North Cascades Access!

[dduncan]

For well over four decades climbers have benefited from a unique access to the very heart of the North Cascades and some of its most challenging summits. Not only have we benefited, but we have found particular pleasure in the boat journey up Lake Chelan to Stehekin and then catching the Park Service shuttle bus for the bumpy ride to up valley points like Bridge Creek, Park Creek, or Cottonwood Camp in search of summits such as Goode, Storm King, Logan, Buckner and others.

 

This access was restricted somewhat in 1995 when a washout closed the last couple of miles of road below Cottonwood. This made it a bit more work to get to a camping spot in Horseshoe Basin but it could still be done in a day. But this long enjoyed access came to an abrupt halt when the 500-year flood of 2003 washed out even more of the upper road and literally tore away sections of the road in the gorge above High Bridge.

 

Climbers and others waited patiently for three years of ‘study’ by the Park Service only to be shocked when, in August 2006, the Park Service announced the permanent closure of the road above Carwash Falls, not far above High Bridge! This action ended over 100 years of upper valley road access and ignored legally binding Right-of-Way agreements for the original road.

 

Climbers who are affected by this closure can hike in via Bridge Creek, Thunder Creek, Fisher Creek or Cascade Pass (it may take a day or so longer) but we can still get our summits. It is not so simple for the vast majority of others who come every year to hike, camp, fish or just enjoy the bus ride into such a scenic parkland. Most of these people are not able to take the extra day or two of backpacking it now requires to get up valley and many others are now simply denied access because of physical handicaps, advancing age or tender years.

 

The enabling language for the North Cascades National Park called for establishment of the park “In order to preserve for the benefit, use, and inspiration of present and future generations certain majestic mountain scenery, snow fields, glaciers, alpine meadows, and other unique natural features…”. It is hard to benefit, use or be inspired by what one can no longer see nor experience.

 

If you would like to help ‘present and future generations’ enjoy and be ‘inspired’ by this magnificent parkland and help preserve this unique Stehekin entry portal please contact me for further information or write your Senators and Congressmen. A wealth of information supporting the road reopening is now available from a just opened (May 14)website for Stehekin Heritage. Stehekin Heritage

 

Edited May 14, 2007 by dduncan

[Blake]

Right on Don! I know that Doc Hastings (the US Rep) as well as both Senators from WA, are the ones that should be contacted. They can propose legislation that moves the road/construction corridor away from the river to a non-flood elevation. This would result in no net loss of wilderness area, and would make the land along the Stehekin River "wilderness designated" while allowing the historic access from the East side.

[Rad]

I wrote a letter in the comment period for the 'evaluation' and was disappointed with the result as you are.

 

However, I disagree with this:

 

It is hard to benefit, use or be inspired by what one can no longer see nor experience.

 

You can see and experience them, just not by car. By your reasoning, the Pickets would not inspire us. Quite the opposite is true for those I know who have been there.

 

Blake, I like your idea. Unfortunately it also comes down to $. The park services is strapped for cash and a road along the lines you mention would cost millions of dollars. By all means write your legislators. I would enjoy a road there as it would allow my kids to access sooner rather than later. BTW, are you heading to Stehekin this summer as a baker or ranger?

 

Cheers,

Rad

 

[goatboy]

As I understand it, and please correct me if I am wrong, there was an original plan to build a road all the way to Cascade Pass (which is why the trail is sooooooo low angle and full of switchbacks) but the plan fell through...aren't we glad it did?

 

Does the loss of a few extra miles of road really constitute a bad thing for the habitat and wilderness area we're talking about?

 

I love easy access too, but don't need to see a new road go in there, or the old road replaced, honestly...

[dduncan]

There will never be a road into the Pickets, and I'm glad of that, but there has been a road into Cottonwood for over a hundred years. I am thinking of those who, (now and in the future) because of ability, age or handicap, are now deprived of what was once available to them.

[mike1]

There is no good reason to build a new road there.

Something smells fishy...

