Hello MeadoWatchers (and Perspective MeadoWatchers),

We have been getting a lot of questions about our upcoming 2017 orientation. We are so happy to know you all are as excited for the Summer Season as we are. While plant here in Seattle are starting to bud there is still quite a bit of snow up at Rainier (have you check out the Mt. Rainier National Park webcam recently?).  
For those of you patiently waiting to hear about MeadoWatch orientation... good news! We will be sending out an orientation emai, next week, via the MeadoWatch email list with all the info you will need to sign up and get ready to hike with us for the 2017 Season! 

If you have not done so already, please sign up for the email list on our Get Involved page. As mentioned above we will use this email to send you the details for signing for orientation!

We can't thank you enough for your enthusiastic participation! Your involvement as a volunteer is an integral part of MeadoWatch and make this project great!

All the best and see you at orientation soon, 

Your MeadoWatch Team 

Hi MeadoWatchers,

Just a quick update and a huge THANK YOU to all the volunteers who helped us enter data! We now have all the data entered from your efforts during the 2016 season and are working on the analysis! We hope to be sending out a news letter with the results soon! 

Thank you again to the volunteers who helped out and patiently worked with us to smooth out the kinks. We hope you enjoyed this seeing this part of the process and that you learned more about your role as a data collector! As the year continues to roll toward Spring we are eagerly looking forward to our 5th season with you all!

All the best,

Your MeadoWatch Team 

Hello MeadoWatchers!

​Fall is in full swing around the Pacific Northwest and we hope you are enjoying the change in the weather (have you checked out the Mt. Rainier Webcams recently?). Speaking of change, we aim create a positive community around MeadoWatch and a program that engages and rewards volunteers!  In this spirit, please take a moment to fill out our MeadoWatch 2016 Volunteer Survey. It won't take longer than 15 minutes and it will help improve our program and your volunteer experience. Please fill out the survey by December 5th, and we will share some of the results with you! If you can't fill out the survey by then, don't worry, we will be leaving it up for a little bit longer. 

As always, your work with MeadoWatch is greatly appreciated! Thank you, in advance for your time and thoughtful responses to our survey. 

All the best,

Your MeadoWatch Team

Bonus Quiz! Can you name all the MeadoWatch species in this photo? Check out our Facebook Group for the answers!

Hello Meadowatchers and a happy Fall greeting to you all!

The snow has begun falling on Mount Rainier (check out the webcams here) and our MeadoWatch Trails have been taken down for the winter. Thank you all again for participating in MeadoWatch this season and working hard to collect high quality data! We greatly appreciate how involved our volunteers are, giving us feed-back both through emails and notes on data sheets about missing species at plots, missing plot markers, and fun asides. We are making more improvements to MeadoWatch for the upcoming 2017 season and look forward to getting even more of your feed-back. 

We are working on entering the data we have received and will give you updates on our analysis results later in the winter. If you are interested in volunteering to enter data, we would love your help! The data entry can be done from the comfort of your own home and you will help us speed along the process so we can bring you the results from the 2016 season sooner! Please send us an email with the subject line "Volunteer data entry" and we'll get in contact with you. Also a friendly reminder, if you have any completed data sheets that you haven't yet turned in, please scan and email or mail them to us. Late data is better than no data! : ) 

Finally, we will be emailing out an End of Season survey and would love your response. This survey will help us better understand our MeadoWatch community and improve your volunteer experience. We will also post the link to the survey here, on our blog, as well as on our Facebook page (Hey! did you know we have a Facebook group? Just search MeadoWatch in the Facebook search bar or follow this link to join!). 

Thank you again for a great season and we look forward to seeing you out on the trails again next year!

All the best,

​Your MeadoWatch Team

Dear MeadoWatchers,
 
  I think we’ve finally managed to get a Facebook group page going!  We’d love you to be part of it.  If you are currently a volunteer, or have been in the past and think you will be in the future, please do join.  It’s a closed group, so we’ll go ahead and confirm you.  Once you’re confirmed, you’ll be able to post pictures and feel free to share experiences of your MeadoWatch hikes, connect with other MeadoWatchers, ask questions, post suggestions, etc.  It should be a great way for us all to stay in touch, but let’s make sure to keep it just related to MeadoWatch volunteering, and avoid posting about anything else.  Here’s the url for you to go to.  Just click the ‘join’ icon, and we’ll take it from there!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1789145584636813/
 



















 
​  The summer marches on and the heat of the last couple of weeks has taken its toll on our precious wildflowers.  It’s been amazing to watch the speed with which they progressed from full peak to nearly all fruiting and releasing seed now.  Grasshoppers abound on the upper parts of the Reflection Lakes trail towards the junction with Skyline.  You almost have to be careful not to step on them, and they seem to particularly enjoy the ‘lorax’ Western anemones.  The bees are out in full force now as well—with way fewer mosquitos and flies.
 
