Field reports: Ang Dorjee returns from 15th Mount Everest ascent

CLIMBING – Ang Dorjee Sherpa returned last week to his home, wife and children in Richland, Wash., after making his 15th ascent of Mount Everest on May 13.

Ang Dorjee helped guide three climbers in his team with the New Zealand-based Adventure Consultants.

Among mountaineers, Ang Dorjee is legendary for guiding numerous expeditions in his native Nepal, as well as in Pakistan, Europe and South America.

The most infamous was a 1996 expedition on Everest that was the basis for Jon Krakauer’s best-seller “Into Thin Air.”

Ang Dorjee makes the climb each year in part to visit his family on the way up and down.

He was born and raised in a small village in the Khumbu region of Nepal and followed his father’s career as a mountaineering guide.

Associated Press

FORESTS – Motorized Vehicle Use Maps are available for the Bonners Ferry, Priest Lake and Sandpoint Ranger Districts. They can be found at Idaho Panhandle National Forests offices, along with the Coeur d’Alene River District map, which was introduced in 2010.

The free maps display the roads and trails where motor vehicles are allowed.

Rich Landers

WDFW biologists explains zebra mussel threat

INVASIVES – Mike Wilkinson, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department’s aquatic invasive species biologist, will give a free program focusing on the threat of zebra mussels invading the region’s waters on Tuesday, 7 p.m. at the Inland Northwest Wildlife Council, 6116 N. Market St.

Mount Rainier superintendent transferring to Grand Canyon

NATIONAL PARKS – The superintendent of Mount Rainier National Park is leaving to become superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park.

Dave Uberuaga started at Mount Rainier in 1984 and has been superintendent since 2002, except for a year-long stint in 2009 as acting superintendent at Yosemite National Park.

Mount Rainier National Park covers 235,625 acres and has a staff of about 200 people. Grand Canyon National Park covers 1.2 million acres and has 500 staffers.

Associated Press

Montana officials target Yellowstone River bullfrogs

INVASIVES – State and federal officials are going all-out to eradicate non-native American bullfrogs from the Yellowstone River in Billings, Mont., to protect native species.

“They are a voracious predator,” said Jake Chaffin, a Bureau of Land Management fisheries biologist. “They’re really hard to get rid of, and they’re really hard on native species.”

Officials suspect bullfrogs found a foothold in Billings after pet frogs likely bought on the Internet were released. They are already established in Western Montana’s Bitterroot and Clark Fork rivers, and have been found around Bozeman, Kalispell and Great Falls.

Billings Gazette

Loons have hold in Montana

BIRDING – Biologists studying loons in Montana say they’re the grizzly bear of the bird world.

Gael Bissell with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks says the birds are long-lived and reproduce slowly, just like grizzlies.

Montana has had averaged 62 pairs of breeding loons, which have fledged 41 chicks each year in the past 10 years.

That’s about 10 times the number of pairs, and chicks produced, in Washington.

Staff and wire reports