Archive for Outdoor Recreation
Glacier Peak Wilderness Gains a Ridge
Start up the Suiattle River Trail and continue on past Sunnybrook Camp. Stay left at the next junction, and after climbing through some of the most spectacular hillside meadows in the North-Central Cascades, you’ll find yourself on Miner’s Ridge, between the old Miner’s Ridge Lookout (6,210-feet) and Image Lake (6,050 feet). That hasn’t changed in decades (the lookout was erected in 1938). What has changed is the status of the land.
After years of long battle, Miner’s Ridge is now officially part of the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area. The ridge was the scenic of bitter fighting in the late 1960s, when then-owner Kennecott Copper Corporation proposed ripping open the ridge top and dredging up scarce copper in its core. That open-pit mine proposal was opposed by many locals and the growing environmental community of Washington. Wilderness advocated, led by no less than U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, launched a protest hike up the Suiattle Trail in 1966 to bring attention to the mine plans.
Shortly after that, as public opposition to the mine grew, copper prices tanked and Kennecott conceded defeat in the face of costly legal battles and low resource values.
The land remained in the mine company’s hands, though, until the late 1980s when Chelan County PUD bought it from the mine company, with an eye toward using it as a planning tool. The PUD routinely flew helicopters to the ridge – which is surrounded by designated wilderness – to measure snow packs and estimate summer water flow rates into Lake Chelan. When the US Forest Service called a halt to those flights into wilderness, the PUD was stuck with a parcel that had now commercial or agency value — but a great deal of wilderness value. So began the long, slow process of exchanging that wilderness in-holding for another piece of USFS property that has more fiscal value and less recreational value.
That exchange recently took place – the PUD received a small parcel near other PUD property and an agreement that permits limited helicopter access into a remote snow-pack monitoring site nearby – and the Forest Service quickly completed the paperwork to roll the ridge into the wilderness designation.
A bitter, hard-fought battle followed by a slow concession of practicalities yielded the long-sought objective of Washington’s favorite son, William O. Douglas: Miner’s Ridge will never be mined. Rather it will be enjoyed in its pristine condition by generations to come as part of one of Washington’s wildest Wilderness Areas.
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- Glacier Peak Wilderness Area, Suiattle River area
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- Miners Ridge area
Gear Review: Fishpond’s duffel handles expedition gear with ease
(First published in Seattle Times NW Weekend March 18, 2010)
Spring in the Northwest can be great for outdoor adventures. Or it can be miserable — cold, wet and windy. In the event of the latter, you’ll want some bombproof bags to carry your gear to warmer, drier climes. Enter Fishpond.
Though designed by and for fly fishermen, Fishpond’s rolling duffel bags are ideal baggage for all outdoor enthusiasts. After my test team and I field tested a wide array of gear duffels for a national magazine, one bag stood out: the Fishpond Rodeo 31 Rolling Duffel. This cargo-carrier swallows all the gear you’ll need for a weeks-long backpacking adventure or a month of d
ay adventures overseas. We toted it to the French Alps, the Escalante region of southern Utah, and out across the Columbia highlands into the rural deserts of Eastern Washington. At 31-inches long, it is sized perfectly for checked baggage — big enough for all your essentials, without going over the size limits for checked luggage.
Currently, I’m hauling it around North Carolina, with a mixed load of paper for an EPA communications conference, and outdoor gear (used in the later afternoons/evenings so I can stay sane after spending all morning and early afternoon in government policy discussions).
The Rodeo features a spacious main compartment to hold clothes, gear and essentials. That big duffel sits atop a separate bottom compartment, accessed by a heavy-duty zipper around three sides of the bag. That bottom compartment is deep enough to hold ski boots, wet fishing waders and/or muddy hiking boots. Mesh sidewalls line the lower compartment so your wet gear can breathe and dry, rather than mildew and stink. During a trip to Escalante, I stored my full-size backpack, all my clothing and gear into the top, with my boots and tent in the lower. On the way home, the wet and muddy boots and tent traveled all the way home without leaching any moisture into my dry gear in the section above.
Top to bottom, the Rodeo features stout zippers with enormous teeth to ensure there is never a snag or busted tooth. A heavy 100-millimeter wheel assembly proved plenty tough enough for any obstacles we threw at it, from cobblestones in Chamonix to gritty sands in Utah. Stout handles at each end allow you to grab, drag and carry the bag a variety of ways.
