Busy as a Beaver

and learning a few things in the process!

This week's adventure was yet another research destination for my upcoming Backpacking Washington book. And like other recent destinations, was yet another all-out grind as I condensed what is normally a 3 or 4 day trip into two. Yep, another one of those-37 miles in two days type of adventures. But this trip was also different in that through my Facebook Guidebook Author Site ; I put out a request for a hiking partner to do the the Little Beaver-Big Beaver Loop in the North Cascades National Park. My recruit had to meet the following requirements:

1. Be willing to take off immediately (the day after request was made)


2. Be willing to share cost of the Ross Lake water taxi, not exactly a cheap fare


3. Be able to hike 37 miles in 2 days in which the second one was 21 miles


4. Be adventurous enough to hike with someone they really don't know


5. And be able to put up with me for such a time and distance!

Well, one person came through-Ted Evans. An East Coast transplant with a Sicilian nonna, I had a feeling we were going to get along-and this guy is a professional photographer too which would make this hike even more fun. And as always, I love spending time in the outdoors with different folks to perhaps learn a thing or two myself. I may have penned 8 books on the outdoors, but I have a lot to learn too. And on this trip into the wilds of the North Cascades National Park, this is what I learned.

1. Terry cloth light-weight towels make great water (ie rain) vanquishers for your tent fly when you need to pack them up.

2. The canisters for the pocket rocket contain a lot less fuel than I expected.

3. It is amazing how you can make a fire in the most wettest conditions when the need for a fresh cup of coffee is life or death.

4. Starbucks' Via rules. It tastes even better backpacking. Its tastes heavenly made from water boiled on the a makeshift fire that saved me from serious caffeine withdrawals and the prospect of hiking 21 miles decaffeinated!

5. Take chances-I found a great new hiking partner!

Okay, have fun out there-carry lots of fuel and perhaps some day I'll be drinking coffee in the backcountry with you too!

A Mine is a terrible thing to Waste

(not exploring)

Two weekends ago Heather and I celebrated our third year wedding anniversary by hiking in the North Cascades National Park up and over Cascade Pass to Horseshoe Basin. It was an exceptionally beautiful day-perfect weather-great trails-and a fantastic corner of a fantastic park to explore. One of the highlights was following the old road now rocky trail into waterfall saturated Horseshoe Basin to the old Black Warrior Mine. The Mine is in pretty good shape for an old mine and was in use (somewhat) into the 1950s. It would have been a tough place to make a living but quite a nice view! While we scouted around the talus beneath the mine, I stumbled upon a penny. Its date was 2006-the year we were married. Dear Abby refer to these events as pennies from heaven-the oft happenstance event of discovering a penny bearing a significant date reminding you of a loved one, anniversary or event. Yeah- I know a 2006 penny is no big find. But on a scree slope-off trail in a remote basin on that particular day? Sounds like a penny from heaven to me! And if the one cent piece wasn't minted in heaven-God sure did a good job creating the props for that wonderful day!

Rainier reigns!

If you've been wondering why I haven't posted lately, it's because I just finished up an epic 8 days. From last Sunday to yesterday I hiked 102 miles, half of them backpacking, and most of them in Mount Rainier National Park. Six of those eight days were on the trail-one day had me running a 10K road race benefiting our local humane society and just one day allowed me some rest! This morning I had to drive into Seattle to be on a KUOW talk program. I'm finally back home and all I want to do is what my cats seem to do very well--Sleep! I'm beat! So, it is time to let the body recover before I head back out into the woods once more-and its time to get caught up with some writing. I'll just give you a little highlight of the last eight days here and then I'll write in more detail about these places in upcoming entries.

• The Northern Loop in Mount Rainier rocks! It is truly a Northwest classic and a nice shorter and less popular alternative to Rainier's Wonderland Trail. Windy Gap is one of the most spectacular places (pictured right) in the park.


• The Huckleberry Trail in Mount Rainier National Park is perhaps lonelier than the Laughingwater trail and a wonderful trail sampling many of the park's natural zones from alpine tundra to low country old growth rainforest. I hiked this trail with fellow guidebook author/photographers Alan Bauer and Karen Sykes and new friend Bob and we had a great time on the trail.


• My wife and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary by doing a 19 mile hike into the Horseshoe Basin in the North Cascades National Park. It was a rigorous day hike of 5,000 vertical feet but we were rewarded with a lonely basin, old mine, and a cirque full of waterfalls.


