Dylan Jones is an American Alpine Club Member and avid climber who decided to add some science to his climbing trip over the summer by teaming up with Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation.  Jones searched for the American pika through out his trip and found the daily search added a little more meaning to his trip.  Read his account here. 

In an age where awareness of climate change exists but little is understood, I had always accepted the science behind the debate. What I lacked was an answer to one basic question: What can I do about it? Gearing up and heading into the wilderness wasn’t healing the ecosystems I frequent, and escaping those around me for solitude certainly wasn’t raising
awareness. I needed a way to contribute something, anything, to the worthy and noble cause of understanding climate change to fight ecosystem degradation. Fortunately, advocacy exists in the form of passionate grassroots organizations who are mobilizing people like me to transform recreational travel into purposeful volunteer work.  

The deafening rivers and babbling brooks that make life possible have no voice of their own. The mountains whose defenses we try to exploit to gain their summits cannot fight for themselves. The planet’s animal and insect populations who vastly outnumber us stand no chance unless we make an effort to understand them. This is where Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation plays into the equation. Standing at the forefront of citizen science, ASC connects hikers, climbers and paddlers with scientists hungry for data in the places these athletes love to play. Often lacking the technical outdoor skills, funding or time to reach the remote areas they are attempting to study, these scientists greatly need us to assist them, just as we need them to help protect the areas we treasure.

As a traveling rock climber road tripping to America’s greatest climbing destinations, our ropes don’t often take us to areas where relevant data for ASC studies can be collected. Classic crags are developed, crowded, and show endless signs of wear and tear from homo erectus. Environmentally-sensitive areas and species are often off limits to the climbing community, and for good reason. When we hopped on board for the ASC Pika Project, we had expected to spot plenty of the sensitive little mammals in the many mountain ranges on our trip itinerary. My climbing partner and I left our home in West Virginia on June 1st, and, until recently, had been disappointed with our lack of data contribution. It was during a brief backpacking foray into the backcountry of Glacier National Park that we finally found, observed and recorded data to send into the office in Bozeman.