Volunteers keep winter visitors safe - Rainier BC

For those of you who don't get the Seattle Times, an interesting article:  <br> <br>Visit this site for the article, links and photos:<br> seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/outdoors/...wnordicpatrol09.html

Volunteers keep winter visitors safe in Mount Rainier's backcountry<br><br>By Mike McQuaide<br>Special to The Seattle Times<br><br>Just below Paradise, at the edge of Reflection Lakes, we've found an abandoned igloo. A good-sized one with walls three to five feet thick and a sunken floor that appears almost of basement-depth. It's something that several people obviously spent several hours - as well as a lot of sweat and muscle - constructing and, from the looks of it, it provided a night (or several) of cozy comfort and protection from the prodigious snow and wind that hits this place.<br><br>And now, in a move that my 6-year-old son would get quite the bang out of, we get to destroy it. Knock it all to heck. Cave in the roof. Pretend we're the big bad wolf. Pound it into submission. And the like. "We have to," says Mike Ward of Brier. "Later in the season, when the top melts down, someone skiing or snowshoeing over it could punch through and fall in. And they'd be in real trouble."<br><br>True. This snow cave looks deep enough to be a classic femur breaker or at least a knee wrencher. So we take turns, the three of us - also here is Lee Wilcox of Lynnwood, whose bushy beard and ruddy complexion make him a leading candidate to play the lead should the old TV series "The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams" ever go back into production. We use a couple of collapsible snow shovels to take on this deconstruction project.<br><br>It's all in a day's work for Ward and Wilcox who, as Washington Ski Touring Club members, are spending this Saturday on the club's Nordic Patrol duty. As such, they're helping rangers at Mount Rainier National Park by skiing the ski and snowshoe trails around Paradise, assessing avalanche potential, assisting schussers who may be lost or hungry or have traveled beyond their abilities, resetting trail markers that have been buried or knocked askew, and in general, giving park personnel real-time reports on backcountry conditions.<br><br>"If we notice that the weather is changing and we see people out there who might not be aware, we let them know about it and help them out if they need it," says Seattle's Lynn Tucker, who heads up the club's Nordic Patrol arm. "We stay in radio contact with the park's rangers - we're kind of their eyes and ears out on the trails."<br><br>The Washington Ski Touring Club, which formed in the 1970s and offers organized trips as well as instruction in cross-country skiing, began patrols of Mount Rainier National Park's ski trails in 1993. Funding cutbacks in the park system meant that rangers weren't able to get out on the trails nearly as much as they'd like and the club was more than willing to step up. Its eagerness was somewhat driven also by a tragic event that befell a club member.<br><br>A few years earlier, several club members became separated in a whiteout while skiing down the Muir Snowfield. All made it down OK except for Jim Kampe, who was never seen again. So the club approached the park about doing volunteer patrols, and in the years since has contributed more than 12,000 hours of volunteer service.<br><br>"Their efforts help us serve the public better and keep visitors safe, so I would definitely describe their role as vital," says Kevin Bacher, who manages the Jackson Visitor Center and keeps in close contact with the patrol. "Over the past 12 years, their contribution has been worth more than $200,000."<br><br>For the club's efforts, on weekends from late November to April when the patrol is active, the park provides them with a house at Longmire that sleeps eight, emergency radios, and a four-wheel-drive truck to transport members and gear up to Paradise.<br><br>"Cascade concrete"<br><br>On this Saturday morning in the midst of Seattle's recent 27 consecutive days of rain - a streak that caused a run on arks at area Costcos - Ward, Wilcox and I park at the Narada Falls parking lot, a couple miles and maybe a thousand feet below Paradise. Under cloudy skies broken by intermittent poke holes of blue, we head for Reflection Lakes, they on telemark skis, and me on snowshoes.<br><br>It's snowed heavily in recent days, and the forest we head through is hung with potential snow bombs. They're accumulations of heavy, wet snow trapped in the tree limbs that somehow seem to pick the exact moment you walk under them to let loose - inevitably the second after you've taken your hat off for a moment to scratch your head.<br><br>We follow orange poles marking the route, set earlier this season by the patrol and which now, given the heavy snows, are leaning over at all angles. As we schuss, Ward and Wilcox reset them, occasionally altering the route in spots where the now ample snow coverage allows for a more direct passage through the trees.<br><br>After an hour or so, it starts snowing. Soon the wind picks up and the clouds are pelting us with heavy, wet snow. From the inside pocket of Wilcox's jacket, the radio crackles and a ranger's voice informs us that the snow is falling at a quarter- to a half-inch every 20 minutes.<br><br>"Typical Cascade concrete," Ward says. "It's good for snowballs but not much else."<br><br>Maps and peace of mind<br><br>With the weather worsening and the three of us heading farther into the backcountry, Ward and Wilcox keep a sharp eye out for folks who might be unaware of the changing conditions or who might be otherwise unprepared.<br><br>Last season Wilcox and some other patrollers helped rangers rescue an injured skier who'd become immobilized a few miles into the backcountry up on Mazama Ridge. Working together, patrollers, park rangers, and others in the skier's party were able to load him onto a rescue sled and get him in an ambulance in less than 90 minutes.<br><br>Today, though, we mostly come across well-prepared couples snowshoeing toward the lakes. All of them seem delighted to be up here at these higher elevations where the region's incessant rain amounts to something tangible: a truly spectacular winter wonderland.<br><br>One couple asks Ward to take a photo of them using their camera, and he obliges. He also hands them a map and describes an alternate route back to the parking lot. (Along with first-aid kits, space blankets, extra clothes, shovels, avalanche beacons and probes, Ward and Wilcox carry plenty of maps to hand out.)<br><br>"It's so appreciated, what they do up here," says snowshoer Mark Spee of Olympia, who's here with his wife, Sandra. "It's been a couple years since we've been up here, so it's great to know that they're around."<br><br>After about a mile-and-a-half of mostly gentle climbing, we reach Inspiration Saddle, where we begin the descent down to the Reflection Lakes basin. Ward and Wilcox remove the skins from their skis and begin carving graceful telemark turns through the heavy wet snow while I try to keep up behind them. By the time we reach the lakes, the snow is heavier and blowing sideways. The lakes, or what we can see of them, are just a vast field of white that disappears into a snowy fog about a snowball's throw away.<br><br>"I got some beef broth that'll taste real good about now," Ward says, and we settle lakeside for some lunch.<br><br>Gray jays, who must have heard Ward and can apparently understand English, figure it's their lunchtime, too, and descend on us from all directions.<br><br>Other skiers and snowshoers stop by and with a large group of boisterous, mostly German skiers also lunching just down the way, there's somewhat of a party atmosphere. Ward, who leads summer hiking tours in Switzerland, tries out a few phrases.<br><br>Climbing back up to Inspiration Saddle, conditions are worsening and visibility is decreasing by the minute. But I'm not worried at all. I'm in good hands. I'm with the Nordic Patrol guys.<br><br>Mike McQuaide is a Bellingham freelance writer and author of "Day Hike! Central Cascades" (Sasquatch Books) and "A Falcon Guide to the Mount Baker-Mount Shuksan Area" (Falcon). He can be reached at mikemcquaide@comcast.net.

I'm pretty stoked about that article. The WSTC is a nice low key club. We have meeting's 1st Thursday's @7:00PM in one of Seattle REI's meeting rooms -- all are welcome at these meetings (and at the after meeting meeting at Patty Coines pub just down the street fvrom REI). Here is a link to the Washington Ski Touring Club's Website:<br><br> www.wstc.org/