Chinook Pass bridge is … gone

YAKIMA, Wash. — If you drove over Chinook Pass on State Route 410 last weekend, you probably had one of those little out-of-body moments where you feel like you’ve drifted into some kind of alternate universe. Wait a second … isn’t there supposed to be a bridge over the road right here … ?

Well, yes, there is, and right now there … isn’t.

Last week, maintenance crews at Mount Rainier National Park removed the cedar-log crossing — leaving the stone-construction base in place on each side — in order to replace it. The bridge, over which hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail have crossed 410 for decades, is expected to be back in place with new cedar logs sometime next summer.

“It wasn’t unsafe, but it is aging, so the wood is beginning to rot,” explained park trails-crew member Julie Okita.

The bridge span itself was made entirely of three-foot-diameter cedar logs, including the handrails made from split cedar logs. Park crews are trying to obtain and prepare replacement logs “from within the park as much as we can,” Okita said, and then will be trucked to Chinook Pass for bridge assembly next summer.

Until then, hikers parked in the long-term parking lot on the north and west side of Chinook Pass can cross 410 by way of a newly painted crosswalk near the bridge location. Additional signage has been posted to alert motorists to the pedestrian crossing.

The missing bridge has already become a topic of discussion on the Northwest Hikers site, with a photograph of the missing and some imaginative visions of the replacement bridge to come. Check it out.

– Scott Sandsberry

Wild turkey group to meet Tuesday

YAKIMA, Wash. — The time and site have been set for the Tuesday organizational meeting of what National Wild Turkey Federation organizers hope will be a new Yakima Valley chapter.
The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Selah Civic Center, 216 S. First St. in Selah.
A number of federation representatives will be present, including NWTF regional director Barnabas Koka and Washington state chapter president Kurt Beckley.
For more information, call Ross Huffman at 509-961-8093.
– Scott Sandsberry

Yakima Fly Fishers head to Leech Lake

YAKIMA, Wash. — The Yakima Fly Fishers Association are hosting a fly-fishing outing Saturday at Leech Lake on White Pass, beginning at 9 a.m. Non-club members who want to join the group should call Fred Collier in advance at 969-4985.

– Scott Sandsberry

Gonna be gone for a while …

YAKIMA, Wash. — Out There is going to be outta here for a while. Because I will be.

I admit to never having been the most relentless and disciplined of bloggers. I’m sure some of you have more than once clicked on the Out There icon on the Yakima Herald-Republic’s site, seen the same lead item you saw yesterday and thought something along the lines of “that !&*@! Sandsberry, he’s dropped the ball again!”

Well, I’m afraid this time it’ll be a while before I pick the ball up again.

Beginning this weekend, I’m going to to be taking a nine-week leave of absence (with some vacation in there as well), and expect to return to my Herald-Republic responsibilities in the second week of August. In my absence, other YHR staffers will be working to take up some of the slack.

I work with a lot of talented and dedicated people at this newspaper, and I have no doubt they will do everything they can to keep the Herald-Republic’s outdoors section vibrant. But because each of them is already carrying his or her own workload, it’s likely that some things will fall through the cracks. Some issues may get overlooked. Some stories may go untold. I’m sorry, but that sort of thing happens in almost every workplace when someone leaves for longer than a few days.

In case you’re wondering if something awful has happened and this leave has something to do with a health concern, you can stop worrying. As far as I know, my physical health is fine. (My mental health, as any of my friends would attest, has always been in doubt.)

I’m taking this time off to pursue an independent project that will require my complete focus for the next several weeks: I’m working with some talented film-industry people in the Portland area on preproduction of an independent film based on a script I wrote. The story is one I’ve wanted to see told on the big screen since I first began researching it more than three decades ago, and now that there’s the very real possibility of that dream becoming reality, I feel I have no choice but to put all of my energy into making it happen.

As an old friend of mine once said, “Go big or stay home.” You should never be afraid to pursue your dream, even if it means taking a risk. So, yeah. I’m going big.

The film — which will be called “Iron Lyncs” — is about principle, courage and redemption, about a coach imbued with true integrity, about a team facing seemingly insurmountable adversity, and about what it means to be a teammate. I’ve always considered it the best sports story I’ve ever known, far more compelling than any sports movie I’ve ever seen. It took me years to figure out the best way to tell this story, but I finally came up with a simple answer: Tell the truth. And that’s just what “Iron Lyncs” will do.