The stylish and seemingly indestructible Rodeo 31 Rolling Duffel sells for $349 — not an insignificant sum, but this is a bag capable of serving you through a lifetime of adventures. See www.fishpondusa.com.
Gear Review: Stay dry during early hiking season
(First published in Seattle Times NW Weekend March 10, 2010)
It seems spring has arrived early in Western Washington this year, which means we’ll have a longer hiking season in the Cascades.
Folks who want to get an early jump on the hiking season need to be prepared for cold, wet conditions. Fortunately, a couple Northwest companies know how to deal with Northwest springs.
Seattle-based REI offers one of the best bets for staying warm and dry during the transition from winter to spring. The outfitter’s newly redesigned Taku series of outerwear delivers an ideal blend of weather protection, comfortable fit and breathability.
The Taku jacket and matching pant utilize both hard shell and soft-shell fabrics in a hybrid design. The use of REI’s proprietary Elements waterproof/breathable fabric in the shoulder yokes and arms blocks even the hardest rain and wet snowfall. Panels of four-way stretch soft-shell material through the underarms and sides of the jacket, and around the knees and hips of the pants, provide great breathability with excellent mobility.
We used the Taku jacket and pants while hiking through ankle-deep snow during a cold rainstorm along Gold Creek Valley near Snoqualmie Pass, and while trekking up the Quinault Trail in the Olympics during a drenching downpour. In both instances, we stayed warm and dry. We also scrambled through fog-shrouded rimrock above the Sun Lakes area of Central Washington and found the Taku gear not only flexed and moved with us during that rigorous activity, but also breathed well enough to prevent sweat buildup.
The Taku jacket, available in men’s and women’s sizes, sells for $209, while the pants — available in several lengths for men and women — sell for $159. More details: www.rei.com.
For more serious snow or cold conditions, Boise-based Core Concepts offers its Powder Play Bib for women. Though the bib is designed for snow, our testers found this a great option for cold, wet spring outings. Made from a four-way stretch soft-shell material, the bib provides great freedom of movement as well as weather protection. The bib section can be zipped off to leave just the high-waisted pants for moderate conditions. Our testers snowshoed around Paradise and scrambled Umtanum Canyon during a wet snowfall wearing these pants. The fit is slim and athletic, and both testers said the bib section is especially snug, making it difficult to wear insulating layers beneath. They suggest buying a size larger than you’d normally wear if you want to layer for colder, true-winter conditions. The bib runs $220 (though on sale recently for $199). See www.coreconceptsoutdoor.com.
Wild resources (fish, wildlife, recreation) under attack
Why do Washington’s politicians (of both parties) hate the Department of Fish and Wildlife?
Not all, fortunately, but enough to put our fish and wildlife resources in jeopardy.
First, the legislature slashed the WDFW budget by 30 percent last year. Everything from enforcement to salmon recovery suffered from that budget bashing. Then, this year, the legislature tried to completely dissolve the agency by “merging” it (along with the State Parks Department) into the Department of Natural Resources.
Putting recreation-focused interests under the management of an agency whose core responsibility is resource extraction makes no sense at all. Nor does it make sense to put fish and wildlife management in the hands of a single elected official who has no training in wildlife management issues. Preventing that type of mismanagement is exactly why the voters of Washington put substantial decision making responsibility in the hands of a Fish and Wildlife Commission representing all stakeholders.
Fortunately the public outcry over the proposed merger legislation (Senate Bill 6813) effectively killed the bill (at least the portion pertaining to the dissolution of WDFW). But now, those same bi-partisan legislators who were blocked from axing the department have turned their axes on to the department’s budget.
Last year, the general fund allocations to the department were slashed from $110 million to just $80 million. Now, the backers of the recently killed SB 6813 want to cut upwards of $10.8 million more from the already decimated WDFW budget. That means we’d see nearly 40 percent budget cuts for the department in the last biennium.
According to the Department, these additional cuts will jeopardize future salmon production with the closure of up to 5 hatcheries, impacting Grays Harbor, Coastal and Puget Sound fisheries. In addition, the number of enforcement officers will be reduced and staffing levels for important salmon recovery efforts will be lower. Many department facilities and public lands would be closed, popular lakes wouldn’t get stocked with trout, and youth education efforts would be reduced.
Bottom line: NO other state agency has seen cuts this deep, or this aggressive. The Senate cuts will cripple the Department’s ability to successfully manage our fish and wildlife resources and will have a long-term negative impact on all endangered species recovery efforts in our State.