  There are plenty of open spots on the schedule if anyone still has a hike or two left in them.  It’s a beautiful time to be on the mountain, with the subtle beginnings of autumn beginning to show.   And that descending part of the bell curve of data is just as important as the ascending part!
 
  If you have data sheets still hanging out, please don’t forget to send them in, either scanned via email or in the mail.  And as always, thank you all for your fantastic volunteering!  Of course this program wouldn’t exist without you, and the huge amount of data you collect to help further our growing knowledge about phenology and the effects of climate change on the fragile sub-alpine ecosystem.
 
Thanks and have a great rest of summer!
The MeadoWatch Team

Dear MeadoWatchers,
   If you've been out in the mountain lately, you'll know that we are in peak wildflower time right now!  Even if you've done all your hikes, or the slots are already filled, it's a great time to be out there and see them in all their magnificence (even if you don't go as a volunteer, but just as a flower-lover)! 

    It's amazing how quickly this summer has been going!  It's been great to meet some of you out on the trails, and to see so many data sheets coming in!  As always, thanks so much to everyone for your incredible work!!!

Trail condition updates:
   As of earlier this week, we had some heavy rains, with obvious signs of erosion on the trails (especially Glacier Basin), and we hope no one got too soaked!  The markers are all in place (I have only had to replace a couple over the last 2 or 3 weeks), but may be hidden by the growing vegetation!  So if you can't find the marker, you should be able to rely pretty closely on the photos and descriptions in the pamphlet.  But if you've really looked hard and still can't find a marker, just be sure to email us and we'll check up on it.  And also be sure to email us with any questions or comments. 

Hello MeadoWatchers!

The snow is melting up at high elevations now and we hope you are all having wonderful hikes thus far. As always please let us know if any trail markers have gone missing.  All markers are now in for both hikes! After last week's heavy rains many of the Glacier Basin markers had gotten covered over with mud, so you may need to brush some dirt aside to find them. The Reflection Lakes hike is more or less traversible all the way up now, depending on your comfort level with a few remaining deeper snow patches at the higher altitudes. 

A couple of weekends ago Janneke and the 1st year scholars from the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program (DDCSP, check them out here!) went out on the Reflection Lakes MeadoWatch hike. This program aims to bring diversity of underrepresented groups into the fields of biology, environmental science, and conservation by inspiring and involving young adults in science. We are happy to have collaborated with DDCSP for two years now, and the hike was a great success! During the hike, scholars learned about the wildflower communities on Mt. Rainer and how climate change is impacting their phenology.

The program includes two summers.  The first year scholars travel to a variety of places and programs, attending lectures and workshops and hiking their way around the region (they are currently in Olympic Nat'l Park). The second year scholars have been hard at work since the beginning of the summer, helping collect data around Mount Rainier as well as working on their own research projects! The scholars have many opportunities to think about and discuss the importance of diversity and inclusion in outdoor spaces.  Equity and inclusion in the national parks will affect the future of the parks and consequently the future of natural lands protection and conservation in general.  This program and others like it around the country help ensure that the conservationists of the future will be more representative of the greater US population, thus ensuring representational justice as well as the ongoing relevance of public lands for all.
 

Here are some photos of the scholars in action, collecting data and learning species ID!

Thanks to the scholars for all their help in the field!
Enjoy the flowers and as always, thank you for being part of our community!

Your MeadoWatch Team

Hello dear MeadoWatchers!!

Hope the summer is going well for everyone!
It’s been wetter and chillier than last summer, so when you head out, be sure to bring warm layers and rain gear (at least for now!)  But seems like the weather is finally warming up!
 
Here are some updates from the field from last week.

Send in pictures and if you’d like them shared, I’ll try to get them up on future blog posts.
 
 Be safe out there.  (If you are going to hike solo, please remember to send us your emergency contact’s name and email address by filling out the safety form (the link is now on the calendar and in multiple places on the MeadoWatch website and emails we’ve sent out.)
 
Have fun and thank you all so much for your volunteering!!
 
Yonit and Emmi  for….
Your MeadoWatch Team

​Thank you all again for yet another wonderful MeadoWatch season! This has been an incredibly interesting year and we would not have been able to capture the extent of the effects of the extreme weather on the wildflower phenology without your help! We are headed to Rainier this week and next week to pick up the final datasheets from the MeadoWatch boxes…shoot, we’ll even bring the boxes themselves back to lab! If you still have your datasheet from your hike please mail it to us ASAP!
 
