Call to Action! Gold Creek and the USFS and How You Can Help

If you're a skier or a snowshoer or any kind of nonmotorized winter recreationist along the I-90 corridor, you care a lot about the Forest Service's recently announced plans for the Gold Creek Sno-Park and the boat launch road at Hyak. Joy Cordell has been keeping up with these developments as they happen, and shares with us this report and call to action.

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The Cle Elem Forest Service office released the Gold Creek draft plan in early May and held a public meeting April 24. Many of us who care about recreation had concerns and questions but waited until after the meeting to consolidate our thoughts.

In reading the Plan, we immediately noticed that the Plan said it would close winter grooming of the boat launch road at Hyak. That sentence was tucked away in the section where the Forest Service detailed putting up new gates on that paved road to prevent motorized vehicles from accessing and damaging the lake bed during dry months. It gave no reason for closing winter (nonmotorized) grooming on a road that will be open for summer motorized use. 

Kongsbergers wrote a letter of support for the SNC's funding request to the WRAC to groom that road last year. Unfortunately, SNC didn't get its concession permit in, but the WRAC was enthusiastic about funding the grooming and we believe it has funded it every time SNC put in a request.

The meeting was remarkable in that, while the Plan seemed to cover the biology and hydrology aspects, it not only didn't include a recreation plan, it didn't address obvious things like which trails and areas would be open or closed for recreation during the creek's renovation--which may take as long as ten years--or whether the Gold Creek Sno-Park would be open. The recreation people at the meeting asked all of those questions and it was difficult to get clear answers. But the Gold Creek Trail will be closed along with most of the winter recreation area behind the Sno-Park. (People can park there but not do much?)

Representatives from the communities of Snoqualmie and Alpental were very upset. The Snoqualmie representative said he had called and emailed the Cle Elem Forest Service office repeatedly to request a meeting and never got a response. The Alpental rep talked about how, with the closure of Denny Creek for construction last summer, they had up to 4,000 hikers trying to go up to Snow Lake per day, and "they were parking in front of our driveways."

This report is primarily concerned with:

1) The Cle Elem Forest Service office is attempting to carve away a very popular XC ski trail for no reason. 

2) The Gold Creek Plan has not prepared for where all of the people using the Gold Creek area--both summer and winter--will go instead. Even if Denny Creek opens next winter as a Sno-Park, it won't be able to absorb the hundreds that currently go to Gold Creek Sno-Park, and Gold Creek is the only Sno-Park up in the Snoqualmie corridor that doesn't require special grooming permits.

The Cascade Backcountry Alliance (CBA) posted a helpful blog on the issues yesterday. It's pushing for more recreation options. It also supports CCRA's efforts to get the WSDOT to allow temporary access as a Sno-Park to the lot on the north side of exit 62.

You can see the documents and comment letters and make a comment yourself on the Gold Creek Plan. The overview document is the Draft EA FONSI and you can see the sentence about the boat launch road on page 8: "There would continue to be no winter plowing or grooming on Forest Service Road 9070-219 below the access road to the Washington State Parks Hyak trailhead/sno-park."

If you don't have time to review the GC Plan overview, the CBA blog distills the recreation issues and presents some solutions that we winter recreationists could get behind. (Reach out to Joy if you have any questions.)

Please consider writing a comment letter. The deadline is May 2, midnight.

Best regards,

Joy Cordell

Central Cascades Recreation Association