So for the next two months, my partners in Portland and I will be laying the groundwork to tell this tale — finalizing the budget and the shooting schedule, finding investors, assembling the cast and crew, arranging locations and generally working around the clock to turn our collective vision into reality.

That means telephone calls and e-mails to me will often go unreturned. For that, and for anything else that falls through the cracks between now and August, I apologize. I hope you will understand. I hope you’ll have patience with the people working hard to cover not only their responsibilities, but also mine.

And I hope you’ll be here when I get back.

I’ll try not to drop the ball.

– Scott Sandsberry

‘Literature from the World’s Toughest Bike Race’

YAKIMA, Wash. — That phrase (Literature from the World’s Toughest Bike Race) is the subtitle for the inaugural edition of “The Cordillera,” a just-now-published 90-page collection of “stories, essays, interviews and poems” written about or inspired by the Tour Divide and Great Divide mountain bike races.

If you don’t know about the Tour Divide, you clearly weren’t following this blog last summer, when Eric Bruntjen of Yakima did the grueling 2,745-mile mountain bike race from the Canadian mountain resort town of Banff to the U.S.-Mexican border at Antelope Wells, N.M. For three weeks, Bruntjen pedaled roughly 130 miles a day over some of the country’s most arduous mountainous terrain, overcoming injuries, exhaustion and terrible weather conditions to finish the race, placing ninth among a record field of 42 riders.

He did it to raise enough money in pledges to pay for a specialized all-terrain wheelchair for injured veteran Evan Mettie of Selah, a goal Bruntjen was able to achieve. He also generated a lot of interest in the Tour Divide mountain bike race with all of those personal reports he gave us all along the way.

If you were one of those people who couldn’t get enough of following Bruntjen’s journey on this site and on the Tour Divide leaderboard website, “The Cordillera” might be worth a look — especially when you see that the compilation’s editor (and one of the authors) is Bruntjen himself.

All proceeds from “The Cordillera” will go to the Adventure Cycling Association, which created the Tour Divide and Great Divide events. And while the book will be available from Amazon.com soon enough, if you purchase it directly from the printer (for $10.50), Adventure Cycling will get a bigger cut of the proceeds.

And in case you’re curious, as I was, according to Wikipedia a cordillera is “an extensive chain of mountains or mountain ranges,” which sounds like a pretty apt title for a book dedicated to competitive mountain bikers whose course roughly follows the Continental Divide which, of course, pretty much follows along the Rocky Mountains.

I get tired even thinking about it. Maybe I’ll stick to reading about it.

– Scott Sandsberry

For an interesting take on St. Helens …

YAKIMA, Wash. — As part of the story-share program between outdoor editors and writers from newspapers throughout the Pacific Northwest, I get to read some really nice stories from some talented folks. Sometimes I can find room in our print edition to run them, and other times I’ll just link to a good one.

As I’m doing now.

The one I’m directing you to today is a column by Tom Paulu, who does a terrific job at the Longview Daily News — where he is the most eclectic of outdoor writers, sharing time as the outdoors guy and also the entertainment reporter, a responsibilities split I’ve never seen anywhere else. While everybody and his dog, including me — yep, I’m a beagle — wrote something for this week on the 30th anniversary of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, Paulu had a unique take unlike anything I read this week in any other publication.

Paulu looked at the recreational possibilities at St. Helens — hiking, camping, sightseeing, hunting, wildlife watching, fishing, mountain climbing, science study, snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, horseback riding and mountain biking — and compared how much better or worse the prospects were in each category before or after the eruption. Great idea, and a very interesting read.

Here. Don’t listen to me prattle on about it. Read it for yourself.

– Scott Sandsberry

Campgrounds opening up in a hurry

YAKIMA, Wash. — Most the high-country campgrounds in this part of the Cascade foothills will be open in time for Memorial Day weekend, and in many cases already are.

All of the Naches Ranger District campgrounds will be open by that weekend (May 28-31) except Dog Lake and Leech Lake (also called White Pass Lake), where the camping areas are still largely covered by snow and the lakes themselves are still partially frozen over.

Forest Service-operated or managed campgrounds will be open by next Friday (May 28). Along the Highway 12 corridor, those campgrounds include North and South Clear Lake, Peninsula, South Fork Bay, South Fork Tieton, Tieton Pond and Indian Creek Recreation Area. The ones on the State Route 410 side include Halfway Flat (campground and dispersed), American Forks and, in the Little Naches, Kaner Flat and Crow Creek.

