Anatomy of an abandoned Trail

Using Karen Sykes' Hidden Hikes in Western Washington, I ventured over to Barlow Pass this past week. The Barlow Pass Trail is in excellent shape and in no danger of disappearing. However, the connecting Old Government Trail is fading into history. Yep-death of another trail. I lament yet another trail being loss to either lack of maintenance, lack of access, and/or lack of government funding and interest in keeping it alive. It is amazing how much our trail inventory has shrunk just in the past 20 years.

I only hope that the Obama administration with its propensity to pull money out of thin air and liberally sprinkle it across the land-will see that next to auto companies, banking firms, fraudulent vote getting machines, and corrupt loan offices-that maybe some of my hard earned tax dollars can make its way to our trails! Please! FDR who also spent quite a bit of public money spent quite a bit of it on our natural resources. And 70 years later we have quite a legacy for it. I'll take trails over GM any day for an Obama legacy.

Meanwhile-the Old Government trail isn't completely unhikable. The tread is still in pretty decent shape-and while there are lots of blowdowns across it-almost all of them are quite easy to negotiate. You can easily amble 1.5 miles down this trail. Bring along a saw and help clean it up. I'll do my part by publicising it and trying to get you to hike it. Save our trails!