Marmot Lake WTA Trail Work. 9/23 - 9/30

[Dave_Schuldt]

We were supposed to go to Fortune Ponds but packer problems forced a change of location to the same place I was last year, kind of bummed but I wasn’t going to bail.

About 1/2 mile from the end of the Cle Elum River Road a hunter flagged us down and asked if we had any jumper cables, while we were giving him a jump I asked him about the 4 horses tied up nearby. They laughed and said that the horses ran through camp in the middle of the night. As we were getting ready to hike some dude comes staggering out asking with a slurred voice if we’d seen any horses. We told him where they were and he thanked us. On the way in he and one other dude passed us with beer in hand. As they rode by some of our party snacking one of them made some comment about us being granola heads. I was the first one to camp about a mile west of Deception Pass and was happy to see all of our gear in the right place and the Forest Service had put in a toilet. While we were setting up 2 horses came wandering in. They hung out by the lake so one of our guys got hold of them and we lead them back to the trail, just then 2 riders showed up asking us if we’d seen any horses. Not sure where they were camped but it seemed like it wasn’t close by.

Our party had 7 folks ranging in age from 38 to 64. We had all done trail work before so the next day we skipped the tool talk and headed off toward Marmot Lake to find work. Most of the trail runs along a steep slope and has slipped down hill. We dug along the uphill side and removed rocks and stumps that were forcing people to walk on the downhill side. Also improved fords, trimmed some brush and cleaned and improved drains.

Wednesday was our day off so we hiked up to Jade Lake. What a place! The colors were amazing, my pictures don’t show how bright it was. On the way back to camp we had a nice swim in Marmot Lake. The weather was great, frost a few nights and warm and sunny days.

We finished up early on Friday, as we were relaxing around camp a hiker stops by with what looked like a 5th on Jim Beam strapped to the side of his pack. He had come in via Tonga Ridge and was going to Marmot Lake and back out the same day. A nice long day hike but not sure why the booze.

A great trip but next year I wont sign up for one so late in the season. The cold nights put a cramp in the after dinner anti Bush BS sessions. We wandered off to our tents about 8, reading sucked ‘cause I had a lame chair and glossy paper is hard to read with a head lamp. No tools were broken and no one was hurt. Didn’t seep well so I was very tired Saturday night. Also kind of stiff, it will take lots of stretching to get back to normal. The Forest Service continues to cut back on trail work so if you want decent trails check out wta.org.

 

Check back for pics.

[Dave_Schuldt]

 

 

 

 

 

 

[catbirdseat]

It's pretty ungrateful that while you are maintaining the trails they use and rounding up their horses, the packers are dissing you all the while.

 

Sounds like you had a great time.

[wolffie]

One reason USFS isn't getting enough money for trails is because Amerikans are staying home playing video games and such crap instead.

 

It's time to support a movement to repeal the Forest Pass system because it discourages newbies from hiking and using our public lands, and it is the newbies and their kids who are going to become the next generation of stewards. I suspect that this was part of the hidden agenda behind the "user fees" idea. Just the sort of thing Rove & Norquist would think of.

 

Think of people toying with the idea of hiking for the first time:

"...yeah, it would be nice to try taking the kids hiking, but don't you have to pay or get a pass or something? I don't know where to get one, such a hassle, why bother..."

 

The Amerikan Right is very strategic in their actions. For example, "Tort Reform" is not just to cap high jury awards for the convenience of corporations so they can predict such damages and budget them as a business expense (they can figure how many workers and consumers they're going to kill or hurt); it also destroys the Trial Lawyers (one of the Democratic Party's highest contributors) who would no longer be able to take on tort cases, this defunds the Left, and destroys the judiciary (which they don't own yet) as a means of enforcing the law. It removes one of the last public defenses against corporate power.

 

Similarly, adding barriers that discourage Americans from exploring public lands and discovering wilderness is a way of throttling environmentalism, in addition to stamping out the subversive communist notion that governement can be used to promote the general welfare, as suggested in that quaint, old-fashioned document, the Constitution.

[Mark_L]

Hey Dave,

 

When are you going to learn how to size your pictures? 640x480 is plenty big enough. Set the compression to 75% too. You need to get the file sizes down below 50k for us dial uppers if you want us to bother to read your posts.

 

Mark

[MisterMo]

Howzat? Jade Lake pic for example is shows 800x600 at 23K file size. Hardly gigantic. Page loads fairly quick here on dial up not much better than a tin can and a string.

 

Sometimes the whole site just crawls...text, pictures and all. I've never understood if that's my end or theirs.

 

Nice photos by the way. The Jade/No Name area is very cool.

[Mark_L]

Howzat? Jade Lake pic for example is shows 800x600 at 23K file size. Hardly gigantic.

 

I don't know where you saw the 28k file size, maybe on one of those HC emoticons. The Jade Lake picture, (just like all of the others) is more like 284K. (right click on the picture and select "properties") With 7 pictures it takes a while on dial up. The FAQs for this bulletin board say:

Note: To keep the forums loading quickly for everyone, it is recommended that you do not exceed 35k for your image size.

 

It is possible to display a 800x600 image that is less than 100k if you boost the compression a little. You won't even notice any degradation in picture quality when you view it on a monitor. You can always provide links to print quality versions of the pictures.

 

Mark

[MisterMo]

With that nagging sensation that I'd maybe publicly been an idiot (again) looming over me I right clicked on the Jade Lake pic (again) and selected properties (again), just as I'd done when I'd posted originally

 

It says Size: 23514 bytes. That's 23K more or less, right? 1024 bytes = 1KB?

 

So then I look in the gallery. The info beneath the same pic there says 284.2K, right at your number.

 

I can't account for the difference in numbers.

[Dave_Schuldt]

GEEKS!