Some of those campgrounds have already been cleared of the dangerous trees — ones that have been damaged by winter storms or heavy snow and might fall into the camping area — and in some of those same campgrounds the restrooms have already been cleaned and the areas spruced up for campers. But there won’t be signs saying which ones have been cleared, so you’re pretty much on your own — and use some common sense — if you choose to camp there before the official open dates.

The new $5-per-vehicle parking fees at Ponderosa, Longmire and Long Meadows will begin as soon as the “Iron Ranger” fee-collection stands are up, which is expected to be by next Friday.

The district’s concessionaire-operated campgrounds have already begun opening, although their official start date was originally set for next Thursday. Thos campgrounds, now operated by a new concessionaire — Hoodoo Recreation, based in Oregon — include Indian Creek, Hause Creek, Willows and Windy Point on the White Pass side; Cottonwood, Sawmill Flat, Little Naches, Hells Crossing, Pleasant Valley and Lodgepole along the Chinook Pass corridor; and, on Bumping Lake Road, Cedar Springs, Soda Spring, Cougar, Upper and Lower Bumping Lake.

In the Cle Elum Ranger District, most campgrounds — including Kachess, Wish Poosh, Cle Elum River, Red Mountain, Salmon La Sac, Cayuse Horse Camp, Beverly, Taneum Junction, Ice Water Creek, Mineral Springs and Swaak — are already open.
Two Cle Elum district campgrounds, Taneum and Owhi (at Cooper Lake) are expected to be open by mid- or late next week. Taneum’s opening hinges on the completion of flood repairs, while snow at Owhi kept crews from getting in to do the necessary cleanup until very recently.

To reserve a National Forest campsite, go to www.recreation.gov or call 877-444-6777.

At Mount Rainier, where historic Paradise Inn opened its doors for the season today (May 21), Ohanapecosh and Cougar Rock will both open on Friday, May 28 (with the Ohanapecosh Visitor Center open only weekends until June 12). The White River Campground, particularly popular with campers from this part of the state, isn’t expected to be open until June 25.

The Bureau of Land Management’s campgrounds in the Yakima River Canyon are open — they pretty much don’t close except for the occasional floor damage repairs — and the summer fees (both for day-use and camping) went into effect as of May 15.

– Scott Sandsberry

Hey, it’d be like being at camp again!

YAKIMA, Wash. — It may not sound like a great deal. “Hey, want to work for most of the summer on a volunteer basis? Give us a call!”

That’s essentially what land managers at state and federal agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and the state Department of Natural Resources do on a regular basis, and it’s not as crazy as it sounds. Those agencies use volunteer campground hosts, who do such things as keep campgrounds (and, yes, the portable or pit toilets) clean, make sure campers are paying their fees to the “iron rangers,” and to provide a presence, a face, somebody to answer questions and let knuckleheads know somebody is watching.

And they don’t pay them.

Sounds like an awful gig, right? Well, maybe not. If you were retired, had a camper and thought spending time in the great outdoors is a pleasanat way to enjoy the summer, why not do it? It’s not like being the host is a take-all-your-time job, and those campground hosts are there just walking distance away from places where they can hike, ride bikes, go fishing, hunt, sightsee, birdwatch and all kinds of things a lot of the rest of us drive an hour or more to reach.

Not a great sales pitch? OK, maybe not. But if you’re intrigued by the possibility, the DNR is in the market for campground hosts at  a whole slew of sites in this part of the state, including the Ahtanum Campground, Bear Creek (on the Sol Duc River), Bird Creek (on the east side of Mount Adams, north of Glenwood) and, a bit further away, Dougan Creek (north of Washougal in SW Washington), as well as a whole bunch of other campgrounds around the state.

All hosts must complete Basic First Aid training and pass a Washington State Patrol background check. If you’re interested in volunteering as a host or just want to learn more in general about what they do, call the DNR’s volunteer program coordinator, Christine Redmond, at 360-902-1632. The guy to contact regarding the Ahtanum Campground host position is the regional recreation guy, Mike Williams at 509-925-0975 (e-mail at michael.williams@dnr.wa.gov).

Just don’t expect a paycheck.

