| Day Hikes Day hikes are a safe, easy way to gain the skills you will need to stay safe in the wild--all while learning about the natural and social history of the area. You will learn about the 10 Essentials, map and compass, trip planning, risk management, and staying found. Your Guide will lend you a kit with some of the Ten Essentials, and you will hike +/- 7 miles while learning about Olympic National Park. |
Backpacking Backpacking sweeps the backpacker into the wild world of wilderness with all its grandeur and intensity. Backpackers can hike for almost as many days and almost as far as they want: for example, from Staircase in the southeast corner of the park to the Grand Valley in the northeast, from the Dosewallips in the east to Quinault in the west, or from Elwah in the north to Sol Duc in the west. |
| Leave No Trace (LNT) Trainings Leave No Trace is the national standard for outdoor recreation ethics from a conservation perspective. The Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics has established two main basic trainings in LNT: Awareness Workshops and Trainer Courses. Awareness Workshops last only a couple hours and offer little or no outdoor training. Trainer Courses are an intensive overnight experience with some backpacking. |
Scouting Guide and owner Jason Bausher is an Eagle Scout, Vigil Honor recipient, and is Wood Badge-trained. He can advise your troop about 50-miler hikes, the Leave No Trace Awareness Award, and merit badges such as Hiking, Backpacking, Camping, and Climbing. Jason can also serve as a liaison with the National Park Service to organize work parties or service projects in Olympic National Park. |
| Service Tourism on the Olympic Peninsula will only last if we work to conserve the resource by doing trailwork, raising money for political action, and by teaching wildness to the generation to whom we hand over the earth. |
Mountain Seminars Do the mountains, rivers, and glaciers of Olympic National Park merely form one big playground, or is wilderness essential to our Being as embodied Beings in the world? Jason Bausher works on questions such as this in his environmental philosophy, and he shares his research in mountain seminars. He received his master's degree in theology from Yale University and a second master's degree in philosophy from Fordham University. |
Jason Bausher, M.A., M.A.
Your guide, Jason Bausher, was raised in Aberdeen, Washington, among the timbered ridges and gothic spires of the Olympic Peninsula. He has traveled, hiked, or climbed in Israel, Poland, Germany, El Salvador, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Brazil, Norway, Washington State, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, California, Oregon, Alberta, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia. Among a variety of activities, four main areas of activity have prepared Jason to serve you effectively as an instructor and guide.
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING AND LEADERSHIP. Jason is serving the National Park Service as a backcountry and frontcountry ranger in Olympic National Park during the 2007 season. He will serve in the Wilderness Information Center (WIC) as he did in the 2004 and 2005 seasons. Jason was trained by the National Park service in Seasonal, District, and supplemental NPS Fundamentals trainings. He assisted hundreds of visitors in obtaining permits and finding appropriate backcountry trips into the Olympics. Jason led backcountry patrols from Staircase (southeast corner) to Obstruction Point (northeast corner), Shi Shi Beach to Rialto Beach, the Skyline Trail in Quinault, and Enchanted Valley. He also prepared a report on a proposed bear-wire at 12-mile camp in Quinault using guidelines for Minimum Use Requirements adopted from the 1964 Wilderness Use Act as an exercise in identifying appropriate administrative impacts on wilderness.
Jason was certified as a Top Rope Site Manager (TRSM) July 6, 2006, by the American Mountain Guides Association through written and practical skills examinations with Jon Tierney of Acadia Mountain Guides.
Jason is a member of Olympic Mountain Rescue (a chapter of the national Mountain Rescue Association). Jason has been trained by OMR in Helicopter Rescue, Rigging, Land Navigation, Rescue Dogs, and various other topics. Jason successfully completed the standard-setting Seminar course (70+ hours in-class and field) for rescue rigging given by Rescue for Rigging in British Columbia in May 2006. According to former R4R owner Kirk Mauthner: "It was an intensive instructor-level session lasting 7 full days and covered basic principles of ropes, knots, harnesses, belays (including the Tandem Prusik Belay with the Radium Release Hitch and the 540 Rescue Belay), rappelling and lowering with a brake-bar rack, ascending with Purcell Pruskiks, anchor points and anchor systems, command, communication, stretcher rigging, and patient tie-ins. Advanced topics included the physics of simple, compound & complex pulley systems, pulley efficiencies, 'low-stretch' rope rigging considerations, static and dynamic force calculations, safety factors, force vectors, and fall factors."
Jason was an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) certified by the Washington State Department of Health from 2007 to 2008 and an EMT-IV (IV Tech) in 2008. Jason was a volunteer firefighter with the Lake Quinault Fire Department, Grays Harbor District #4, from 2006 to 2008.
Jason has been trained as a Wilderness First Responder (72 hours + exam, the industry standard for first aid training) since 2002 and was recertified with the full 72-hour course by Wilderness Medical Associates at Thompson Island Outward Bound (Boston) in the latest standards and practices in April 2006.
Jason was certified by the National Rifle Association (NRA) to teach Basic Rifle classes and Home Firearms Safety classes in 2007.
Jason achieved American Avalanche Association Level III avalanche training for Professional Guides in 2002 after receiving A.A.I.R.E. Level I from Chauvin Guides with Jay Philbrick in New Hampshire and A.A.I.R.E. Level II from Pro Guiding Service with Martin Volken in Washington State.
