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Friends of Olympic National Park
April 2011 Newsletter
Contents
Elwha Revegetation - Friday, April 1
Favorite Mountain Adventures & Night Photography - Steph Abegg - Saturday, April 9
Olympic Astronomy - Tuesday, April 12
Elwha Mule Barn Day - Friday, April 15
Plant Nursery Open House - Saturday, April 16
Duk Point Coast Clean-Up - Saturday, April 23
Elwha Access
Proposed Park Boundary Adjustments
Elwha Revegetation Project Talk at Glines Canyon Dam
Friday, April 1, 10 am
Elwha Revegetation Project Manager, Joshua Chenoweth, will give a talk about revegetating Lake Mills and Lake Aldwell reservoirs to the local Washington Native Plant Society Chapter and interested non-members . Meet at Glines Canyon Dam (along Olympic Hotsprings Road past Altaire Campground) at 10 am on Friday.
Read the complete strategy for revegetating the Lake Aldwell and Lake Mills reservoirs online.
 Steph Abegg's "Favorite Mountain Adventures and Night Photography" Saturday, April 9, 7 pm
Steph Abegg, a northwest based adventurer and photographer, will show photographs and tell stories about her favorite mountain adventures April 9 at 7 pm. The venue is BarN9ne located at 229 West First Street in downtown Port Angeles. Admission is $5 at the door. All ages are welcome. Proceeds benefit the Hurricane Ridge Winter Sports Club.
Steph was addicted to mountains for life at an early age. Her parents met while backpacking in the Olympic Mountains and honeymooned with a trip through the Vallahas, the rugged and untracked subrange west of Mt. Olympus. Family adventures in the mountains were a regular part of life as she grew up. Her first alpine climb was at the age of 11, climbing Overhanging Tower with her dad on a family backpacking trip through the Wind River Range of Wyoming.
Trips to Mt. Rainier; Shi-Shi Beach; Walker’s Haute Route in Switzerland; the Valhallas; Three Fingers Lookout in winter and summer; Utah; and Bear Mountain, a rugged climb in the Cascades are the scheduled topics. In addition, she will devote a portion of the show to her stunning night photography.
Her work has been published in numerous journals and guidebooks and can be seen at her website www.stephabegg.com. This is a "Second Saturday" presentation hosted by the Hurricane Ridge Winter Sports Club. The Winter Sports Club works to inspire local youth by exposing them to mountain environments in the same way Steph was inspired in her youth.
Last month’s show was standing room only, so an early arrival is recommended. BarN9ne has a full menu of food and drinks.
Olympic Astronomy – Wonders of a Dark Night Sky
Tuesday, April 12, 7 pm
John Goar, Master Observer, Volunteer-in-Park, Olympic National Park
Explore the wonders of the night sky indoors with John Goar, a Master Observer who helped visitors experience the dark sky at Hurricane Ridge last summer as a park volunteer astronomer. Examine the value of darkness and what it means in an increasingly developing world.
The Perspectives series is sponsored by Olympic National Park, Friends of Olympic National Park and Discovery Your Northwest and take place every second Tuesday at the Olympic National Park Visitor Center, 3002 Mount Angeles Road (south Race Street) in Port Angeles. These presentations are free and open to the public.
 Elwha Mule Barn Day - Friday, April 15
In support of maintenance of its over 600 miles of wilderness trails, Olympic NP operates three mule pack trains during the summer trail work season, supplemented by local volunteer packers.
Olympic National Park and Backcountry Horsemen of Washington will present a mule packing demonstration, including packing history, techniques and methods, along with hands-on training on Leave No Trace backcountry ethics. Bring a pack lunch. This fun annual event is free and open to the public.
Directions: from Port Angeles, drive west on Hwy. 101 to the Elwha River Bridge. Turn left onto Olympic Hot Springs Road 4 miles. Just past the Elwha Ranger Station, turn left onto Whiskey Bend Road and immediately left again into the parking area. Click here for more information.
Spring Open House at Olympic NP Plant Nursery
"The Little Dam Party"
Saturday, April 16, 1 to 3 pm
Olympic National Park and Friends of Olympic National Park will co-host an Open House at the Matt Albright Native Plant Center in Robin Hill County Park on Saturday, April 16. Join Elwha revegetation project staff and volunteers for an afternoon of nursery tours, live music, poetry, and refreshments. Tours will be offered from 1-3pm. At 1:15pm, local award-winning poet, Alice Derry, will read a number of poems she’s written for the Elwha. Local musician and one-man band, Mike Kamphaus, will play throughout the afternoon. All visitors are welcome to come and see the inner workings of the nursery operation first hand on guided tours by project staff. The event is free and open to the public.
Beginning at 1:15pm, ONP is proud to host a reading by local, award-winning poet, Alice Derry. During her thirty-minute reading, she’ll read a number of poems she’s written for the Elwha, in addition to others which touch on the park and camping adventures, both humorous and moving. Listeners will recognize places, flora and fauna, connecting them to their own life in the park. Derry is pleased to be part of the park’s long celebratory reach toward the beginning of Elwha dam removal. Since April is also National Poetry Month and the month of EarthDay, this half hour should be downright festive.
Additional highlights on Saturday afternoon include, music by Me, Myself, and I, a one-man band & musical show by Mike Kamphaus and refreshments. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, see the FONP website.
