We are accepting applicationsfor the summer of 2025: apply here. We already have more applicants for the trips that are 5 days or less; we still need volunteers willing to do 8 day trips.
Notifications on trip assignments will not go out until March.
Citizen Science
The Olympic marmot is an iconic endemic species. To make informed management decisions to protect the species the park needs range-wide population information. Enter the Volunteer Citizen Scientists, aka Marmoteers, who have been helping us survey marmot colonies annually to determine occupancy since 2010 with financial help from the Washington National Park Fund and their donors.
The idea is simple: Habitat patches are visited once or several times a year and the presence or absence of the species is recorded. Marmots, when present, are typically detected 90% of the time. Changes in the population over time are deduced from changes in the percent of patches that are occupied. Occupancy is not expected to be static – local populations may disappear, and vacant patches may be recolonized. However, if the population is stable, the proportion of patches that are occupied should remain roughly constant over time.
Who Can Be a Volunteer Marmot Monitor (a Marmoteer)?
Interested individuals will need to submit a group application to the park. Typically, the application period opens in mid-January and stays open through June 1. If all positions are filled before then, the application period may end early. The park will then review applications and fill positions based on applicant fit and survey area availability.
What Skills Are Required?
Be capable of traveling and camping in remote areas.
Be comfortable navigating off-trail on steep terrain with loose rocks.
Be able to backpack 5-20 miles (1-2 days) with substantial elevation gain to get to their survey area. Volunteers will usually work from a base camp, surveying areas up to 2-3 miles from that camp.
Have route-finding, bushwhacking, and bouldering skills.
Be available for 5-8 days in July or August.
Have at least one friend/ family member to go with you.
In the past, volunteers with moderate back-country experience and a strong “can-do” attitude have been successful.
For safety reasons, volunteers must travel and work in groups of at least two people. You must find your own partner. Up to 6 members of families or friends can travel and camp together, breaking into teams of 2 or 3 for the surveys. Children aged 13-17, accompanied by a responsible adult, can participate in the surveys. In fact, they make excellent volunteers! Younger children, if capable of hiking to the study areas, can participate if they are accompanied by two responsible adults or can remain in camp with a non-participatory adult.
A marmot peeks out from behind a rock at a Marmoteer.
What to Expect as a Marmot Monitor
Prior to Your Work Session As a Marmoteer
Volunteers will sign up for one of four sessions, each to start on a Wednesday in late summer. Volunteers can work 5 days or 8 days. Volunteers for the earlier sessions will be assigned their survey units by early June. Maps of survey units and other details can be provided to those volunteers at that time. Trip assignments may change due to unforeseen backcountry conditions (e.g. late snow-pack, fires). Volunteers for the latter two sessions will have tentative assignments, but final assignments may change up to 5 days prior to the start of their work period. This is because they may need to survey units that were not reached in the first two weeks or resurveying units where marmots were not detected in the initial surveys. Prior to arrival, volunteers should check with the park's Wilderness Information Centerfor the most current camping and trail conditions.
Transportation and Accommodations
Volunteers are responsible for their own transportation.
Camping fees will be waived at Heart-of-the-Hills and other front-country campsites the night following the training session.
All entrance and backcountry fees will be waived.
Training, Park Headquarters, Port Angeles, Washington
A Marmoteer's first day begins with training. Bring lunch, snacks, and day hiking gear. Below is a general schedule:
9:30-10:00 Check-in and Gear check-out
10:00-12:00 Classroom session on marmot ecology, recent Olympic marmot research, program goals, and field work specifics. Includes a safety briefing, use of GPS units, park radio use, navigating to survey units, conducting the surveys, and filling out data sheets.
12:00-2:00 Lunch on your own and drive self to Hurricane Hill (note that it can take more than an hour to get there from Port Angeles.
2:00-5:00 Meet at Hurricane Hill Trail Sign and then hike in to a field site to go over how to survey in the field and visit actual occupied and abandoned marmot colonies.
Field Days
Field days will consist of hiking, surveying, or both depending on your destination. Where possible, you will camp in or very close to survey units. However, in some cases, day hikes of up to three miles will be necessary to access the survey units. When possible, you should survey before 11 am or after 4 pm. In rain and heavy fog, marmots stay in their burrows and volunteers can stay in their tents.
For safety reasons, you should survey in pairs. You will travel off-trail and will traverse steep ground with loose rocks. Volunteers will be given a GPS unit with the survey units pre-loaded on it. Using the GPS, you will identify the boundaries of units then scan the area for marmots. If you don’t see any, you will walk systematically back and forth across the area looking for burrows or marmots. After using the GPS to record the locations of burrows and marmots, then you will complete a data sheet for each survey unit.
If you do not find marmots in a unit, you may return later in the day or the following day to confirm that you did not miss them. However, it is more important to survey all your assigned units one time than to resurvey unoccupied units. During the last two sessions, volunteers will be scheduled to resurvey to those units where marmots were not found.
Post-survey
After completing the field work, you will return field gear and data sheets to Port Angeles or to a ranger station near your exit point. Park staff will review your data sheets for completeness and contact you if they have any questions. You may be asked to fill out an evaluation form to help us improve communication, training, and field protocols.
Weather
Summer conditions in the Olympic high-country are highly variable. July and August are generally dry but wind, rain, and freezing conditions occur. Plan for rain and for cold evenings. At high elevations, sunburn is a concern. Biting insects and wasps are troublesome in many areas.
Equipment
Volunteers must provide their own personal equipment. We have put together a recommended personal equipment list but ultimately, you are responsible for determining what gear you need for 4-7 days in the backcountry and for supplying that gear.
Marmot Sighting Disclaimer
Volunteers will survey places that are known to have had marmots recently, areas where marmots used to live but were not found in recent surveys, and a few places where marmots are not known to have ever lived but where the habitat appears suitable. To monitor the population over time, it is important that we survey previously occupied and never occupied (to our knowledge) locations so that we can detect colonization as well as extinctions. We cannot guarantee that you will see marmots, but you will be surveying in one of the most beautiful places on earth!
