A Grateful Intern
by Heather Aboud: Environmental Education Coordinator, Othello, WA
Setting up man-made boxes for monitoring kestrels
As I write this, I am about halfway through my Americorps term at Columbia National Wildlife Refuge (NWR). After my first two months were spent impatiently fidgeting and wondering “when does the Environmental Education part of this Environmental Education Coordinator position actually start?” I’ve enjoyed three months of working with elementary school children from the surrounding area, and it has been a blast.
A kestrel ready to be banded
Now the children are out of school and I am in danger of falling back into months of impatiently fidgeting and plotting creative ways to escape my eerily quiet office building. However, I am lucky to have been able to avoid that danger thanks to our small band of loyal volunteers. These folks have been willing to let me tag along on their adventures, and without fail will take extra time to answer my incessant questions, teach me something new, and occasionally take a detour from their projects to show me a new area that I didn’t know existed. I am grateful that these folks have been willing to “adopt” me; otherwise passersbys on Othello’s Main Street may have been confused to catch a glimpse of an AmeriCorps member climbing out an office window and making a run for the hills.
One of the ongoing projects that I have been happy to help with a couple of times is the monitoring and banding of kestrels in man-made boxes scattered throughout Columbia National Wildlife Refuge and Hanford Reach
Banding a kestrel
National Monument. The three gentlemen who have been handling this project for years seem to delight in sharing their extensive knowledge of this area, and I have been happy to absorb what I can. During my first trip with them a couple of months ago, we didn’t have much luck with the birds, as it was early in the season, and the weather has been a bit unpredictable this year. My second tag-a-long trip was just a couple of weeks ago, when several kestrel boxes held juveniles that were about ready to fledge. On this day, I got the great (and slightly frightening) experience of holding a couple of the kestrels that needed to be banded. Needless to say I had a big smile on my face at the end of that day.
So, I extend a big thank you to the volunteers of Columbia NWR, and in fact to volunteers everywhere. You donate time not because you have to, but because you want to, and I am learning firsthand how important your positive impact can be.
Let’s Go to the Falls
by Chris Vyper: PCT Trail Crew
Burney Falls
Welcome to Burney Falls State Park, home of the breathtaking waterfall that the park is named for, and temporary home to the Pacific Crest Trail Team Two. We setup our new home at the Headwater’s Camp, which is pleasantly far from the main campground. The PCT skirts along our camp at slightly over the halfway point to Canada. Occasionally after work we like to head down to Burney Falls and take turns diving into the falls pool, which stays at a refreshing 42 degrees.
With three hitches down and two to go, our daily commute includes about an hour drive to the Red Mountain section of the PCT where we are working. We have completed a wide variety of trail maintenance over the past three hitches, including building numerous armored drain dips, raising 
long stretches of tread that had been badly cupped due to water runoff and cows and cutting out brush along three miles of the trail, which was so bad in sections that hikers had to fight their way through. Working on a variety of projects has kept us excited about going to work everyday, and using power brushers and the power mover to haul rocks is an added bonus.
From Left: Chis, Sam, , Kate, Libby, Max & Shaughn
We also took a trip to another waterfall, Big Bend Falls. Although not quite as impressive as Burney Falls, Big Bend has its own superior qualities. The pool is a bit warmer, which made for some enjoyable swimming. Everyone had a good time playing on the floating log. Splashing around in this beautiful paradise was the best possible activity for cooling off on a hot summer day.
One of our team mottos is quickly becoming, “Let’s go to the falls!”
Central Park and the National Outdoor Youth Summit
by Brian Eberhardt: Mt. Hood National Forest
Members of the 540 Delegates coming together from across the nation
On June 19 and 20th, I traveled to New York City to participate in the National Outdoor Youth Summit. With my fellow NWSA intern, Kevin Farron with Oregon State Parks, I threw myself into a group of over 500 youth delegates gathered from around the country to discuss national outdoor issues. The conference, held in Central Park, was the first of its kind. The brainchild of Outdoor Nation, Mobilize.org, and Northface, the conference was designed to give youth a voice in the formation of national policy.
Water Conservation Sign in Brooklyn, NY
Upon arrival, delegates chose one of six tracks: Outdoor Service, Outdoor Careers, Outdoor Education and Recreation, Diversity in the Outdoors, Media and the Outdoors, and Health and Active Lifestyles. I chose Outdoor Education and Recreation, which ties in closely to my job with the US Forest Service as a Community Stewardship Coordinator. Sitting around round tables, we discussed “the disconnect” our nation’s youth are experiencing with their natural world. With youth spending more time connected to technology, worries over safety, and lack of opportunity, our youth are becoming ever more inclined to stay indoors. Recognizing this trend, we worked together to create practical solutions to rebuild that connection.
Here’s a sample of our ideas:
- Training educators to better take advantage of outdoor opportunities and work as advocates for engaging in the natural world.
- Creating an outdoor recreation program similar to YELP! as a resource for environmental educators, families, and outdoor enthusiasts to share and learn more about their local area and its outdoor opportunities.
- Outdoor mentors, leading by example and fostering an appreciation for nature.
Bachelor Buttons and California Poppies in Brooklyn, NY
Our ideas we then synthesized and presented to the main group to evaluate and vote. Using touch-pad technology, we worked as a democracy voting our approval or disapproval to each idea. Throughout the 2-day conference, members of the Department of Interior were taking notes and reviewing our answers in order to bring back our ideas to the federal government.