– Scott Sandsberry

Bridges will reopen 1800, 1808 to drivers

YAKIMA, Wash. — In two years, hikers, horse riders and backcountry lake anglers will have a shorter hike-in than they have had over the past three summers to destinations south and west of Bumping Lake, into the Deep Creek drainage or to high lakes within the William O. Douglas Wilderness such as the Twin Sisters or Cougar.

The Naches Ranger District expects to begin construction in the spring of 2011 and complete it that fall on two bridges over Deep Creek where it crosses Forest Roads 1800 and 1808. Although the construction bid for the work on the two bridges hasn’t been awarded, a Forest Service spokesman said the district anticipated “significant savings” by having both bridges done as part of the same project.

A heavy winter storm between the 2006 and 2007 hiking seasons clogged road culverts and eventually washed through both roads, forcing the ranger district to close the roads because of the danger to listed bull trout spawning in the creek. Recreationists on foot or horseback could still pass through, but the closure meant traveling a lot further to the original (pre-washout) trailheads — an additional four miles on the 1800 road and more than seven miles on the 1808. Motorists have been allowed to drive to 1800′s original trailhead in the late season after the creek is dry, while the 1808 has remained closed to motor vehicles.

The district cobbled together the money for the bridges through a combination of Emergency Relief Funding for Federally Owned Roads (ERFO) and funds set aside within the Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Region for “aquatic organism passage.”

– Scott Sandsberry

Yakima springer rule clarification

YAKIMA, Wash. — The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife put out a rules “clarification” today on the current Yakima River spring chinook fishery that basically says, “Hey, you can use bait in that Yakima stretch!” But in case you don’t spend all your time checking the WDFW site for the latest rule changes, here’s the whole thing:

Upper Yakima River spring chinook fishing rules clarification
Action: Clarify gear rules and use of boats equipped with an internal combustion engine in Area 2
Species affected: Hatchery chinook salmon
Locations & Dates:
Area 1: from the Interstate 182 bridge in Richland (river mile 4.5) to 400 feet downstream of Horn Rapids (Wanawish) Dam (river mile 18.0); May 1 – May 31.
Area 2: from the Interstate 82 bridge at Union Gap (river mile 107.1) to the BNRR bridge approximately 500 feet downstream of Roza Dam (river mile 127.8); May 1 – June 30.
Reason for action: The previous “Fishing Rule Change” news release announcing the opening of the spring chinook fishery (4-22-10) omitted information regarding the temporary suspension of the “Selective Gear Rules” in Area 2. For the duration of the salmon fishery in Area 2, the use of bait and knotted landing nets is permitted. In addition, the use of boats equipped with an internal combustion engine is also permitted.
Other information:
* For the duration of this salmon fishery, the upper “closed water” boundary line for Area 2 is moved upstream to the railroad bridge downstream of Roza Dam to provide additional opportunity to harvest abundant hatchery chinook.
* Daily limit of two (2) hatchery chinook. Minimum size – 12 inches. Hatchery salmon are identified by a missing adipose fin and a healed scar in the location of the missing fin. Wild salmon (adipose fin intact) must be immediately released unharmed and cannot be removed from the water prior to release.
* Special Rules for Area 1: Terminal gear is restricted to one, single-point, barbless hook with a hook gap from point to shank of 3/4 inch or less when fishing for salmon. Use of bait is allowed.
* Special Rules for Area 2: Terminal gear is restricted to one, single-point, barbless hook with a hook gap from point to shank of 3/4 inch or less. During the salmon fishery, the “Selective Gear Rules” prohibiting use of bait and knotted nets is temporarily suspended, but only in the river section open to salmon fishing. Use of boats equipped with an internal combustion engine is allowed, but only in the river section open to salmon fishing. Night closure in effect. Retention of trout (size 12″ to 20″, daily limit 2) and other game fish is prohibited until the statewide river trout season opener on Saturday, June 5.
* Closed to fishing for all species 400 feet upstream from the upstream side of the Yakima Ave./Terrace Heights Rd. bridge in Yakima, including the area adjacent and downstream of the Roza Wasteway No. 2 fish barrier rack next to Morton & Sons Inc.
* Fishing for steelhead remains closed. All steelhead (rainbow trout greater than 20″ in total length) must be immediately released unharmed and cannot be removed from the water prior to release.
The new Columbia River Salmon/Steelhead Endorsement is required to participate in this fishery.

If you have any questions, call the WDFW.

– Scott Sandsberry

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