by Mt. Adams Institute | Aug 11, 2021 | Land Stewards, Summer Camp
Although this is my second year serving as an AmeriCorps intern at Mt. Adams institute, this is my first experience working here at the camp, in-person with the campers and fellow counselors. I began my time with the program last summer, right in the middle of the...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Aug 11, 2021 | Field Notes, Land Stewards
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” (Thoreau, 1854) It didn’t play out so eloquently in...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Oct 23, 2019 | Land Stewards
I was laying in my hammock reading “Guns, Germs, and Steel” by Jared Diamond, when finally it clicked. The general thesis of the book is that environment and ecology are some of, if not the, biggest factors in determining how a culture, technology, and a...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Oct 23, 2019 | Land Stewards
The following are potential hazards that a wilderness backcountry ranger on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest might face on a daily basis. This is not an attempt to scare anyone away from spending a season in this position, but serves as a list of some of...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Oct 23, 2019 | Land Stewards
My one person tent and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness have become my home and I am not ready to let either of them go. These past few months have been a whirlwind of adventures. There are only a dozen or so lakes that I have yet to visit and only a few trails that I have...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Sep 10, 2019 | Land Stewards
Upper Lyman lakes in the Glacier Peak Wilderness area is a truly sublime glimpse into Washington’s high alpine. As little as one hundred years ago, these lakes were nonexistent, and instead were covered by the Lyman glacier, now almost completely receded onto...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Sep 6, 2019 | Land Stewards
It has been barely over a month since I began the internship with Mt. Adams Institute. After spending a winter in Bozeman, MT, I became accustomed to so many luxuries that I didn’t realize how detached I was becoming to the natural world around me. I slept in a...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Sep 6, 2019 | Land Stewards
I am stationed on the Entiat Ranger District of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest as a backcountry ranger. Due to training and the terrain of my district, I have been loaned to the Chelan Ranger District for my first two tours. Lake Chelan, the main...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Sep 6, 2019 | Land Stewards
The sun shines high above the Pacific Crest Trail. Spinola Creek tumbles through basalt rock worn by millennia of meltwater. A northern harrier hawk crests over Cathedral Ridge looking to make a meal of a vole. It is noon – and like the predator above, I search...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Sep 6, 2019 | Land Stewards
The first time I crossed over Highway 20 and into the Methow Valley I was in a strangers truck hitchhiking from Bellingham, WA to Glacier National Park. Our driver pulled off the road at Washington Pass where Liberty Bell, Early Winters Spires and the Needles...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Sep 6, 2019 | Land Stewards
It’s a quiet June evening here in the Methow Valley and I’m slowly soaking in the last few days off before heading back out into the Pasayten Wilderness. This hitch I’m headed out with a few members of the trail crew to put my newly earned crosscut certification to...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Sep 6, 2019 | Land Stewards
About two months in and every day is still unique, keeping me on my toes. I have predominantly been helping the Cle Elum Ranger District’s Trail Crew by clearing out trails in the front country. I had not been on a single trail in the Cle Elum Ranger District before...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Jul 23, 2019 | VetsWork
Hey everyone, I’m really excited to fill you in on the past two months of my AmeriCorps VetsWork internship. As you may have read in my bio, I am working in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest in Northwest Georgia. It has been an incredible experience so far...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Nov 12, 2018 | Land Stewards
I recently had a lengthy conversation with my Dad about the future; my plans for it, my goals and expectations. I told him I was planning on staying in the Methow Valley for the winter and was applying for 2019 seasonal positions with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) in...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Oct 10, 2018 | Land Stewards
We are entering our final month of the Public Lands Stewards program and I am stunned at how quickly the time has gone. I remember my first few weeks, when I was still getting my footing and there was still snow on the ground. Now there is snow once again, but it is...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Oct 10, 2018 | Land Stewards
On one of our very first patrol trips, my partner Emma and I headed up to the Pyramid Mountain Trail. You access the trailhead via Shady Pass, a steep, gravel road that takes you from my home district, Entiat, up over the mountains and down the other side to the...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Sep 28, 2018 | Land Stewards
It is a mid-July day, and the sun is beating down on me as I hike the Eagle Oval loop on the Methow Valley Ranger District. I am on the fourth day of my first solo hitch of the season, one that has me chasing ridgeline after ridgeline in the Lake Chelan-Sawtooth...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Aug 6, 2018 | Land Stewards
As a Wilderness trails ranger with the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, I have the great privilege of working in the Glacier Peaks Wilderness. Now that I’m more than a third of the way through the season, I’d like to share some highlights. As its name suggests, the...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Jul 26, 2018 | Land Stewards
It’s hard to explain to someone what a burn area looks like. In the back of my mind I knew the Entiat River Valley burned badly in the Wolverine Fire of 2015. I grew up in Wenatchee, just 20 miles south, and every summer the valley fills with smoke from one fire or...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Jul 24, 2018 | Land Stewards
I was motivated to apply for the Mt. Adams Institute Public Lands Stewards program after seeing that they had a position available in the Methow Valley Ranger District of the Okanogan- Wenatchee National Forest. I was specifically looking for work in this area because...
by Mt. Adams Institute | Jul 24, 2018 | Land Stewards
“When we enter the landscape to learn something, we are obligated, I think, to pay attention rather than constantly to pose questions. To approach the land as we would a person, by opening an intelligent conversation. And to stay in one place, to make of that one,...
