"The first thing students do after unpacking their bags as the learning center is to take a stroll over to the top of massive Diablo Dam, where a shaky-kneed glance over the side is all it takes to be impressed by the immensity the canyon in which they stand - and the similar scale of what man has wrought here.
"We want to teach them about their role as human animals/ how they affect ecosystems," says Chris Kiser, the Mountain School's program coordinator.
"Some of that ethic can be traced to the group's roots: Among the early cheerleaders of NCI were members of the North Cascades Conservation Council, the prime pushers for establishment of North Cascades National Park in 1968. These were not fringe, lawsuit-happy environmentalists. They were old-school, Northwest greenies who supported the Harvey Manning/Mountaineers notion that wild. public lands are best saved by getting people into them -- preferably by a means no more complicated than a Vibram sole, mind you. the idea was to build multi-generational-constitutencies to protect them.
"This legacy has, in many ways, been passed to NCI where it shines brightly from its Diablo Lake treed cathedral."
"We want to teach them about their role as human animals/ how they affect ecosystems," says Chris Kiser, the Mountain School's program coordinator.
"Some of that ethic can be traced to the group's roots: Among the early cheerleaders of NCI were members of the North Cascades Conservation Council, the prime pushers for establishment of North Cascades National Park in 1968. These were not fringe, lawsuit-happy environmentalists. They were old-school, Northwest greenies who supported the Harvey Manning/Mountaineers notion that wild. public lands are best saved by getting people into them -- preferably by a means no more complicated than a Vibram sole, mind you. the idea was to build multi-generational-constitutencies to protect them.
"This legacy has, in many ways, been passed to NCI where it shines brightly from its Diablo Lake treed cathedral."
