Together with the Forest Service, partners, and the local community, we are restoring high alpine habitat, promoting sustainable recreation, and improving forest resilience in the upper Methow Valley. The NFF’s ambitious campaign to restore the Majestic Methow is kicking into high gear this summer with several great volunteering opportunities. Here is an update on just three of these restoration projects:

Matrix Trail Construction

The Methow Valley boasts many exciting rock climbing opportunities with new ones discovered every year. One newly popular route has been dubbed “The Matrix”, and is currently accessible only through steep, unmaintained user trails that erode the forest slopes and destroy wildlife habitat. The NFF and Forest Service have partnered with the local climbing community to design and build a sustainable trail that will provide access to The Matrix.

The Matrix Trail construction will take place on Saturday, May 30, 2015. Volunteers will meet at the Goat Creek Sno-Park at 9:00 am. For more information and to register for this event, visit www.nff.wildapricot.org/event-1944164.

rainy pass picnic site and trailhead restoration

Many people love to immerse themselves in the beauty and wilderness of the mountain peaks surrounding the Majestic Methow by taking in the view from one of the Forest Service’s high mountain pass picnic areas and trails. Readying these sites and trailheads for use is an enormous task, and this year we will help out by hosting a volunteer weekend in late June to prepare the beautiful Rainy Pass picnic site and trailhead for the public. Tasks are many and varied, and include everything from maintaining trails and eradicating invasive plants to cutting back vegetation around picnic tables. The best thing about this project? Participants get to spend a free weekend in the wilderness and camp below majestic peaks at Lone Fir campground.

Volunteers will meet at the Rainy Pass Trailhead and Picnic Area at 9:00 am on Saturday, July 25, 2015. For more information and to register for this event, visit www.nff.wildapricot.org/event-1945025.

Maple and Heather Pass Restoration

Perhaps the most beautiful – and most loved – hike in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest leads straight off of Route 20 and loops between Heather and Maple Passes. Unfortunately, user-created trails now crisscross the area and have destroyed much of the native high-alpine vegetation, including spectacular heather communities that took thousands of years to establish. Together with the Forest Service, the National Park Service, the North Cascades Institute, REI and the Moccasin Lake Foundation, the NFF has embarked on an ambitious restoration project in the area. This summer, we will continue erecting signs to educate hikers about the sensitive alpine habitat and direct them to the authorized trails. And in late fall, we start planting native vegetation that has been painstakingly raised from seed over the last two years.

We hope you can join us at one or more of these Majestic Methow restoration projects! If you are interested in volunteering or would like additional additional information, please contact Natalie Kuehler at [email protected] or 509.996.4057.