12/22 What’s Happening

Vandals at it again at Ahtanum rec sites

Know anybody with a 4-by-4 truck with a sturdy brush guard on the front and “aggressive tread, like mud-terrain type tires” whose truck might have shown up Thursday night or Friday morning looking pretty messy?

From left to right, Jim Sharer of the Yakima Ski Benders snowmobile club, DNR enforcement officer Gary Margheim, DNR winter recreation steward Donn Rasmusson and Ski Benders president Carl Denton assess the damage done last week by vandals near the Ahtanum Meadows Sno-Park. (Courtesy Washington DNR)

Somebody with a truck like that was up to no good between last Thursday night and Friday morning in the area between the Ahtanum Meadows Sno-Park and the Ahtanum Campground. That vehicle, and perhaps others, were used to smash through two gates, causing $1,250 worth of damage, and to knock three portable toilets over a snow bank, causing quite a stinky mess.

“Basically knuckle-heads,” said Mike Williams, regional recreation program manager for the Department of Natural Resources, a primary land manager in that part of the Ahtanum. “We’re not sure who did it, but there’s a few beer cans next to the Sani-Can, so there was probably drinking involved.”

That kind of vandalism is “kind of an ongoing issue” in the Ahtanum, according to Williams. The tracks and the damage to the gates — at which the contact point was too high to be a bumper, he said, and almost certainly indicated “some kind of brush guard on the front” — at least give them an idea of what to look for.

If you have information about who — or what vehicle — might have been involved, call Williams at 509-925-0973. This is the same kind of vandalism that nearly resulted in the Sno-Parks being closed to winter recreationists this year.

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WDFW OKs grazing on two wildlife areas

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife plans to go ahead with five years of controlled cattle-grazing on nine of its pastures constituting 51,104 acres within the Quilomene and Whisky Dick wildlife areas in eastern Kittitas County.

The WDFW announced Monday it would go ahead with Alternative 2, the “proposed action” in the environmental impact statement (EIS) it released last month.

The grazing is part of the Greater Wild Horse Coordinated Resource Management Plan (CRM), of which the wildlife department is one of the partners. The project has been the subject of lawsuits and a Thurston County Superior Court ruling last January that the WDFW violated state law when it issued a 2007 livestock grazing lease in the same area that will now be grazed.

The pastures to be grazed inc lude Lone Star, Rocky Coulee, East and West Whisky Dick, Wild Horse North and South, Wild Horse Crossing, Vantage Highway, Whisky Jim, and Lower and Upper Park Creek.

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BIRD ALERT

A Parker Heights resident kept a heat lamp on the nectar feeder through the last arctic cold spell and was rewarded with an Anna’s hummingbird at the feeder. Other neat birds in their yard included a hermit thrush that was feeding on Virginia creeper berries, cedar waxwings feeding on western juniper berries, golden-crowned and ruby-crowned kinglets, a red-breasted nuthatch, and yellow-rumped warblers.

Birders on the Yakima and Toppenish bird counts scored a lot of good birds with red-breasted sapsucker, an immature northern goshawk, western scrubjay, white throated sparrow and Townsend’s solitaire all being tallied on the Yakima count and Eurasian collared dove, American tree sparrow, Harris’s sparrow and a common grackle among the highlights of the Toppenish count.

Wondering why the feeder birds were quiet a Yakima resident on18th Avenue stepped outside and saw a merlin atop a nearby Engelmann’s Spruce tree and only 35 yards from the spruce tree, in the top of a Douglas Fir was an adult sharp-shinned hawk with a very full crop. No wonder the sparrows, juncos, and finches were all so quiet.

A Selah resident observed 13 cedar waxwings and one Bohemian waxwing feeding on juniper, mountain ash and ornamental plum fruit in her yard. A local birder who lives south of the airport reported seeing 40 red-winged blackbirds and 10 brown-headed cowbirds as well as two Eurasian collared-doves on the power line above his back fence.

Please call your bird sightings into the Yakima Valley Audubon phone line at 509-248-1963

— Kerry L. Turley

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AROUND AND ABOUT

YAKIMA OUTDOORS SITE: The Yakima Outdoors site (yakimaoutdoors.org) has gone through some recent renovation, with a whole new searchable database stuff that can help you find what’s out there to do. Check it out yourself.

MOUNT RAINIER SNOW PLAY: Sliding and sledding in Mount Rainier is permitted only in one permitted area — north of the upper parking lot at Paradise, where it is supervised daily by park rangers from Dec. 19 through Jan. 3 and then on weekends and holidays through March 28. Visitors may use the runs when the area isn’t staffed, but the runs aren’t groomed during the week. For current snowplay status, call 360-569-2211, ext. 3314 during work hours.

SNOWSHOE WALKS: Mount Rainier is offering ranger-guided snowshoe walks daily through Jan. 3 and on weekends and holidays after that through March. The walks are offered at 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. on a first-come, first-served basis. Sign up at the Henry M. Jackson Visitor Center at Paradise beginning one hour before the start time. Organized groups of 13 to 25 people may reserve a snowshoe walk in advance.

Group snowshoe walks begin at 10:30 a.m.  For more information or to make a group reservation, call 360-569-2211, ext. 3314. The snowshoe walks cover approximately 11/2 miles and last up to 2 hours, and while snowshoes are provided (if you need them), a donation of $1 to $4 per person is asked.

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ON THE CALENDAR

TODAY: The Cascadians’ Tuesday hikers will meet as usual at 8 a.m. in the parking lot of the 40th Avenue Bi-Mart and head out for whatever hike, ski or snowshoe adventure the trip leader thinks would be fun and doable, depending on the weather conditions. Come prepared for an adventure with packed lunch, plenty of water and clothing/gear appropriate for that cold weather.

THURSDAY: Just a heads-up here. The Cascadians’ Pokies group, which typically meets every Thursday, won’t be getting together this week or next because of the Christmas and New Year’s craziness.

Happy holidays.