If you care about public lands, wildlife and fisheries, now is the time to take action. Call, email or write your local state senator and/or representative and tell them you oppose these draconian cuts to our state’s wild resources.
Gear Review: Car-camping appliances for the 21st century
(First published in Seattle Times NW Weekend January 20, 2009)
Coleman’s new LED Quad lantern and Brunton’s Profile Duo range-grill combo add modern touches to camping gear.
The days of finicky pressurized stoves and smelly old kerosene lanterns hanging in canvas tents are gone. Car-campers today have new appliances for clean, carefree camp cooking and for pushing back the dark of night.
We’ve looked at many new stoves and lanterns while exploring Washington from Kalaloch to Colville. After multiple days and nights spent in the wildest parts of the state, we’ve identified two of the best new pieces of camp gear we’ve seen in a long time.
Let’s start with light. Lanterns still provide the most efficient source of light, and the best camp lantern today, like those of years gone by, comes from Coleman. But that’s where the similarities end. The Coleman LED Quad Lantern uses LEDs and batteries, not liquid fuels. The lantern throws out bright-white light that illuminates a wide camp, or fills a family tent without smoke or odors. The lantern uses 8 D-cell batteries but draws from them slowly, so you’ll get as much as 80 hours of light from that pack of batteries.
That’s impressive enough, but the real “wow” feature of the LED Quad is its modular design. When nature calls and one camper needs to wander off for some alone time, he or she can simply pop off one or more of the four LED panels to use as a portable light source. The remaining panels continue to work on the main base. The individual panels have built-in rechargeable batteries that draw from those 8 D-cells when connected to the base. Each panel will stay illuminated for up to 50 hours on its own, while throwing light a full 25 feet out in front of you.
For six weeks we used the lantern, venturing out 15 or more nights to camp, using the original eight batteries for every outing, and the lantern was still going strong. The LED Quad Lantern sells for $69.99. See www.coleman.com for more information.
When dinnertime rolled round, we found the new Brunton Profile Duo range-grill combo to be the best way to crank out a hot meal. The two-burner cooker splits the difference between a propane grill and stove. One side features a 12,000 BTU cooktop burner, and the other side is a 10,000 BTU grill. With that setup, we could grill up a couple steaks while sautéing mushrooms on the other side. By laying a large flat griddle on the grill side, we could turn out flapjacks while frying eggs on the other burner.
The flexible connector between the propane bottle and the stove made this an easier-to-use stove than other models that feature a rigid gas tube. The electronic ignitions and easy-to-clean stainless-steel design complete the features on this powerful cooker. List price: $137.95. See www.brunton.com.
Betting on Vonn
Lindsey’s back!
Today, Lindsey Vonn cranked out another win – the third World Cup downhill victory of the season for the Colorado native. She took top honors in the downhill event at Haus im Ennstal, Austria. The win today returned her to the top of the standings in the World Cup Overall Points Race. Vonn now stands 35 points ahead of her nearest competitor, Germany’s Maria Riesch. Riesch took third in today’s event.
With the win today, Vonn shook off the gremlins that have followed her since a nasty tumble last month. That training-run crash resulted in a severely bruised arm (bruised so bad she initially thought it was broken). The arm has been painful, she said, and seemingly slow to heal (though it’s only been a couple weeks — anything but an immediate return to top form is “slow” for this speedster athlete). Vonn has turned in a couple less-than-inspired finishes the last two races since the injury.Today, she said the arm didn’t bother her much. She only felt pain for the first few seconds of the race, then her competitive nature took over.
Vonn said of today’s race, “I really attacked today. It’s a great feeling. Everything is so smooth. I can’t be more happy with my downhill season so far.”
There’s a lot of skiing to do before the Olympic Games, but seeing Lindsey’s return to top form today leads me to believe she’ll join Picabo and the Mahre borthers as one of the all-time great American Olympic ski heroes. I’m hoping to catch up with Vonn early in February before the Vancouver Games begin – the current plans call for the US Team to gather at Mission Ridge for some last minute training before heading north of the border. Hopefully, she’ll add Olympic Gold to her growing list of titles and victories. Stay tuned…..
Holiday Gift for Washington Wilderness Enthusiasts
Thanks to a push from Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, legislation that expands Washington Alpine Lakes Wilderess Area moved one giant step closer to completion.
The Proposed legislation received Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approval and now awaits full Senate Confirmation. The legislation includes an Alpine Lakes Wilderness Additions as well as protections of the Pratt and Middle Fork Snoqualmie Rivers. The total package provides protection for 22,000 acres of wilderness adjoining the existing Alpine Lake Wilderness Area, as well as 10 miles of the Pratt River, nearly 30 miles of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River, and 14.3 miles of Illabot Creek – a tributary to the Skagit – as Wild and Scenic Rivers.
