NCNP - Stehekin road

[Blake]

Right now the Stehekin road runs 12 miles, ending just past the Agnes Creek trailhead, and 3 miles short of bridge creek, 5 miles short of Park creek, and 11 miles short of Cottonwood camp (where it had always ended.) A decision is being made about what to do with it. Make your voice heard.

-Blake

 

Stehekin group wants to keep road into National Park open to vehicles

 

By K.C. Mehaffey, World staff writer

 

STEHEKIN — A National Park Service proposal to turn the washed-out upper Stehekin Valley Road into a trail for hikers and horseback riders has met with opposition from some Stehekin residents.

 

Stehekin Heritage members say none of the four alternatives presented by the Park Service are viable. They claim the preferred option — which closes the road to vehicles — would discourage visitors and residents from enjoying a large area of the North Cascades National Park.

 

In March, the Park Service released four options for the upper 11 miles of the road, including eight miles damaged when the Stehekin River flooded in October 2003, and the last three miles of road that has been closed since a 1995 flood.

 

The options include:

 

• Doing nothing

 

• Closing the road to vehicles

 

• Reconstructing most of the road

 

• Rerouting the road and asking Congress to change the boundaries of the Stephen Mather Wilderness Area.

 

The Park Service fixed part of the 23-mile road last year, making the lower 12 miles accessible to vehicles.

 

Comments on the proposal to close the upper part of the road permanently and turn it into a trail will be accepted until May 27.

 

In a news release Monday, Stehekin Heritage said it’s asking the Park Service to include a new alternative that would rebuild a road inside the non-wilderness area strip, slightly outside the flood plain so that expensive riprap along the Stehekin River wouldn’t be necessary.

 

Contractors believe the rebuild would cost between $600,000 and $1.5 million, instead of the $6.6 million estimated cost for rebuilding the road and riprapping the river, the news release stated.

 

Heritage spokeswoman Roberta Pitts said in an e-mail that about half of Stehekin’s 85 permanent residents align themselves with her group’s goals.

 

She said her group worries that the road can no longer be used to take hikers and sightseers into the backcountry.

 

“Many of the most scenic hiking areas of the valley are now cut off to the day hikers. Fishermen are also a group that enjoyed using Bridge Creek for a day-use fishing trip,” she wrote.

 

Cliff Courtney, president of Stehekin Heritage and operator of a shuttle service part-way up the Stehekin Valley Road, wrote that residents already fought this battle with the Park Service before it adopted its new management plan in 1988, when it agreed that the entire road would be maintained.

 

“Without the road the crown jewels of the area like Horseshoe Basin and Cascade Pass become inaccessible to all but the ardent backpacker and the mobility impaired have little chance to see the actual Park at all,” Courtney wrote.

 

Tim Manns, spokesman for the National Park Service, said the Park Service operated a shuttle bus on the upper road for about 20 years each summer. It ended the service after the 2003 flood, he said, and the future of that service depends on what happens to the road.

 

The vans carried about 2,500 passengers a year one-way on the upper road, he said.

 

Manns said that only a narrow strip of land — 50 feet on either side of the centerline of the previous road — is currently located outside the wilderness area. He said he’s not sure it’s possible to move the road outside the 100-year floodplain, yet stay within the non-wilderness strip.

 

“We do want public input, and if someone has a good idea, that’s the purpose of the public comment period,” he said.

 

He said the Park Service is proposing to close the road to vehicles as the most environmentally sound option, but will consider comments before making a final determination.

 

————————————

 

To comment

 

Information about the proposal is at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/

 

noca.

 

Comment forms are available on the Web site, and can be mailed to Superintendent, North Cascades NPS Complex, Sedro-Woolley, WA 98284; faxed to (360) 856-1934 or sent by e-mail to NOCA_Superintendent@nps.gov. Comments are due by May 27.

[Rad]

Thanks Blake. I sent an email supporting rebuilding the road. We're off to Stehekin in a few weeks.

Will you be at the bakery there this summer? yummm....

Hope you enjoy the remainder of your time in NZ.

Rad

[Blake]

I'll be working somewhere up there again. I'll prob be there from late-june through late-sept. Send an email or message if anyone wants to go for a climb (even just around town) I have lots of ideas.

[mythosgrl]

Sounds pretty sweet! Can i climb with you? Are they wild ideas?

[Rad]

 

Comment period over.