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Founded in 1985 as a volunteer organization to Maintain, Restore, Nurture, Protect, and Appreciate the natural values of its namesake, Mount Rainier National Park Associates (MRNPA) welcomes you to our home page! On this site you will find information on issues affecting one of America's grandest national parks and how you can get involved in preserving and protecting this natural treasure.
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With its lofty summit pushing up into the sky and its massive glaciers carving its flanks, Mount Rainier dominates the Pacific Northwest. Recognizing the scenic splendor of this magnificent mountain and the beauty of its high meadows and of the virgin forests that surrounded it, in 1899 Congress "dedicated and set it apart as a public park, to be known and designated as Mount Rainier National Park, for the benefit and enjoyment of the people." Mount Rainier thus became the nation's fourth national park.
The world has changed in many ways since 1899. No longer is Mount Rainier National Park an outpost requiring days of serious travel to reach. No longer are the Park boundaries surrounded by seemingly endless forests. Today's Mount Rainier National Park is an island of wilderness surrounded by an encroaching developed world; a park visited by more than a million people each year. Concerned about the present and the future of Mount Rainier National Park, a group of Mount Rainier devotees joined together in 1985 to form Mount Rainier National Park Associates (MRNPA), to foster preservation and protection of the Park’s natural state and to promote wise stewardship of its resources consistent with the original mandate that the Park exists for the benefit and enjoyment of the people. Today MRNPA continues to work toward those original goals. Mount Rainier National Park Associates continues to be a committed group of Mount Rainier devotees. We are a citizen’s organization, totally independent of the National Park Service, although we maintain excellent relations with the staff at Mount Rainier National Park. Because we are independent, we are free to comment on, agree with, disagree with, and even criticize actions and decisions made by the park managers. But we do more than stand on the sidelines and make comments. We have an active program of volunteering our labor doing trail construction and maintenance, meadow replanting, and exotic plant removal. If you share our passion for Mount Rainier National Park, concern for the Park's future, and a vision that Mount Rainier National Park should always be a wild and natural place for people to visit, we invite you to participate in one of our volunteer activities and to meet us and some of the members of our corps of volunteers. |
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Join us on the mountain!
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2023 Season Work Party Details
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2024 Season Work Party Details
A big thank you to all volunteers! Our 2024 volunteering season has come to a close.
Please check back early in 2025 for our next season volunteer opportunities! |
We look forward to seeing you on the trails!
Updated on 9/17/2024