Bruce Wolverton
On June 2, members of the Everett Branch’s Lookout and Trail Maintenance (LOTM) Committee and partners that included Washington Climbing Coalition, Summit Everett, and Friends for Public Use held a stewardship event for National Trails Day. We had a great time working on the 8-Mile Trail near Darrington. The trail leads to Three O’Clock Rock, a popular rock climbing site.
Working on 8-Mile Trail has become a National Trails Day tradition for our branch. This year we worked with our partners to tackle a new objective: building a new section of trail.
In total, we put in about 1000 feet of new trail, replacing the straight uphill path that was there before. Members of the National Forest trail maintenance staff from the Darrington Ranger District marked the new trail’s path with stakes and orange tape.
We had a great turn out, with over 40 people in attendance and another 8-10 townspeople helping with food preparation. We did a lot of work with a lot of people - and a good time was had by all.
For me, a chance encounter really captured the impact of our work. After we wrapped up our trail work, I walked down the route to make sure we didn't leave anybody or any tools. I came upon two climbers coming up the mountain trail with ropes on their packs.
I stopped them and asked what route they were going to climb. They gave me a puzzled look and said they were going back to their car! I look at them and said, "Well you’re going uphill."
"Yeah," they said, "Our car must be up this way."
"I suppose your car is at the parking lot," I replied. "You guys are going the wrong direction. The car is the other way back down the mountain!"
They looked at me and said, "No, that’s not the trail we came up. This is a different trail."
When I asked them when they left their car, they said around 9 am. I laughed and said, "We hit the trail about 9:30 and as you can tell we definitely dressed it up!"
So the proof is in the trails that we did a good job.
