Sultan Basin road closed

[mvs]

We tried to go to Static Point today, but the gate on the Sultan Basin road about 13 miles in is locked, with a sign that the area is closed for public safety. On the way out, we saw a sign at the junction with highway 2 (only visible if you are travelling west) that said the area was "closed for winter". There was a phone number of the public utility comission, but I didn't write this down. This may save someone a drive?

--Michael S.

 

[Uncle_Tricky]

Betcha anything this is closed because of the events of September 11.

The government has made it clear that the nation's water supply is a vulnerable point for potential chemical/biological attacks. The Sultan basin watershed serves as a water supply for most of Snohomish county. You do the math.

The ripple effects caused by this event are truly mind-boggling, but I never imagined that climbing, which seems like such an escapist pursuit, would be affected.

~Uncle Tricky

[mattp]

Earlier this year, when they installed a new gate on that road, I telephoned the PUD to ask about it. The guy I talked to said they had no plans to close the area to recreation, but that they did want to be able to close it in the event of a terrorist threat. And so Tricky may well be right.

They guy I talked to sounded genuinely interested in the fact that climbers used the area, but for the most part the pattern there as elsewhere has been to close roads rather than to keep them open, and it is possible that the terrorist threat, even if a genuine concern, is just as much a motivation for closure as an excuse to serve the general goal of reducing access. In that area as elsewhere, they maintain select roads to facilities like official trailheads or boat ramps, but they have spent lots of money blocking other roads (including the spur that goes to Static Point) while doing little or nothing to restore any salmon habitat or to serve any other apparent management goal except, perhaps, to keep people from driving up there and dumping off old refridgerators. On that Static Point road, they left beheind several huge culverts that were ripped out of the ground and will be unusable if they ever want to reopen the road. In my eyes, these are just as much garbage as would be a dozen old refridgerators, though they do not contain any freon.

[Drederek]

Thanks for the info. Almost turned up that way on saturday but decided to save it for a day not a weekend. mvs are you the man from two worlds?

[mvs]

I am known by a dozen names in a dozen worlds. Though my presence is felt in this world, I am not of it. Rather, my considerable girth can be discerned in the Fata Morgana. Some call me "Mango."

Seriously, what do you mean "of two worlds?" Probably not me...

When they say the area is closed does that mean to foot traffic as well? What would happen to you if a heat sensor caught you biking the road?

Just wondering, --Michael

 

[Uncle_Tricky]

http://www.unitedstates.com/news/farticle/586975?20010924233604

[Drederek]

I read alot of sci-fi. I remember reading a book by Heinlein about a man from two worlds: Michael Valentine Smith. Among other abilities he could levitate.

[erik]

quote:

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Originally posted by Drederek:

I read alot of sci-fi. I remember reading a book by Heinlein about a man from two worlds: Michael Valentine Smith. Among other abilities he could levitate.

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"stanger in a strange land" about the only sci-fi book i have ever been able to get into.