Plant Nursery Activities
2010 was a big year for plants at Olympic National Park. Not only did the Park’s revegetation staff and its dedicated volunteers move the native plant nursery and all of its existing plants from park headquarters to the new Matt Albright Native Plant Center in Robin Hill Park, but they also propagated more than 35,000 native plants for the revegetation projects throughout the Park. Propagation goals for 2011 are even bigger. Dave Allen, ONP Plant Propagation Specialist, plans to propagate more than 60,000 plants this year—25,000 for the Elwha Revegetation Project. Without the assistance of volunteers, this would not be possible.
The propagation of each new plant for projects in Olympic National Park begins at least one year before seed is even sown. All seed used to grow plants is first collected from the area in the Park where replanting will eventually take place. For example, all plants grown for the Elwha Revegetation Project are grown from seed collected from the Elwha watershed. By revegetating areas with locally sourced seed, the genetic integrity of those plants is preserved. Preserving the genetic integrity allows native plants to thrive in the environments in which they have adapted over time. Once seed is collected, it is brought to the Native Plant Center to be dried, sorted, and stored for future propagation.
As springtime nears, propagation begins at the Matt Albright Native Plant Center. Since mid-January, the greenhouse has gotten more and more crowded with seeded flats of dozens of native species, which are slowly germinating into bright green life.
For more information, contact Jill Zarzeczny at Jill_Zarzeczny@nps.gov or 360.565.3047
Poet Alice Derry
Beginning at 1:15pm, we are proud to host a reading by local poet, Alice Derry. Alice has been a resident on the Olympic Peninsula since 1980. She taught English and German at Peninsula College for nearly thirty years, retiring in 2009. She was the main force behind the college’s Foothills Writers’ Series during those years, hosting dozens of writers, both local and national. Derry is the author of three full collections of poetry and three chapbooks. Her fourth volume, Tremolo, will appear from Red Hen Press in 2012. Along the way, Derry has been the recipient of several honors and awards for her poetry; individual poems have appeared widely.
Olympic National Park has been a part of Derry’s life since her first visit in the early 50’s. She wrote her first poem for the Elwha in the eighties; it was included in the park’s fiftieth anniversary anthology, Island of Rivers. During her thirty-minute reading on April 16, she’ll read a number of poems she’s written for the Elwha, in addition to others which touch on the park and camping adventures, both humorous and moving. Listeners will recognize places, flora and fauna, connecting them to their own life in the park. Derry is pleased to be part of the park’s long celebratory reach toward the beginning of Elwha dam removal. Since April is also National Poetry Month and the month of EarthDay, this half hour should be downright festive.
 Coast Clean-up April 23
Friends of Olympic National Park now co-sponsors the annual Coast Cleanup every Earth Day. The next cleanup will be on Saturday, April 23, 2011. Friends volunteers will meet at Ozette Campground at 8:30 am that morning; many will camp out at Ozette on Friday night.
Friends has been invited by the Duk Point inholders to be their guests during the cleanup. They will meet us at 9 am at the Green Crow gate on Mainline Road, 1 mile north of Ozette Ranger Station, and escort our vehicles 4 miles up Mainline Road and 2 miles out Seafield Road and through the Park gate to Duk Point. These are one lane gravel roads, suitable for pickups and 4WD cars.
Duk Point lies in the heart of Olympic NP's northern wilderness beaches. Duk Point beaches run 2 miles north to Point of the Arches, at the south end of Shi Shi Beach, and 2 miles south to the Ozette River, just north of Cape Alava. Friends will be the only group with direct vehicle access to this central, otherwise inaccessible, stretch of wilderness beach. We plan to have at least 3 pickups and a dump trailer, able to carry more than 100 filled trash bags.
Duk Point is the only point on the Park's Northern Coastal wilderness between Rialto Beach and Sooes Beach with direct access to the beach. We expect this to be an ongoing annual activity for years to come.
Please plan to join us in this unique opportunity to make a big contribution to the success of the coast cleanup! If you can join us at Duk Point, please RSVP by e-mail to Rod Farlee
Elwha Access
Whiskey Bend Road has sustained winter storm damage and will remain closed to vehicles through September. The road may be used by hikers, mountain bikers and stock until construction begins this summer. This adds 4.5 miles to access the Elwha and Wolf Creek trailheads.
Olympic Hot Springs Road to the Boulder Creek trail will remain open through July 31, but will close at Altair Campground on August 1 for heavy equipment to begin the Glines Canyon Dam removal.
For more information, see the Park press release.
Proposed Boundary Adjustments
On March 17, 2011, U.S. Congressman Norm Dicks introduced H.R. 1162, a bill "To provide the Quileute Indian Tribe Tsunami and Flood Protection, and for other purposes." If adopted by Congress, this legislation would:
1) Transfer 785 acres near La Push to the Quileute Tribe,
2) Designate 15 acres of the Boulder Creek Trail and Campground (the decommissioned 2.2 miles of Olympic Hot Springs Road) as Wilderness, and
3) Designate ~4100 acres north of Lake Crescent as Wilderness (beginning 100 feet north of, and not affecting, the current Spruce Railroad Trail / proposed Olympic Discovery Trail)
The full text of this proposed legislation and maps of the proposed boundary changes are available on our website.
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