It all started with the chirping of a mountain critter. Ten years ago, Washington native John Soltys was hiking with his two young daughters in Mount Rainier National Park when they heard the eep eep of pikas, a small mammal beloved by climbers and hikers.
“They wanted to do nothing else but try to take pictures of the pika,” Soltys told GearJunkie.
A computer engineer with a long scientific background, Soltys wanted to encourage his children’s curiosity. So he did some research and discovered American Scientists, a nonprofit based in Bozeman, Mont. The group trains volunteers to gather data that supports ongoing scientific research projects. That included a project monitoring pikas, which are highly sensitive to heat.
By taking photos of the pikas they found on hikes, and then uploading them with detailed information, Soltys and his kids were helping researchers understand the potential impact of climate change on this vulnerable mountain species.
And Soltys’ family didn’t stop there. Over the last 10 years, they have worked on numerous projects with Adventure Scientists. They’ve also collected leaves from maple trees to prevent poaching and taken samples from National Wild and Scenic Rivers to measure water quality. The volunteer work has changed the trajectory of their lives — and they’re not the only ones.
Adventure Scientists has grown into a powerful engine of scientific research, with thousands of volunteers and paid researchers around the world. As government support of science dwindles and Americans seek new ways to better themselves — and the world around them — the group offers work with real impact.
15 Years of Research
When Gregg Treinish founded Adventure Scientists in 2011, he had a slightly different vision for what the nonprofit could accomplish.
Treinish was already an experienced outdoorsman who received National Geographic’s Adventurer of the Year in 2008 for an epic 7,800-mile crossing of the Andes. His initial thinking was that Adventure Scientists would connect outdoor athletes on major expeditions to scientists in need of field researchers.
And that approach did result in some early successes. In 2011, Treinish worked with climbing brothers Willie and Damien Benegas to collect a sample of the world’s highest known plant life, located at 22,300 feet on the slopes of Mount Everest. Since then, the fungus has been used by researchers to make crops more resilient to extreme weather.
“It’s one of the clearest examples right at the beginning of our work,” Treinish told GearJunkie.
But Treinish soon realized that Adventure Scientists could accomplish much more by enlisting the help of anyone who wanted to volunteer. In the years since, this growing nonprofit has built a successful program to train volunteers for specific research projects. It often recruits outdoorsy people who already hike, climb, trail run, or mountain bike. These volunteers may install recording devices in forests to study biodiversity, document endangered trees with GPS coordinates, or perform many other tasks.
They receive advanced equipment, online training sessions on how to use it, and access to professional scientists who can answer specific questions. At this point, Adventure Scientists has created a network of 10,000 trained volunteers.
“We frame all of the protocols. Sometimes we even have body cams to prove what they did or didn’t do,” Treinish said. “Now, a researcher can come to us with a research project, and help get it funded with us.”
Inspiring a Dedication to Science
For the Soltys family, their many years of volunteer work with Adventure Scientists ultimately changed the course of their future. As Soltys’ son and two daughters grew up, following him on science-based outdoor adventures, they saw the positive impacts of their work.
“Other people would look at the data and say, ‘This is research quality.’ It made us feel like, we’re scientists, we’re gathering real data,” Soltys said. “That data ended up published, so now we sort of claim we’re published scientists.”
Treinish said that part of Adventure Scientists’ success stems from ensuring that the data gathered by volunteers meets high standards. Soltys can testify to that. When he and his kids go to measure water quality in a river, they upload their findings through an app. When certain pieces of data look “off” to American Scientists’ supervisors, they ask volunteers like Soltys to double-check the results, or even return to the river and take measurements a second or third time.
“We also get high-end equipment to do this,” Soltys said. “That’s how much value they put in it.”
The scope and rigor of this work inspired Soltys’ children to pursue a life of science and adventure, he said. His oldest daughter has already finished a degree in environmental science from the University of Washington, with a focus on plant biology. His youngest is a freshman in college — also studying environmental science — and his middle child learned Spanish and plans to travel the world.
Soltys himself made sure that science and exploration were a part of his family’s life — but Adventure Scientists helped give that mission a shape: “They helped give direction to our family,” Soltys said.
Many Ways to Volunteer
Even now —with Soltys’ kids mostly out of the house and off to college — he continues to volunteer with Adventure Scientists, often with the family dog following closely behind.
“Originally, it was a thing I could do with the kids. Then the kids grew up. But I still go out. I got my first pika pic of the season just recently at Snoqualmie Pass,” he said. “It feels good to be in this technical world where I’m hands-on with science — even if I’m just collecting scat on the trail.”
Adventure Scientists has completed many research projects over the years. In some cases, they’ve even started paying workers abroad to accomplish more distant projects. Those include studies on the impact of climate change on coral reefs in Latin America and mangrove forests in Indonesia. But there is also a breadth of programs currently available for aspiring volunteers.
They’re currently seeking volunteers for the following projects:
- Northwest Forest Biodiversity: Forests in the Pacific Northwest face rising pressure from wildfires and habitat loss. The vastness of the forests makes it difficult to monitor their biodiversity and threatened wildlife activity using traditional methods. So the U.S. Forest Service’s PNW Bioacoustics Lab is partnering with Adventure Scientists in what it calls a “passive acoustic monitoring project.” It analyzes audio from recording devices placed in national forests to
- Tracking Whitebark Pine: As wildfires, beetles, and other climate changes impact forests, it’s critical to understand where whitebark pine trees — an important alpine species — are still thriving. Adventure Scientists and the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation are building a database of the trees to provide agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and researchers with data from forests in Oregon and Washington.
- Save Butternut Trees: A lethal disease is causing butternut trees to disappear from eastern forests. That’s why the Morton Arboretum and Purdue University’s Department of Forestry and Natural Resources have partnered with Adventure Scientists to “locate remaining butternut trees, assess their health, and collect leaf samples from trees that may hold disease-resistant genetics.” This opportunity is available in many Eastern states.
- Save American Beech: Healthy specimens of this common tree are becoming rarer, as a result of fast-spreading beech bark disease and beech leaf disease. In a partnership with the University of Connecticut, Adventure Scientists seeks volunteers to find healthy beech trees. This opportunity is also available in many Eastern states.
- Coral Reef Monitoring: Divers in Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Colombia can help in this multiyear initiative to fill “critical gaps in coral reef knowledge.”
- Searching for Killer Whales: In a collaboration with Oregon Shores, an Oregon nonprofit, volunteers will collect data for NOAA’s Killer Whale Recovery Plan and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Endangered Species Management Plan.
Visit the Adventure Scientists website to learn more about how to volunteer.
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