Trail Association offers working vacations for hikers
Published 9:00 pm Friday, April 6, 2007
If you’re willing to help with the dishes, enjoy a day off in a beautiful setting, pay a relatively small fee and work outside for several days, then the Washington Trails Association has a deal for you.
WTA’s Volunteer Vacations program is off to a good start with some week-long trail-maintenance vacations already full. Volunteers can choose one that fits their fitness levels, from those for car campers to a few five-star vacations requiring a 2,000-foot elevation gain over a four- to six-mile hike with a full backpack.
Options for Volunteer Vacations include Lake Chelan, Mount Rainier (now there’s a place that will need a lot of help), Wenatchee River, Methow Valley, Little Pend Orielle National Wildlife Preserve, Cle Elum, Cowlitz Valley, Mount Adams, Skykomish (Dishpan Gap, Marmot Lake, Lake Clarice) and Mount Baker.
Cost is $125 for a non-WTA member; $100 for members. Each trip will have a WTA chef preparing the meals. Volunteers must be age 18 or older or under 18 with an adult. Information: 206-625-1367; www.wta.org.
Birds and plants: Carol Stoner of the Washington Native Plant Society will talk at 7 p.m. Friday about the benefits of native plants to wildlife. The Pilchuck Audubon Society meeting, open to the public, is at Vertical World, 2820 Rucker Ave., Everett. For more information, call 425-252-0926.
Going deep: Bradley Mitchell will have his collection of diving gear dating as far back as 1893 on display from today until April 14 at the Seattle Aquarium. The display includes heavy Navy diving pumps, weight belts,lead boots, suits, several helmets and radios that allowed the dive tender to talk to divers and a fire boat’s water cannon capable of pushing 1,700 to 2,000 gallons of water a minute at least 100 yards.
For more information, contact Mitchell at Az338@aol.com or call the Seattle Aquarium, 206-386-4300.
Counting birds: The numbers have been tallied and bird-counters from around the country and Canada did themselves proud during February’s four-day Great Backyard Bird Count, sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society.
Birders counted more than 11 million birds in 616 species and submitted more than 80,000 checklists, 33 percent more than the previous high of 61,000 checklists in 2000.
“It used to take scientists years to gather large-scale information about bird population and distribution and the GBBC does it in just four days each year,” said John Fitzpatrick, director of Cornell Lab.
The most numerous birds included the American robin (2 million), Canada goose (680,206), red-winged blackbird (623,170), snow goose (529,997) and laughing gull (431,125).
Washington state counters reported the sixth-highest species count (216); California and Texas birders saw the most species (333 each). Our state was eighth in terms of counting the most birds (320,198). Florida (2.1 million), Texas and California took the first three spots.
Hats off to birders in Yakima. Their area was seventh on the list of localities reporting the most birds (88,534).
On a Washington level, Olympia and Sequim reported the highest number of species (100); Seattle had the highest number of checklists (150).
In Snohomish County, reports came in from about 15 locations, from one to a dozen checklists. Everett and Snohomish birders each turned in 12 checklists; Edmonds had the most species (43) but Everett and Lynnwood each had 40.
For complete results, go to www.birdcount.org.
On the bookshelf: If you’re in the Bozeman, Mont., area this summer and looking at day-hiking opportunities, check out Robert Stone’s “Day Hikes Around Bozeman, Montana” ($13, Day Hike Books). It’s a just-the-basics choice but it does have maps.
So is Jonathan Hanson’s “Basic Essentials: Photography in the Outdoors” ($9, Falcon) with photographs and illustrations rather than maps. It’s a good book for a beginner.
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.