The end of the season is usually marked with a blanket of snow that covers the meadows and buries our plots until next spring. Instead, the end of the season this year has been marked by senescing of all of the plants in our plots and a long slog to get those last few zeros. Nonetheless, the meadows got a small dusting in early September (this picture was taken at plot 8 on September 4, looking toward the summit (to the left) and plot 9 (to the right)), but it has all melted since then. This coming year is projected to be an extreme El Nino year so we might (again) not get much snow this winter (see the Seattle Times Article from September 23 for a nice summary).
 
On the note of next year, it looks like we have scrounged enough funding (almost for sure) to run the program again in the summer of 2016. Be sure to check out the newsletter (we aim to have this out by the end of the calendar year) and to check back in the spring to hike with us again.
 
If this does turn out to be a strong El Nino year, it’ll be crazy to see what that means for the spring snow and the summer wildflowers!
 
Until soon,
The MeadoWatch Team

Hello there MeadoWatchers!

Hope the summer has been going well for you.  It sure has been an interesting summer for our flowers, as you well know!

For starters, another hearty Thank You!! for your important contributions to the project!  We are sure it is challenging at times to find the markers, id focal species from foliage, and painstakingly identify and rank phenophases, but you should realize how important your work is at every step of the way!

So, of course by now you’ve seen how early this year’s wildflower season has been.  The peak at Paradise occurred over the July 4 holiday weekend, and at Glacier Basin, about the same if not a bit earlier (a full month earlier than usual).  We suspected this would happen - this was a record-breaking low snow-pack year for Mt. Rainier, and the melt-out at Paradise was the second earliest in recorded history (the earliest was in the early ‘40s).  At the beginning of the season, we were not sure how this would affect the duration of the wildflower season. Would it be longer, or shorter? Or would it simply move to an earlier time-frame but remain the same length?  At this point, we can anecdotally report that the wildflower season is both earlier and shorter. Likely this is because there’s been no precipitation to speak of (see picture to the right, taken from near site 8 on the Reflection Lakes Hike, as an illustration of just how important water is for plants!).  Once we analyze the data that are streaming in, we will know exactly how much shorter the wildflower season of 2015 was.

Of course, we are also interested in whether the timing of seed dispersal (critical to the long-term health of these wildflower populations) will be similarly affected, or if some of our focal species might even miss producing seeds this year (some species seem to be flowering but not fruiting). All this to say, your work continues to be important! So, please continue hiking and sending us your valuable data! We will keep you posted on the MeadoWatch season and plan to keep the markers in place until mid September at least.


A few points to ‘bear’ in mind as we proceed with through the summer:

*   There have been bear-sightings on the trails!!  So, where possible, hike in pairs, and if you’re alone, make some noise as you go around blind curves in the trail, and just be vigilant.  As you probably know, if you see a bear, make yourself big, make a lot of noise, and never turn and run--just slowly back away.  And report bear-sightings to rangers if you can.

*   Some of the markers occasionally disappear.  We replace them as we can, but if you are on a hike and cannot find the marker, do the best you can at assuming where the plot is by the descriptions (and photos in the pamphlets), mark it on your data sheets (for that site) and drop us an email so we can try to get someone out there to replace the marker ASAP.  There have been situations where the marker is there but gets hidden by sand or vegetation.

*   Camping:  Because it is such a busy summer for the volunteer campground hosts, you are not likely to get an email confirmation about your camping - but do not worry! We have sent your request on to the NPS so there should be space for you. Here’s a good place for a reminder to do your best to do that at least 2 weeks in advance of your planned arrival.

*   Longmire Camping: For Longmire Volunteer Campground, go around the right side of the Community Building, and Maggie Webster will have left you an envelope with your campsite assignment and a key to the bathroom. 

*   White River Camping:  The campground host at White River has limited access to internet, so is likely not getting updates on camping requests regularly.  If you arrive at White River and you cannot find the campground host (Rick Strasser), or there is no note on the bulletin board for you, just drive around and claim a campsite.  Leave a note on the site number post or on your dashboard saying you are a MeadoWatch volunteer (NPS staff are aware of the program and you should have no problems). If you run into problems finding an empty site (unlikely, especially on weekdays), the Ohanapecosh Campground (SE corner of the park, near Grove of the Patriarchs, which is worth a visit) has two loops (G and H) that are unreservable, so you are likely to find a campsite available, even on a weekend.  And in a real bind (hopefully this never occurs), you can actually camp for free in any Forest Service land (there is usually a charge, however, for the designated official campgrounds). 


That’s it for early August!  Have a great rest of your summer, feel free to email us with any questions and enjoy the great hiking!

Best wishes,

The MeadoWatch team