The annual Mount Rainier National Park Associates alpine gardening work party will be Sept. 6. Participants will be working at Paradise on the project to replant the area around the new visitor center.

Volunteers should meet in the Paradise parking lot between 8:30 and 9 a.m. When you arrive, check in with John Titland, volunteer coordinator for the associates.

Because there will likely be other volunteers gathering in the area, Titland said in a news release that he will be in a green-gray Subaru Outback wagon.

Participants should be ready for any fall weather. Bring both your sun hat and your rain gear plus lunch, fluids to drink, gardening gloves and any digging tool you like using. Volunteers will be working on their hands and knees doing planting, so if you like to use a pad for your knees, bring it along. The work site is adjacent to the parking lot, so plan on bringing everything you want to bring since access to your vehicle will be easy.

Volunteers will not need to pay to enter the park. When you enter the park, tell the entrance attendant that you will be working on the revegetation project at Paradise, the release said.

If you plan to attend, contact Titland at volunteer@mount-rainier.org and let him know how many people will be attending.

VOLUNTEERS RECOGNIZED

Earlier this month, the park staff held its annual volunteer picnic to honor those who have given their time to the park. In particular, the park recognized the following individuals for reaching milestones in their volunteer service, according to park volunteer coordinator Kevin Bacher:

500 hours: Elizabeth Beaulieu (since 2006), assisting with stream surveys and river research; Hank and Judy Bernard (since 2006), as campground hosts and meadow rovers; Jack Greene (since 2007), working as an interpreter, educator and park planner; Mary Heskett (2008), working as a cultural resource assistant in the curatorial library; Brian McDonald (2008), working as a Geologist-in-Parks intern at Paradise; Marcy Partridge (since 2007), working as a cultural resource assistant in the curatorial library; and Helen Young (2008), as an interpreter at Paradise and Longmire through the Student Conservation Association.

2,000 hours: Russel Gibbs (since 2003), assisting with wildlife surveys, Ohanapecosh area patrol and wilderness cleanup; Ruth Graves (since 2005), as a west district interpreter at Longmire and Paradise; and Carol Yoshiko Miltimore (since 2006), trail construction, soundscape monitoring, curation, backcountry patrol and more.

3,000 hours: James Miltimore (since 2005), doing a little bit of everything, including trail construction and patrol and natural and cultural resource science.

4,000 hours: Phil Winn (since 1995), as a wilderness ranger on the east and north sides of the park.

6,000 hours: Clyde and Lois Ambacher (since 1985), assisting with maintenance projects and litter pickup.

10,000 hours: Flash Parlini (since 1991), patroling the Carbon River and Mowich Lake areas of the park. Parlini has donated more than four years of workweeks to working at the park.

Jeffrey P. Mayor: 253-597-8640

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