[dduncan]

A road that has been there for over a hundred years is not a 'new' road. If every road that is damaged by a meandering river were abandoned mikester would be doing a whole more walking and a whole lot less talking. And maybe too dumb to know the difference.

[mike1]

The road was most likely abandoned after a careful investigation of the cost/benefit of rebuilding and maintaining such a unique road. If you hadn't reduced this to a personal attack I would have respected your stand on this discussion. too bad...

[Blake]

No, the road was abandoned because it was built on a special right-of-way corridor through the wilderness area, that allowed people to bike and drive through that (100' wide?) corridor only. When the river changed its course and occupied all the width of that designated corridor, it became illegal to repair the road, because a repair would involved bikes and cars outside the historic right-of-way.

 

The proposal is to move this corridor away from the river in just a few flood-prone spots. This would allow th road to be used, and the riverbank area to be designated as wilderness. It would result in no change, or a net increase, in total wilderness area in the NCNP.

 

The road has been there for over a hundred years, and just a handful of cars, at most, used it each day. It's one-lane gravel, and not visible from any peaks around there. From 50 feet off into the forest on either side, you don't even notice it.

 

Having this access point actually would decrease the use of other West side trail heads along Hwy 20 and Cascade Pass.

 

Mikester, an exchange of differing viewpoints is healthy, but it sounds like you basically have no clue what is going on.

 

 

My analogy would be, what if the Cascade River flooded out the cascade River Road in a spot 10 miles before the trailhead. Would you then see "no good reason to build a new [sic] road there"?

[mike1]

Okay, I'll admit my post was abrupt and would have rephrased it had I known more about this. I apologize for heating things up here. I just hate to hear about more development of our wild lands.

[dduncan]

Very well stated, Blake. Your analogy is excellent.

[Fairweather]

You should understand that budget is the secondary reason for NCNP's decision re this road closure. The primary reason is that the management of this particular National Park unit happily does the bidding of environmental groups like the somewhat radical North Cascades Conservation Council and the late Harvey Manning. Just read Harvey's rantings in his 100Hikes in the North Cascades. This is also the place where local rangers are reported to be busy tossing summit register boxes down the sides of mountains and other personnel are busy slandering local climbers in a Bellingham newspaper. Their "wilderness for the fit and educated only" plan has been clearly spelled out for years. It is not a secret. And yes, the eventual closure of Cascade River Road is among their many goals.

 

http://www.northcascades.org/public_html/summer03.pdf

See pages 6 and 7.

 

Just stay home and watch TV. NCNP is a country club for a very select few.

[Blake]

I just hate to hear about more development of our wild lands.

 

In this case, it would be a road repair/reroute in small sections to maintain the access to a road which has been in place for over 100 years though. Sections of the upper Stehekin valley have had over 1000 people living there in the past, and vehicles were driven as far as Horseshoe Basin. Nothing close to this [historic] level of use has occurred for decades. This proposal is to restore road access to the 1990s level, which was extremely minimal, but permitted day hikes, out of Stehekin, to some of the amazing spots in the NCNP currently viewable only to the overnight hiker.

[tbunch]

I'm of two minds. As an elite mountain biggot, I love the concept of preserving pristine environments by closing roads and making it impractical to bring in a case of beer and a barbeque. No matter how much we retract the road network, there will always be something close to the end of it. Certainly it's appropriate to maintain "nice" areas with relative ease of access, but I put my meter pretty far in the "get out of my wilderness, you meddling kids!" camp. I think it was Lake Margaret that turned from a dust & broken glass bowl back into a fairly pristine area when they closed the road, wasn't it?

 

But as a softy and squishy ex-elite father of a toddler with no time and energy to spare on long approaches, I've been considering towing a large catapult to fling me to the high camp right from the parking lot.

 

In this particular case I think the historical legacy is extremely important but doesn't really trump the pandemic budget problems. I would put this on a list of projects to take on when, say, unusually low seasonal damages to various facilities results in a mythical faerie budget surplus, if you know what I mean.