The bills was simultaneously submitted in the U.S. House by Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash. and Reichert gathered several co-sponsors for bi-partisan support of the bill. The Wilderness Area was designated in 1976 by President Ford. The Alpine Lakes Wilderness is one of the most heavily used wilderness areas in the United States since it can be accessed directly from Interstate 90, just a few minutes after leaving downtown Seattle. Several million people live within 30 minutes of the remarkable wilderness area.
Gear Review: Trail shoes to satisfy speed demons
(First published in Seattle Times NW Weekend November 26, 2009)
Our crew of gear reviewers pick two top trail-running shoes, from Vasque and The North Face.
There’s a growing segment of the trail community that has a need for speed.
For the record, I am not a trail runner, but in response to several reader requests for information on new trail shoes, I asked a few experienced runners to check out some of the latest shoes and see how they rate on Northwest trails.
After running countless miles in a variety of shoes, lead tester Betsy Rogers — a Seattle-based personal chef and marathon runner — said two shoes stood out for her and her running team: the Vasque Blur SL and the Fire Road shoe from The North Face.
Betsy noted that the Blur SL provides a deep, contoured heel cup and wide forefoot section. That means the shoes lock down the heel, eliminating slipping (which creates blisters), while providing room for your metatarsal bones to flex and move naturally during long runs.
Tester Matt Hagen, also of Seattle, said that the roomy toe box initially felt sloppy and too loose, but for long grueling runs that extra space would be appreciated since feet swell as the miles add up.
Matt pointed to the gusseted tongue as a key feature for a trail-running shoe, since it keeps pebbles and trail debris out of the shoe.
Underfoot, the Vasque shoe provided exceptional traction on most trail surfaces (rock, mud, organic duff) and Matt noted it offers good foot stability on uneven terrain. The Blur SLs sell for $100. See www.vasque.com.
The other favorite, especially among female testers, was The North Face’s Fire Road. This model is a bit narrower in the forefoot than the Vasque shoe, but with an equally secure heel box.
These lightweight shoes proved very secure both around the foot and on the trail. The outsole’s dual-density lugs (firmer lugs under the ball and arch for extra bite in the power zones) provided firm grip on downhill runs, regardless of trail surface.
Betsy said the lightweight uppers reduced drag and foot fatigue: “It was easy to forget I was wearing shoes at all, since there was no discomfort while trail running.”
The Fire Roads, $95, are ideal for runners with narrower forefeet, who enjoy fast and light runs on our Northwest trails. See www.thenorthface.com.
Christmas comes early for conservation program
In a move that would have made Tim Burton’s Jack Skellington proud, Congress gave conservationists a Christmas gift this Halloween!
After years of frighteningly low levels of funding, Congress gave an incredible gift this Oct. 30 to the Department of Interior – most notably, the National Parks Service and the vital Land & Water Conservation Fund – as well as the woefully underfunded US Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture. After decades of deteriorating funding levels, those agencies received a remarkable $4.6 billion funding increase for 2010.
The 16.8-percent increase cleared Congress on Oct. 30, passing both houses with wide majorities, and will help the USFS and Park Service address some maintanenace backlogs as well as launch some new intitiatives including research into how climate change will impact public lands. The funds also will help revitalize the the National Wildlife Refuge System and provide a boost to the Land & Water Conservation Fund, which helps promote outdoor recreation opportunities for our nation’s youth.
The Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009, which President Obama has already signed into law,provides that funding boost, and provides some specific recreational benefits. The Act protects thousands of miles of scenic, historic and recreational trails, and establishes an 807-mile Arizona National Scenic Trail running from the the Mexican border to Utah, through the state of Arizon.
Other specifics of the Omnibus Bill:
The bill also provides:
– $90 million for the Legacy Road and Trail Remediation Program to help protection and enhance recreational opportunities by decommissioning obsolete roads and maintaining trails on federal lands;
– $75 million for the National Landscape Conservation System, which protects some of the most spectacular scenery managed by the Bureau of Land Management;
– $306 million for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a program that promotes outdoor recreational opportunities and preserves wild spaces in all 50 states;
– $77 million for the Forest Legacy Programto help promote true multiple-use programs that conserve open space, wildlife habitat and clean water while allowing for sustainable timber harvesting.