Dear Volunteers, Have you been looking for a reason to hike to the peaks over 6000' in elevation? Please see Park GIS Specialist, Tom Colson's request for help below. If you are interested, please let me know and I'll connect you directly with Tom. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is seeking volunteers to hike to 23 of the peaks in the park that are over 6000' high. The purpose of this assignment is to certify the elevations of these peaks with GPS. Volunteers will be provided training on the operation of the GPS. The GPS equipment is not particularly heavy (less than 30 lbs), but is bulky and difficult to pack in, as it does not fit in a backpack. It consists of a GPS antenna the size of a book, and several poles and light-weight tripods. Volunteers should be able to visually determine the highest point on the ground surface at each peak, set up the tripod, take a digital photograph of the tripod and surroundings, and remain with the equipment for 4-5 hours while it logs the GPS data. Volunteers must also be able to improvise securing the tripod with rocks or logs in windy conditions. Some peaks may have to be surveyed more than once, depending on the quality of the GPS data at survey time. Certified GPS data is accurate to within 4 cm and will become part of the official park record, posted on the park website, of the elevation of points of interest. If interest in this assignment is great, other projects require using these GPS equipment to provided certified, control elevations of other points in the park to support several park missions. ******************************************** Dana Soehn Volunteer Coordinator Great Smoky Mountains National Park 107 Park Headquarters Road Gatlinburg, TN 37738 865-436-1265 865-436-1244 (fax) email: Dana_Soehn at nps.gov