Action Items

Federal agencies have decided to end their plans to repair the Suiattle River Road in the face of a lawsuit from two organizations that challenged the project. The road, which provides west side access to the Glacier peak Wilderness, has been washed out in places since massive flooding damaged the road in 2003 and 2006.

The King County Parks is rewriting some of their management codes and will be addressing the sections related to dogs on trail. It is considering loosening the rules that require dogs to be on-leash on all park lands. A public meeting will be held May 26, 2011 in Maple Valley.

Two organizations, the North Cascades Conservation Council and Pilchuck Audubon Society, represented by the Western Environmental Law Center, are suing to halt work on the Suiattle River Road repair project.

The Discover Pass has been enacted by the Washington state legislature, and now awaits only the signature of Governor Gregoire to be signed into law. What hikers did to ensure that state recreation lands stay open this year.

The Washington State Senate has passed the Discover Pass bill, which would fund recreation for Washington State Parks, Washington Department of Natural Resources and Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife. It's now awaiting a House vote. Call today to urge your representatives to pass this legislation.

There is a long list of summer road closures on the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. WTA explores what hikes will be off-limits in 2011.

The threat of a federal government shutdown this Friday has us wondering: what will this means for hikers and trails on our public lands? Here are some answers.

On March 30, 2011 the Senate Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on SB 5622. The Committee seems interested in moving the bill forward, but that likely won't happen until a couple of amendments are considered.

Attend a forest rule open house on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at Seattle's Sheraton Hotel to weigh in on NFMA regulation changes.

The Mount Baker - Snoqualmie National Forest proposes building a new parking lot at milepost 3.0 on the French Creek Road to replace the current parking area at milepost 3.7. They would place the remaining 0.7 miles of road into storage and use it as an extension of the Boulder River Trail until new trail mileage could be constructed from the new parking lot, adding 1.4 miles to the current trail.

President Obama's budget calls for full funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund but proposes to slice $206 million from the Forest Service Capital Improvement budget.

On February 11, Mount Rainier National Park announced its final decision to convert the Carbon River Road into a trail for hikers and bicyclists.

Nearly one hundred hikers are in the state capitol for Hiker Lobby Day, organized by Washington Trails Association. After a morning issue briefing and training session, hikers will spend the afternoon meeting with their state representatives and senators, urging their support for state recreation lands.

Proposed legislation would establish a recreation pass that would cover State Park, DNR and Department of Fish and Wildlife recreation lands. Users would be subject to $10/car day pass or a $30 annual pass.

Olympia is listening! A new proposal being floated would establish a combined DNR-DFW-State Parks recreation pass that would be on a per car (not per person) basis.

This year, the legislature will be deliberating over some bills that impact hikers - from a $10/person/day fee for hikers on DNR lands to a bill that would merge natural resource agencies to a potential increase in funds from the NOVA program

Issues that WTA will grapple with during the 2011 Legislative Session: users fees for DNR and Fish and Wildlife Lands, funding for State Parks, agency consolidation.

The Olympic National Forest has released a final EIS on re-routing the Dosewallips River Road.

Washington and Oregon tussle over a 30-year reciprocal agreement to honor Sno-Parks passes.

State land management agencies are proposing legislation to authorize steep user fees for recreationists on Department of Natural Resource lands, including one of the state's most popular trails, Mount Si. These lands need stable, sustainable sources of funding, and a reasonable user fee system is a good approach. Is $10 per person per day to hike Mount Si "reasonable?" What do you think?