 

[Rad]

Traffic volume is a non-issue as there are NO ROADS that connect Stehekin to the rest of the grid. You'd have to ship your car there by boat. The only vehicles that were going up there were hiker/visitor shuttles, run by the park service or contracted out, or Stehekin locals. Blake can tell you how many people live in the Stehekin valley, but I bet it's less than 200.

 

Just the other day a few folks and I were running off all the roads that are washed out and don't plan to re-open any time soon. The number is staggering, and many would see much more use than the upper Stehekin river road.

[Stefan]

A similar analogy can be made for climbers wanting to climb Denali. The price of flights for climbers into the Denali basecamp are kept low by tourists wanting flights around Denali. The "non-climbers" are helping the climbers.

 

Now let's say the road remains at its current state. What is going to happen? The road will not see as many people, nor will the other trails connecting off the road will see as many people. What will happen is loss of trails becuase of lack of access becuase the "non-climbers" are not using these trails. There are more "non-climbers" than climbers using the trails. And I can tell you that only trails where people use them are being maintained--this is a fact. You need the "non-climbers" to help you out for trails. It would be a shame to let go of all the efforts of those who created the trails to go to waste.

 

For example, I was up the Freezeout Creek drainage this past weekend. There are about 300 downed trees on that trail--probably has not been maintained in 15-20 years becuase of only the very first 300 yards of trail are wiped out. It is a shame to see the efforts for those that created the Freezeout trail go to waste.

 

Eliminating a road or a trail is like chopping bolts on established routes.

[mattp]

I understand the desire to cut off those long “cherry stem” roads that penetrate deep into the core wilderness that is the North Cascades. I think that expanding areas that are managed as wilderness areas is generally a good idea even though I don’t support all of the management priorities and practices that are associated with a formal Wilderness designation and I am not sure that I am in favor of the Wild Sky Wilderness designation - the first time I have had such misgivings in my life.

 

I think that Fairweather is probably right about the aggressive preservationist agenda of groups like the North Cascades Conservation Council. A large number of conservation people are really against virtually all recreational access and see even hiking trails as such a threat to the natural world that they would have them eliminated from large areas of the North Cascades. Many would eliminate virtually all human presence from large areas, and I remember at least one person or group urging that even backcountry skiing around Mazama should be banned from large areas because the presence of humans during the winter disturbed a species of mink or something - I find it very hard to believe that the small penetration associated with backcountry skiing in the NE cascades is really an issue.

 

It is true that the Cascade River Road and the Stehekin Road nearly bisect the park and I am sure this is a large reason why some groups might be against restoring the Stehekin Road. However, these are really the only two roads that penetrate the park, and one of them is one of two places where Joe Tourist can see the glaciated heart of the range from their car: Cascade Pass trailhead and Artist Point, at the Mount Baker ski area. I agree with those who say that the public must have access to our parks or they will not support them. The North Cascades may be the only park where I would say this, but I think that increased public access would be a good thing for the long term management of this park.

 

Given the vast amount of wilderness to the north and south of the Stehekin road, I don’t really think that it endangers the integrity of the whole. I agree with those who say that, were the road repaired or replaced, the increased or restored public access would not generate a lot of traffic. It would, however, afford a great experience for those who get to Stehekin and I think the fact that it has been there for 100 years speaks further for maintaining this road. On balance, I say keep it but in a long term management program dedicated to providing public access and recreation while maintaining the wilderness integrity of the Park (a 100 year plan), I could see how it might make sense to decommission this road and work to maintain roadway access elsewhere.

[Blake]

 

Just the other day a few folks and I were running off all the roads that are washed out and don't plan to re-open any time soon. The number is staggering, and many would see much more use than the upper Stehekin river road.

 

Good point Rad, but if it's a budget issue, many of the (formerly) more popular roads that have been damaged are not managed by the NPS, so I don't believe that there is really a direct competition of funds between the projects.

 

It's not as if Park Service repairs to the Stehekin Road would reduce funds for Forest Service repairs to roads near Glacier Peak.

[Jopa]

other personnel are busy slandering local climbers in a Bellingham newspaper.

