren't tall enough to shade my ankles. I love hiking in the cool of morning; best to get the climbing done before the sweaty hours. Even so, there's no dew on this meadow. It's been too warm for that, although it's been a good wildflower season. And that's what I'm out here to do: count noses, report on the phenologic phases of the species on my list. I'm MeadoWatching, hiking the Lakes Trail in this iteration, pausing at waypoints to observe and record Magenta Paintbrush releasing seeds, Northern Microseris in bud, Mountain Daisy and Bracted Lousewort setting fruit, and Subalpine Lupine engaged in every phase but pod-burst, still lushly carpeting patches in glorious purple bloom. That said, the season is winding down. Plants are rushing to fulfill their botanical imperative before the snow flies. In less than a month, this meadow will whiten; in two, it will be buried beneath three, four, five or more feet of snow and ice, sleeping cold for three-quarters of the year, surviving conditions which make my complaints about chilly legs seem ridiculous and so very vulnerably human.

National Public Lands Day - Revegetation

Day 349: Yesterday, it was my privilege to be part of a revegetation crew working near Sunrise in Mount Rainier National Park. Nowhere on the Mountain is human impact more visible than in the subalpine zone, and particularly here where as late as 1970, a "drive-in" campground was available for visitor use. A gravel road cut through the meadow and hikers were allowed to wander freely through fields of wildflowers, thus creating countless "social trails" where vegetation was trampled and destroyed. The growing season is very short here, and plants did not have time to recover. Eventually, the area was closed to camping and the use of social trails was prohibited, but for the most part, the vegetation did not fill in. Enter revegetation crews, the heroes of the story!

For the last twenty years or more, the Park and several of its partners have been working together to replant these areas. Volunteers have been drawn in from the public sector to help out with this enormous project, and no single event in the Park points that up like National Public Lands Day. Approximately sixty people donned gloves and pushed wheelbarrows full of seedlings to a site above Sunrise Camp (now a walk-in camp), and there picked up trowels and knee-pads and set to work putting some 5000 plants in the ground. The weather was sunny but chilly, as one might expect when working at 6400' in late September, but most of the volunteers were veteran hikers or returnees from previous NPLD events, and knew what to expect.

"Reveg" is perhaps the Park's most popular volunteer project. All ages can participate, and a dozen or more young people were among our group. Some were Scouts. Some had come with their families to plant the seedlings cultivated in the Park's greenhouses over the summer. Other members of the group joked, "If I get down, you may have to help me back up," testing the creaky knees and stiff backs of their "golden years" in order to help with the planting.

Recurring questions include, "Isn't it kinda late to be planting?" and "What's the survival rate?" First of all, the growing season is very short at this elevation. Snow generally covers the ground from mid to late September until July. These plants have evolved to survive extreme conditions of alpine cold, but new seedlings have one major enemy: lack of water. Summer is a stressful time, even for established plants. Put in the ground in late season, these species stand a far better chance of taking hold. As for the survival rate, it's about 80%, and that's phenomenal.