• The first Annual Anne Jackson Run to benefit the Skagit Valley Humane Society was a huge success and Scruffy Gray and Giuseppe thank all who attended and helped raise funding for their fellow furry friends who unlike them need a loving home.


• This morning's interview on Steve Scher's Weekday with WTA's Jonathan Guzzo was a lot of fun and hopefully you found it interesting and informative. Click here if you'd like to listen to it.

Okay-time to catch up with things before I go hiking again!

Expanding Washington's National Parks

Restricting Freedom vs Better Protection

Hope the title didn't mislead you. I am a huge fan of the National Parks System--a system that began on March 1, 1872 when Congress established Yellowstone as our first national park. Republican President Ulysses S Grant mired in a country deep in post civil war reconstruction signed the bill. On August 25, 1916, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson signed the Organic Act creating the National Park Service. The whole concept of national parks is a truly American ideal that countries around the world have emulated and embraced. The park system has expanded greatly to not only incorporate our crown jewel national parks, but also national seashores, national historic sites, national monuments, and a whole slew of other designations to include properties in every state except Delaware (could Joe Biden's boyhood home change that? Nope-he was born and raised in PA, home to many park units!) and several of our territories. There are currently 394 units within the park system and we continue to expand our park system with each administration. The latest additions to our national parks (the main parks) were under George W Bush in 2003 and 2004 when South Carolina's Congaree Swamp and Colorado's Great Sand Dunes were elevated from national monuments to national parks to become our 57th and 58th national parks.

I have been to 32 of these gems-hiking, camping, and bicycling in them. I would love to see more parks and many of our parks expanded. Here in Washington I would love to see Mount St Helens transferred from the Forest Service to the park service and I would love to see Mount Rainier and Olympic National Parks expanded. There is currently a movement afloat to expand the North Cascades National Park; and while in theory I support it-I have some reservations about this proposal. First and foremost in our real world of political sacrifice, compromise and unlimited capital-the North Cascades proposal is of the least importance compared to other national park expansion issues within the Evergreen State.

Let me explain in order of importance (as I see it) issues pertaining to expanding national parks in Washington.

1. Highest Priority-Expand Olympic National Park. Too much of this park's periphery (particularly along the coast, Lake Ozette and along Hood Canal drainages) borders along industrial forest lands and neglected national forest lands where poaching of resources (illegal plant harvesting by illegal immigrants and illegal game hunting by native born riff raff) and illegal activity (squatting and meth labs) threatens the park's visitors and resources. And a constant threat exists that many of these industrial forestlands will be subdivided and developed further compromising the park.


2. Expand Mount Rainier National Park's Boundaries. Especially along the Carbon River Area and near the Clearwater Wilderness where as stated above, illegal activity and marginal industrial forest lands compromises the park's integrity and the safety of park visitors.


3. Transfer Mount St Helens to the Park Service. Under a better funded park service and one with a clearer objective (preservation vs multiple and often conflicting use) than the disgraced and underfunded Forest Service, St Helens would be elevated to a higher status with better protection, funding, and better and expanded visitor facilities-like perhaps a campground and better maintained trails. Also, St Helens' borders should be adjusted to help better manage it and incorporate periphery areas that should have never been left out when the monument was established-like the old growth forests of Quartz Creek.


4. Lastly, expansion of the North Cascades National Park. While it sounds noble, it is mostly unnecessary. Nearly all of the lands bordering North Cascades National park are federally protected wilderness areas and are under no threat. Perhaps the only exception would be north of Rainy Pass along the PCT in which case national park status or even better-an expansion of the Pasayten Wilderness would be better suited. Why waste political and real capital on an area that is under virtually no threat when other areas in the state are in dire need of protection?

Besides-one of the beauties of the North Cascades complex outside of the National Park lands is the freedom to camp and travel (mostly) unregulated. While I support permitting by the park service as necessary in highly visited areas, why bring this cumbersome and often frustrating process to areas that don't need it-areas that are far more wild and untrammeled than within the park's boundaries. And while I support keeping our park's free from dogs and hunting (another argument that I can address in a separate post) expanding North Cascades National Park into adjacent forestlands where these activities are currently allowed would lock out these users-whom I don't believe should be locked out (yes, they would be locked out) of these lands where they can now freely roam. My biggest reasons for supporting any national park expansion are for better protection and better visitor services. In the case of the North Cascades National Park periphery I don't believe there is much of a resource threat or need for visitor expansion. In Rainier, St Helens and Olympic, I believe otherwise, and I believe it would be wise for conservationists and politicos to concentrate on expanding and improving these crown jewels of Washington State instead. Your take?