Jason completed Alaska Mountaineering School's Mountain Guide's Course with American Mountain Guides Association Board Member Colby Coombs on the Kahiltna Glacier of Mount McKinley in 2002. Jason successfully finished the (1) 13-day Alpine Climbing Course in 2001 and (2) Intermediate Rock Climbing Course in 2003 (with Bob Hornbein, son of 1963 Everest West Ridge first-ascender Tom Hornbein) offered by Mountain Madness. Jason successfully completed American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA) Top Rope Site Manager training led by former AMGA board member Jon Tierney of Acadia Mountain Guides twice: May 2005 and May 2006 in Leavenworth, Washington.
Jason accomplished Leave No Trace Master Educator training from the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics with National Park Service Naturalist Paula Ogden in the North Cascades of Washington State in 2004.
Jason was an active Trip Leader for the Yale Mountaineering Club in 2002-2003.
TIME IN THE OLYMPIC MOUNTAINS.From the time he was a Boy Scout growing up on the Olympic Peninsula, Jason has explored the Olympics from every corner. Jason began backpacking on the Enchanted Valley hike from Graves Creek, and he began climbing on the peaks north of Lake Cushman in college. This time in the Olympics has not only produced a passionate love for these mountains, but also an intense desire to protect them by teaching others how to Leave No Trace.
BOY SCOUTS. Jason earned Eagle Scout rank in 1994. He has served as an Assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 5 of Aberdeen, WA, as Webelos Den Leader for Pack 593 of Aberdeen, as an Assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 728 in Manhattan, New York, and as a member of the Finance Committee in the Pioneer District of the Cascade Pacific Council in Oregon. He is an officially-certified Trained Boy Scout Leader and received his Wood Badge beads from the Greater New York Councils BSA in May 2006. He also received trainings for Climb On Safely, Trek Safely, and Health and Safety Awareness.
HIGHER EDUCATION. Jason earned a Master of Arts in theology from Yale University in 2002 and a Master of Arts in philosophy from Fordham University in 2006. He taught Political Science and History at Yale University in 2000 and 2001. Before Yale, Jason earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1998 with a double major in Political Science and Religious Studies with a minor in Philosophy. His academic interests are German Idealism, Phenomenology, Classical Modern Philosophy, Environmental Philosophy, and Critical Theory. Between December of 2004 and December of 2005, he gave the following papers:
- “Humanizing Nature and Naturalizing Humanity: the Practical Aesthetics of Wildness and Revolution,” [panel with Prof. James L. Marsh (Fordham) and Prof. Thomas Jeannot (Gonzaga)], Society for the Philosophical Study of Marxism, American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meeting, New York, Dec. 2005.
- “‘Greening' James L. Marsh's ‘Philosophy After Catonsville,'” American Catholic Philosophical Association Annual Meeting, South Bend, Indiana, November 2005.
- “Wilderness as an Empirical Condition for the Possibility of Knowledge: from Contingency to Necessity in Wilderness Preservation,” the Eighth World Wilderness Congress, Anchorage, Alaska, October 2005.
- “Maimon's Galileo to Kant's Copernicus: the Self-Moving Motion of Maimon's Skepticism,” the Tenth International Kant Congress, São Paulo, Brazil, September 2005.
- “In Vino Veritas: Validation of Drunken Debauchery or Valid Epistemology?,” Fordham University Mini-Conference Series, New York City, May 2005.
- “Maimon's Galileo to Kant's Copernicus: the Self-Moving Motion of Maimon's Skepticism,” Fourth Annual New School for Social Research Graduate Student Conference, New York City, April 2005.
- “Wilderness Advocacy from Aesthetic and Rational Grounds: from Contingency to Necessity in Wilderness Preservation,” George Wright Society Biennial Conference on Parks, Protected Areas, and Cultural Sites, Philadelphia, March 2005.
- “The Monastic Womb of Capital: from Religious Orders to the New World Order,” Fordham University Mini-Conference Series, New York City, February 2005.
- “From God as G-d to God as Capital: the Journey of Substance from Spinoza to Marx through Hegel,” North American Spinoza Society, American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts, December 2004.
Jason has been a member of the following professional organizations:
Scholarly Organizations:
- American Academy of Religion (since 1997)
- American Philosophical Association
- North American Spinoza Society
- Hegel Society of America
- North American Kant Society
- North American Fichte Society
- Phi Sigma Tau (National Honor Society in Philosophy)
- American Mountain Guides Association
- Olympic Mountain Rescue
- Boy Scouts of America
- Grays Harbor Chamber of Commerce
- Forks Chamber of Commerce
- National Eagle Scout Association
- Order of the Arrow
- The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks Lodge #593, Aberdeen
- The National Rifle Association
Jason earned his FINRA Series 7, Series 63, Series 24, and Series 53 securities licenses in 2009. He is a student in the University of Portland's Executive Certificate in Financial Planning program and is very interested in the public service aspects of fee-only financial advisory practices. His favorite authors are David Swensen, Rick Ferri, and William Bernstein.
Jason is working as a wilderness ranger for the National Park Service in the spring and summer of 2010.
Jason Bausher can be reached by email at jasonbausher@aya.yale.edu or by phone at (360) 581-3936.
