Protecting National ForestsALPS was instrumental in stopping the liquidation of the last old growth forests on the National Forests of the Cascades in the 1990's. But the Northwest Forest Plan is now under attack, and logging levels are planned to increase substantially. Many new timber sales are put forward under the guise of “restoration” (by chainsaw!) And now, claims are being made that logging will also fireproof forests in the face of global warming. This is of course a ludicrous idea, since logging opens up forests to drying winds and sun, making them more, not less, likely to burn. But logic has never been a strong suit with the timber element in the Forest Service. ALPS will be doing all it can to stop and roll back this new flavor of lunacy.
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700 plus year old cedar north of Alpine Lakes Wilderness, near Skykomish
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Wilderness IntegrityThe Alpine Lakes Wilderness, close to the population centers of metropolitan Seattle, faces very high levels of visitor use. Some areas, such as the Enchantment Lakes area near Leavenworth, are far beyond any reasonable carrying capacity. Camping is regulated in the Enchantments area, by day use is not. It can now see as many as 1500 day hikers in a single day. The place is overwhelmed. The Forest Service has successfully managed very heavy use in places like California's Mount Whitney. But the Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest has steadfastly refused to do anything to limit the carnival circus of overcrowding that is destroying the Enchantments area. Will they be content to sit idly by and do nothing as this part of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness is destroyed? ALPS is committed to doing something to force the Forest Service to follow its own management plans and stop this disgraceful situation from spiralling from terrible to even worse year after year.
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Snow Lakes and Enchantments plateau behind. Photo: Karl Forsgaard
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Wilderness Water WithdrawalsLong before the establishment of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, the Icicle Peshastin Irrigation District, (IPID) really a private company, had a number of small dams on some lakes in what later became Wilderness. Their water rights were grandfathered in, and that situation continued as it was for a number of decades after the establishment of the Wilderness. But in recent years IPID has put forward big plans to increase the amount of water it takes from the Wilderness far beyond what it did in the past. The orchards of the Wenatchee valley are well supplied with water. The increased thirst comes from the desire to supply water to new developments in and around Leavenworth and the rest of the Wenatchee valley. While ALPS does not get involved in Chelan County growth management issues, it is determined that no increased water diversions happen within the Alpine Lakes Wilderness for the purpose of furthering the continued paving over of the Wenatchee valley.
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Eightmile lake in ALW, threatened by deep draining in summer far beyond what has ever before occurred. Photo: Karl Forsgaard
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Keeping Trails Motor FreeFor many years, ALPS has been at the forefront of keeping trails on the Wenatchee National Forest free from motors. In 2016, ALPS and other groups stopped a Forest Service scheme to open up regular automobile roads to recreational ORVs and create a series of large loops. This would have turned huge areas of the Wenatchee into a giant motorized ATV playground.
In 2024, ALPS wrote and circulated a letter to the Forest Service objecting to a new plan advanced by electric bike interests to open up all non motorized mountain bike trails to electric bikes. A number of other groups joined the effort to not suddenly allow motors on these trails, and keep them as they now are, non motorized. |
Looking north from Chikamin creek trail, upper Chiwawa basin. From here south could have become a giant ORV park had ALPS not acted to stop it.
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State LandsStarting in 2020, ALPS was a leader of the movement to bring back the Trust Land Transfer (TLT) program, which had successfully protected nearly 125,000 acres of Department of Natural Resources (DNR) managed lands after the Commissioner of Public Lands, Hilary Franz, let it die. A bill made it through the Washington legislature in 2023 authorizing the program, bringing it back from the dead.
ALPS is the applicant for a TLT project which will transfer a very isolated section of DNR land, “Beckler 6,” in the Beckler River valley near Skykomish, to the Tulalip Tribes, who will hold it as a conservation property. The Tulalip Tribes are involved in many diverse conservation efforts to protect their treaty rights lands, and have a staff of professional land managers, and an expanding land base. Beckler 6 will be held for conservation and managed as a natural preserve. The above is not a comprehensive list of everything ALPS is concerned about. New challenges arise all the time. ALPS takes an interest in everything affecting the health of the central Cascades. |
Beckler River in DNR Section 6, hopefully soon a Tulalip tribes conservation area.
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