If you have a 4th grader in the house do
you have your Every Kid in a Park pass?
The Every
Kid in a Park pass is a new White House initiative to get all 4th graders
and their families to experience places that are home to our country's natural
treasures, rich history and vibrant culture for FREE!! It provides free access to national parks,
national forests, national wildlife refuges and more! Our son was so excited when he got his he
came home and automatically started planning our summer's vacations with trips
to the Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Park.
But we don't have to go that far to get use out of it. We got the opportunity to use it right here
in Southern Oregon at the Mt. Ashland Every Kid in a Park Bioblitz Event.
This event was awesome and such a
blast! When we got there we met Chamise
the organizer of the whole event and we got together as a group to download the
app Inaturalist. Inaturalist is an app
that you take pictures of flowers, bugs, plants or whatever nature you may run
across and share it into an international database. Your findings go into a scientific data
repository to help scientists find and use YOUR data. So cool!
Our group of little botanists was the first to make such scientific
observations up on Mt. Ashland, making the event pretty special.
After we got the gist of what our plan was, we
headed out to start gathering pictures around the Mt. Ashland Lodge and head
out for a hike up to the top of the mountain.
Our kids had so much fun hiking around taking pictures of the beautiful
flowers and insects we found. It is
pretty amazing how much you beauty you notice when you start looking
closer. Along with U.S. State Parks - Rogue River-Siskiyou
there were representatives to help us along from Oregon Caves National Monumentand Preserve, Medford District Bureau of Land Management, Mt. Ashland Ski Area,
and though they couldn't send a representative Medford REI gave the 4th graders
goodie bags. In addition to the rangers we had botanists with us so that we
could get immediate identification from them if we wanted to.
It was such a beautiful day too, so the
views beyond the tiny world we were exploring were phenomenal. The hike up to the top was no easy feat, but
it wasn't too hard either. Our 4 year
old also accompanied us, taking her own pictures, contributing her point of
view to science. It got a little hairy
for her at the top, she started whining a little, but once we got to the top
she was happy to eat up her lunch and run around a little, enjoying the fact
that we felt like we were on top of the world!
The view made it all worth it because we got a 360 view of Southern
Oregon and Northern California, taking in Pilot Rock, Mt. Shasta and Mt.McLaughlin and views of the Rogue River - Siskiyou National Forest and Klamath
National Forest among other landmarks.
It was a pretty amazing adventure that we and our kids will surely add
to our mental memory boxes to treasure for life! 
If you have a current 4th grader going into
5th they can still get a pass to use through Aug 31st, 2016 and if you have a
third grader going into 4th grade they can get there's starting September 1st,
2016. Every Kid in a Park Pass.
To find Places to use your EKIP pass in Southern Oregon go to Every Kid in a Park - Plan Your Trip
The next event for EKiP pass holders will
be on August 10th at the Oregon Caves, where there will be free tours for EKiPpass holders and their families.
For more fun for kids check out our FREE For Families, Fun for Kids spotlight
pages and Community Event Calendar on
our website.
