North Cascades National Park (NOCA) Complex Volunteer Summer 2023

As a prolific national park user for nearly fifty years, I’m hoping to return the favor as an NPS Volunteer this summer. I arrived on July 15th and will depart on September 10th. A leisurely nine day drive out from Washington DC allowed for visiting many excellent state parks. My duties focus on supporting NPS Ranger and Interpretive staff in busy front country campgrounds and working with the public in the lovely visitor center. Campgrounds are particularly busy, often full and require consistent customer interaction, interpretation of rules and yes- some limit setting. All things I’ve done for decades. Staff is notably intergenerational and widely experienced in several parks around the county. Surprisingly to me, many are seasonal with much less job security than I would have expected. That said, they’re a dedicated group working hard to provide excellent customer service in a stunningly beautiful park. 

I was thrilled to find visitor center exhibits often map focused, including an excellent 3-d relief map anchoring the main lobby. The adjacent gallery features regional forest types as defined by prominent tree species. In effect it’s a plant/forest geography exhibit. Predictably, I could hardly be more at home with this subject matter. The exhibits also include a good section on local mountaineering. NOCA is home to some of the finest alpine climbing on the continent including large glaciers, ice and numerous classic rock climbs. Geology and hydrology are famously complex including strato-volcanoes, granite spires, classic glowing green glacial lakes, hard-rock river channels, large co-alluvial fans and numerous steep waterfalls.  

Like most National Parks, North Cascades attracts thousands of visitors each year. Abutting the Canadian border it’s a wonderland of cerulean lakes, seemingly endless alpine summits and steep glaciers. In fact, North Cascades boasts more glaciers than anywhere else in the lower forty-eight states. It’s a recreational paradise offering hiking, boating, camping and world class alpine climbing. Front country and backcountry adventures abound. Five busy campgrounds, an informative visitor center and a wilderness information office provide visitors with a springboard to enjoy the extensive offerings. The visitor center hosts interpretive programs, an auditorium and excellent exhibits on the park's forests and delicate alpine ecosystems. 

North Cascades National Park Complex is unique in its operational geography. That’s mainly because the Ross Lake National Recreation area is embedded within the park. Spatially the recreation area hosts all campsites and the visitor center. Thus, North Cascades proper is divided into north and south units. These are primarily backcountry wilderness areas.  Collectively the entire area is administered by the Department of Interior and staffed by National Park Service Rangers supplemented by volunteers. While the National Park Service is funded by federal expenditures approved by Congress there is revenue generated at various locations. Curiously there is no typical National Park entrance station as visitors initially enter through the recreation area. Thus, it's the bustling campgrounds that generate most enterprise revenue. 

When visitors arrive at a National Park there is an expectation for excellence. After all, United States National Parks are widely seen as the world’s best park system and conservation agency. Add to that the presence of national park rangers with the trademark Smokey the Bear hat, it's an enduring aesthetic denoting protection of our national treasures. While the visitor center is busy interpreting for the public, campgrounds require detailed customer service integrated with reservations made exclusively online, often many months in advance. It’s incumbent on campground staff to work in a continuum of potential cancellations, late arrivals and of course parties arriving with no reservations. Demand almost always outpaces availability. 

Typical communications in the front country campsites focus on a number of areas that involve reducing the impact of campers as a whole. One of the most important aspects of this is bear education. Black bears are common throughout the region and will be found in campsites on occasion. It's imperative the campers understand storing food properly is of the highest importance. It's very important to the health of bears not to consume human food. Black bears are intuitive and can easily open coolers that are left outside and not in the campsite bear box. Rangers spend considerable time ensuring that food is stored properly and bear encounters are minimized.

Another aspect of environmental impact in campsites is managing vegetation for minimum impact. The vegetation of the cascades is rich with huge trees, delicate ferns and beautiful wildflowers abound. Each campsite has a limit to the number of people that can occupy the space. Ideally all tents fit within the assigned site and do not impact the adjacent vegetation. Collectively the health of the vegetation is an ecological and aesthetic asset to the campground. 

All reservations are made in advance on recreation.gov. This system works remarkably well but requires specific staff skills online and in person. Staff coordinates the online reservations with arriving campers in person. Each morning campsite posts are updated with the arriving parties’ last name. Through the day staff and volunteers will interact with campers, ensuring proper site allocation and general adherence to various basic rules. This is the realm of “compliance issues” often requiring keen observation and limit setting skills. This single area of customer service is central to ensuring an orderly campground and customer satisfaction. Every online reservation requires reading the rules. Ideally folks are well informed when they arrive- or maybe not.