Ebey's Landing Turns 30 When President Carter signed into law the bill establishing Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve on Washington's Whidbey Island in 1978, he did more than just create a new unit of the National Park Service (NPS); he created a new type of park. Ebey’s Landing differs from other park units in that most of the lands within it remain in private ownership and it’s managed through partnerships and overseen by a Trust consisting of representatives from the NPS, state, county, and local governments as well as residents from the area. While the NPS does own several parcels within the Reserve as does Washington State Parks and the Nature Conservancy, the brunt of the land remains privately owned. On many of these lands the NPS purchases development rights assuring that they maintain their historic and scenic integrity. And many of these parcels, 5,500 acres of the Reserve’s 17,400 acres are still being used for agriculture, as they have been since pioneers settled them over 150 years ago. Similar to many European National Parks, this model should be expanded here in America to other areas of historic-cultural-natural significance where buying property outright (and taking it out of historic use and off the tax rolls) makes little sense. Other areas in Washington worth exploring for this type of reserve are the Snoqualmie and Lower Columbia River Valleys. In New England, Congress has established several National Historic Corridors, similar in concept and also worth looking into.

If you're interested in protecting Ebey's Landing and in this kind of preservation you can register for the upcoming Ebey's Forever Conference on November 7 and 8. It'll feature hands on farming and historic preservation workshops, walking tours, keynote speakers, homegrown and homemade foods and goods, music, and more. And if you're interested in hiking at Ebey's Landing and other great Whidbey Island destinations be sure to order my upcoming guidebook, Day Hiking Central Cascades (Mountaineers Books spring 2009).

Autumn's Last Hurrah in the CascadesHikers and lovers of the outdoors were just given an early Christmas present of four beautiful warm sunny days in the Pacific Northwest. Got to love those high pressure systems! With the family in town from back east we headed to Heather Meadows near Mount Baker to enjoy a wonderful hike on the Chain Lakes Trail. Shuksan and Baker shone like majestic giant bookends on this hike. A light blanket of snow graced shaded north slopes. Sun-kissed southern slopes refracted comforting warmth. Waters rippled in the half dozen lakes gracing the area and protected coves reflected stunning alpine scenery. If you haven't hiked the Heather Meadows region yet, you'll probably have to wait now until next July. Unless-of course you snowshoe or ski- in which case,that season should just be starting to rev up later this week.

Washington's Next Wilderness? The Colville National Forest is currently holding public commenting periods to help the agency evaluate Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs) within the Forest for their potential recommendation as wilderness. Evaluation of IRAs for potential wilderness recommendation is a required step in the forest plan revision process. And if conservationists would like to see areas such as the Kettle River Range, Abercrombie-Hooknose, and Salmo-Priest Country protected as wilderness they just may want to attend one of these workshops. I have long supported wilderness additions in northeastern Washington. Currently only 3% of the Colville, a paltry sum, is protected as wilderness. Conservation Northwest has long supported wilderness protection in this important biologically and scenic area of the Evergreen State. Contact Conservation NW on how you can help persuade elected officials make an Eastern Washington Wilderness Act become a reality. Read my book Columbia Highlands to find out more about this relatively unknown area. Visit the region and take to one of its many fine and lightly traveled trails. Consider attending the upcoming commenting session in Republic on November 1st. Get involved and help protect the last wild lands in Washington east of the Cascade Crest.

(Alan Bauer hikes the Kettle Crest trail October 2008)

Mountain Biking in the National Parks? Apparently President George W. Bush has prompted a plan to open up our national parks to mountain biking. Now before the typical knee-jerk responses start coming in from various users groups, lets analyze this proposal.

Most of the National Parks policies were developed well before mountain bikes and the idea of them came into play.

The activity is generally low-impact and certainly is a healthy pursuit

It has an appeal to groups of people that can become potential activists for our public lands if they are included into the dialogue

Old roads and roads converted to trails in our national parks would in most cases make excellent mountain biking routes

This has already been proven in the Olympic National Park with the Spruce Railroad trail and Mount Rainer National Park with the West Side Road

And of course many trails and environmentally sensitive areas where hiker only or hiker/horse only trails currently traverse should indeed be kept off of the mountain biking route potential

The Wilderness act which bars motorized and wheeled equipment (ie. Mountain bikes) will keep these areas mountain bike free. So there is no need to fret thinking that our parks are about to become mountain biking havens. Olympic, North Cascades and Mount Rainier National Parks all currently have nearly 95% of their acreage in wilderness protection. These areas will not be open to mountain bikes. The law guarantees it and it can not be overridden by presidential or administrative decree. It can only be overturned by Congress, and since the Wilderness Act's inception in 1964, this has never occurred.

So how about the other 5% of these parks' land masses? Sure, let's look at it and if park managers (who will be responsible for implementing the new policy) and after public input has been taken- deem that a certain trail would make a nice mountain bike route-then so be it.

Now, me? I mountain bike-but primarily on old roads and logging roads. I prefer to hike on trails and I generally don't want to see many of our trails opened to bikes. I find that mountain bikers (in general-not all of them) are more into speed, challenge and the sport than being connected to the outdoors and being environmentally attuned. Of course this can be said for some hikers too and climbers. But, still I enjoy the sport-and when done responsibly it can be compatible with our parks and forests.

