Reflection Rove

Day 279: Reflection Lake is one of Mount Rainier National Park's most notable roadside attractions and as such, the lakeshore wildflowers take a beating from foot traffic despite being behind the numerous "no hiking" signs. Revegetation efforts have been thwarted by the masses of visitors who ignore the signs as they pursue their own agendas (getting a photo of the elusive reflection, picnicking by the water, wading or swimming, illegally fishing, etc.), most with no thought to the damage a single step can inflict in this fragile environment. Over the last two years, our Meadow Rover manager has asked for volunteers to patrol the fore-shore next to the road (the section which takes the most abuse). We don't have nearly enough people for the task, so after checking to be sure there wasn't a pile of paperwork on my desk waiting to be processed, I signed up for a Reflection rove yesterday. I spent five and a half hours pacing back and forth on the same half-mile section of trail, pulling visitors back from the shore and trying to give them some gentle education in resource management.

Most people tend to be cooperative after a moment of initial resistance ("It looked like a trail...I didn't see a sign...Just let me get this one picture...I'll be done in a minute..."), but inevitably, there is always one person who gives you a little guff. Case in point: the guy who had jammed his tripod legs into the leaves of avalanche lilies in order to keep the tripod stable. He didn't immediately comply with my request to move the tripod, but I thought I'd made my point and started to leave the site. I'd gone about twenty feet when something else from the scene registered in my mind. He had had a Gorilla clamp on the stalk of an avalanche lily flower to keep the wind from moving it around. Still willing to give him a few minutes to finish up and move on, I walked another hundred feet or so to the end of my somewhat arbitrary patrol zone and then went back. Sure enough, he had not removed the tripod feet from the leaves, and there was the poor little flower still held in the death-grip of the Gorilla.

As a representative of the Park, I must maintain my equanimity and professionalism when addressing members of the public, regardless of the murderous thoughts swimming 'round in my brain. While mentally placing this single-minded photographer in a similar strangle-hold, I took several minutes to explain the life-cycle of the avalanche lily to him. I imagine he thought I was being excessive. After all, there were thousands of other avalanche lilies in the meadow. But if everyone thought like he apparently thought, i.e., that one flower couldn't matter, pretty soon we'd have no flowers at all. Back and forth, back and forth, covering one-half mile of trail repeatedly, educating one visitor at a time. It's like those wildflowers. One may make all the difference in the world.