I loved hearing and seeing the passion of the delegates as they discussed outdoor issues specific to their region, yet relevant to the nation. Though the delegates represented a great diversity of backgrounds and regions, we were one – unified by our belief in the power of outdoor experiences.
American Natural History Museum - Manhattan, NY - Edge of Central Park
As I listened to the first-hand accounts on the lack of opportunity for outdoor experiences available to our nation’s urban youth, I was amazed to hear the murmurs of agreement spread throughout the crowd. Growing up in an environmentally-progressive state, I had no idea of the widespread barriers that our nation’s youth face. Empowered with this realization, I’ve returned to my position with the Forest Service with a fresh determination to help create more regular opportunities for our nation’s youth to engage in outdoor experiences. For it is only through a relationship with nature that we can stay attuned with the means of maintaining and preserving our natural resources.
Let’s get those kids out in the woods!
Adventures on Salmon Butte Trail
by Zach Dieterman – Mt. Hood Trail Team
The Hood Team (minus Tim) in front of Mt. Hood
The Mt. Hood area has had much to offer our team in the first month of service, but there is one trail with which we have become especially familiar. Running 4.5 miles into the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness, with an additional two planned for the future, Salmon Butte Trail offers some of the most diverse hiking and spectacular views I have yet encountered in the great Northwest. The trail has not only given us an abrupt introduction to how physically demanding trail work can be, but it gave us a view that knocked our collective socks off.
The Mountain
In our first and second weeks in service at the Zigzag Ranger District we spent a good deal of time logging out a new section of the Salmon Butte trail through some old growth forest that had not hosted a trail since the 1960s. Some of the blown down logs were upwards of five feet in diameter and the rounds we sawed out and rolled weighed several hundred pounds and may have pushed the half ton mark. We worked mostly in 55 degree temps with drizzling rain and the weather drained our morale nearly as much as the work drained us physically from wielding chainsaws and rock bars all day. It was extremely rewarding to see a large round roll down the hill after sawing, prying, and digging for over an hour. Regrettably, I have only the after pictures from that log-out.
Big rounds from lower trail log-out
Fortunately, the weather broke for our first weekend on the mountain and we were able to hike the upper part of the trail to Salmon Butte itself under clear skies. It is a fairly difficult walk, uphill the entire way, gaining 3,000 vertical feet over its 4.5 miles. It winds its way up through old growth forest, a few rocky cliff sides, and climaxes at over 4,800 feet on a rocky outcrop from which Mt. Hood, Adams, Rainier, St. Helens, and Jefferson are all visible on a clear day. To the east you can see well into central and eastern Oregon, and the immediate surroundings are a carpet of wilderness valleys and ridges.
Ready for the tread machine
The future of this trail will make this location even more exclusive, as the road to the current trailhead is being decommissioned, and the trail will gain nearly two miles and a few hundred more feet of elevation. It’s nice to see a wilderness area expanding in a world where they are constantly being encroached upon. The new lower part of the trail will be an ongoing project for us as the season goes on, and it will be very rewarding to see it as a finished product even if that involves a return trip in years to come. Personal investment in a place really makes a person appreciate what that place represents, and our nation’s wilderness areas would certainly benefit from the involvement of more people in both the upkeep and recreation of these areas. I would highly recommend a visit to Salmon Butte, and if you’re not into a twelve plus mile round trip, this season is your last chance at the current nine mile out and back.
A Reciprocal Exchange
by Brian Ahlers
It’s always nice when kids come rushing up to you, eager to show you their finding. “Brian! Brian, look what I found!” This has been my AmeriCorps experience thus far with the Columbia Gorge Ecology Institute and the Gorge Explorers Summer Camp. As a Conservation Educator, our job is to inspire a sense of wonder in the children, to enhance their emotional connection with the natural world. Nevertheless, it has actually been my sense of wonder that has been revitalized.
Testing Water Quality
The other day we walked from the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center to Chenoweth Creek in The Dalles, Oregon. When we arrived, the kids were exhausted from the heat of the day; the cool creek below the pedestrian bridge provided relief for everyone. Our goal was to assess the health of the river by testing water quality and catching macroinvertebrates, but within minutes I realized there was more to our activity than qualitative sampling.
To my surprise, I had kids rushing up to me with juvenile salmon and snails in their nets. I hopped in the cool, rippling water eager to cool off from the scorching sun. As educator and students, side by side, we began picking up rocks and looking for macroinvertebrates. As fragile creatures, the presence of macroinvertebrates are excellent indicators of healthy watersheds. Before long, my Tupperware became a miniature community of aquatic critters representative of Chenoweth Creek. I was inspired by the innate curiosity of the children, and their willingness to get dirty and wet in the creek. The kids inspected their findings under microscope, eyes wide with excitement. “Look at that bug’s eyes!” …. “How does that thing swim?”
Anyone know the answer?
To end the morning field trip, we all made our way over to the animal shelter nearby to walk the dogs. It was nice to encourage the kids to give back to their community. Intrinsic to my AmeriCorps experience through the Mt. Adams Center is the importance of public service. At Chenoweth Creek, the kids and I had a reciprocal exchange: while the 3rd graders rekindled a youthful vigor for adventure, I helped foster a deeper appreciation (I would hope) of healthy watersheds and giving back to the community. Ultimately, I am so fortunate to have my AmeriCorps position to empower the youth and to constantly seek a sense of purpose in my own life.