So, with that said- I look forward to say,mountain biking on the old Stehekin River Road in the Lake Chelan National Recreation Area (currently closed to them) but will still leave by bike behind once I get onto real trail.

Snowy Lakes?

They are now!

Two weeks ago I set off for the Snowy Lakes north of Cutthroat Pass on the Pacific Crest Trail to research them for my upcoming Backpacking Washington Book. Talk about a beautiful destination- and the journey too along the Cascade Crest in the shadows of pyramidal Tower Mountain and the Golden Horn. The weather was superb- over 70 degrees. The larches had just started to turn. Talk about good fortune, for the Snowy Lakes are now buried in snow and will probably remain so until next July. Only a few more weeks of good hiking remains here in the North Cascades. Get those miles in now or it will be a long time before the warm weather returns. And who knows what this winter will be like. All I know is that the last two years have brought cooler-than-normal temps and some higher-than-unusual precipitation to these parts. Climate change? Of course it is- climates always change!!! But it sounds more like a cooling has begun, no? We'll see-and don't be surprised if the Snowy Lakes don their namesake a little bit longer next summer.

(photo-lower Snowy Lake with the Golden Horn in the background)

Happy Columbus Day!

To many Americans and especially those of us of Italian Heritage, today is indeed a great day of celebration. Did Cristoforo Columbo, navigator and explorer from Genoa Italy who sailed for the Spanish actually discover America? No, of course not! But he helped set sail a course of events that would lead to the founding of this great nation. Anti-American purveyors of guilt-ridden tripe (like Howard Zinn, Hugo Chavez and any number of aging hippy-Marxist professors) have tried to portray the Italian explorer as some sort of villain. Yes, Columbus committed some unenlightened acts. So too did the native peoples who inhabited the Americas before Columbus and other European explorers' arrival in North and South America. Its the nature of man-all men. Europeans don't have a franchise on bad behavior (read your Asian, African, and Native histories too). And surely if the Europeans hadn't laid out the foundations for the modern nation state in the Americas, the Chinese probably would have, following a course much similar to the Spanish, English, French, Dutch and Portuguese. But I digress-

Columbus is a hero to we Italian Americans because he represents a spirit so many of us possess-especially our immigrant forefathers and mothers- a drive to set off to the unknown to better ourselves through discovery, labor and self-realization. Much like this World Hiker. According to Claudia L. Bushman in her academic piece, "America Discovers Columbus, How An Italian Explorer became an American Hero," that neither paints Columbus in an overtly negative or positive portrait:

Columbus as a hero gave legitimacy and prestige to ethnic and religious immigrant groups struggling to become part of the American nation.

New York City home of the largest population of Italian Americans first recognized Columbus Day in 1792 and began celebrating it in the mid-1800s. San Francisco was the second major American city to do so (you'd never know now, would you?) FDR signed Columbus Day as a national holiday. In my home state of Connecticut with roughly 20% of its people claiming Italian heritage, monuments commemorating the explorer abound including a Christopher Columbus Memorial Highway .

Columbus was just one of many great explorers who helped set the course for this great nation to develop. Grazie mio paesano.

And for miei amici in Canada, Happy Thanksgiving. And I believe it was another great Italian explorer, John Cabot (aka Giavanni Caboto) who helped to "discover" your great nation. Salute!

You want larches? We got 'em!When it comes to awesome autumn weather, the last couple of weeks here in Washington state have been awesome. With that, I have been spending an inordinate (as always) amount of time on the trail researching for my latest book, Backpacking Washington. Now, while all of the destinations in this book are intended to be overnighters, I simply don't have the time to spend overnight on all of the destinations while researching them. So, I've had to put my marathon running training to the trail. I have been doing some insanely long day hikes lately. Among them, a 22 mile jaunt up Oval Creek to the Oval Lakes, up Gray Peak, over to Tuckaway Lake and back down Eagle Creek. A trip I did along with my wife Heather and brother Doug in one day which is intended to be a 3 -day trip in the book. And what an amazing trip too- all 6,000 vertical feet and 22 linear miles worth. Now is the time to do this hike too- the larches are absolutely amazing and the bears are keeping to themselves in their berryfields. You can head out now, or wait for my book to come out with the details. In any case, enjoy this spectacular October weather- it sure beats thinking about the Economic meltdown and the upcoming election that pits an honest but inadequate candidate against a good speaker but empty suit. Back to the woods I go for sanity's sake!

(photo- East and Middle Oval Lakes from Gray Peak- Lake Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness Oct 2008)

In a Rut

After finishing up a hike on Tiffany Mountain near Winthrop in the Okanogan National Forest this past week I was treated to quite a surprise. Two moose! One bull-one cow-getting ready for a little amorous action. It is the rutting season. This is the first time I have ever seen moose in the Cascades of Washington. I've seen evidence of them in the Stehekin Valley before-but this is the first time I have witnessed these big beasties in the North Cascades. How cool is that? Not the best picture, but still better than those Sasquatch photos that leave much doubt!