 

Are they really busy slandering climbers? If they are busy doing anything its rescuing climbers, cleaning our trash off routes and high bivies, and doing trail work.

 

Just stay home and watch TV. NCNP is a country club for a very select few.

 

All National Parks are exclusive to those who can afford the free time, vehicle, gas, and fees to visit them. At least there aren't any fees (yet) to visit NCNP. The park also supports programs that provide transportation for urban youth to visit the park and backcountry where they assist in trail maintenance and get to experience the wilderness. For most of these kids it is their first time in the backcountry even though they have lived in Washington their whole lives.

 

I think the park personnel's activities extend well beyond the picture you paint.

 

 

Edited May 17, 2007 by Jopa

[mattp]

I gotta say I've been climbing in the North Cascades for thirty years and I don't sense any over-riding systemic hostility to climbing in the region on the part of the land managers. Yes, there have been districts and personnel here and there who really have been kind of hostile. And yes, I posted a thread on cc.com several years ago about how the rangers have often tended to lie or distort the danger or over-hype poor conditions in an attempt to discourage us. In general, my sense is that things are getting better in this regard as climbing has become less and less of a counterculture activity, and as logging and resource extraction are becoming less than the primary goal of land management.

 

I disagree with some of the management priorities and programs, but the good people working in the North Cascades National Park, Baker Snoqualmie National Forest, Okanogan National Forest, and Wenatchee too do a tremendous amount of work to maintain our recreational access and answer our phone calls or to rescue us when we get in trouble.

 

The newsletter excerpt that Fairweather linked above shows where conservation people want to take advantage of budget constraints to "win" a reduction in recreational access, and I think we'd do better to try to work for more money in the road and trail budget than to complain about a hostile management team.

[Fairweather]

Fair points, Matt. But the 'squeakiest wheels' these past 30 or so years have been organized environmental exclusionists who seem to have the only seat at the NCNP table. And now that one of their primary agitators has passed on, I believe an opportunity to return some sanity exists. Unless NCNP management hears from average pro-access, pro-recreation, pro-responsible use folks, and hears the undercurrent developing against their let nature take over strategy, roads and trails will be a thing of the past - and very soon. I don't know anyone who wants new roads in wilderness areas, but I truly believe that the vast majority of hikers and climbers want the status quo of, say, 1990, maintained in this regard.

[dduncan]

I don't know anyone who wants new roads in wilderness areas, but I truly believe that the vast majority of hikers and climbers want the status quo of, say, 1990, maintained in this regard.

 

Amen to your sentiments. And the good people of Stehekin feel the same way about it.

[mattp]

As a whole, I'd support maintaining most of the main trunk roads and many of the side-roads leading up to higher trailheads or off-trail access points, though perhaps not all of them. I sure wouldn't support maintaining every side road and spur that served all the clearcuts.

[Off_White]

I noticed the other day that the Park Service says you can't even use bicycles on the road past High Bridge, what's with that nonsense?

 

I think Fairweather's closing statement is an apt summary, I completely agree.

[tvashtarkatena]

NCNP strives to be more like Alaskan NPs; favoring wildness over convenient weekend access (which, after all, is what we're all talking about here). It's refreshing that the lower forty eight has at least one (and, unfortunately, only one) park that maintains pristine wildness as a priority. It's amazing that this jewel is in our back yard.

 

I think the road closure is appropriate, given the unique difference in the park's mission. Plan a little more time and put out more effort. Welcome to the 21st century.

 

As for trail maintenance, we'd do better and probably get further as a community to organize and lobby for permission to maintain the trails ourselves and gain mountain bike access for those long valley bottom trails and closed roads than to beg for more budget money or complain about closures. There is more than enough manpower in this community to do the job. Besides, if the past 10 years is any indication, a higher budget will only go towards fancier sign kiosks and not towards trail maintainance or improved access.

 

Finally, eliminating the use of stock would do more than any other one thing to reduce trail maintenance and environmental impact of human visitation.

 

 

Edited May 18, 2007 by tvashtarkatena