Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Sign Up to Conduct Invasive Plant Surveys in the Middle Fork Snoqualmie Valley

Do you like to hike and look at plants? Would you like to help stop the spread of invasive plants into one of the most pristine wilderness areas in King County? If so, we welcome you to join our team of weed watchers looking for invasives in the Middle Fork Snoqualmie Valley.

Volunteers are needed to survey trails throughout the Mid Fork Valley from Mt. Si to Dutch Miller Gap in the heart of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. By finding the new invaders early, we are able to quickly move to stop them and protect the relatively pristine upper watershed. To do this, we need many eyes out there on the trails watching for invaders. It helps to know common northwest plants, but we will train you to identify the key invasives, so you don't need to be an expert to be a weed watcher.

To find out more about the Mid Fork Snoqualmie Invasive Weed Project, visit our website here and read past reports about what we have done. (We may also expand the project to selected Wilderness trails along the South Fork.)

To join our team, come to an orientation meeting and practice day of surveying on Sunday, June 14, 2009. We will meet at the Snoqualmie Ranger Station in North Bend at 9:00 a.m in the meeting room behind the main building. After a short meeting and weed ID workshop, we will head up the Middle Fork Road to get some hands on practice surveying for invasive weeds and pick our trails for summer surveys. We should be back to North Bend by 5:00 p.m. or earlier.

For more information or to sign up, please contact Mark Boyar (mboyar@q.com) or Sasha Shaw (sasha.shaw@kingcounty.gov or 206-263-6468).

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