THE WILD CASCADES THE JOURNAL OF THE NORTH CASCADES CONSERVATION COUNCIL Fall 2020 visit www.northcascades.org • www.facebook.com/northcas/ THE WILD CASCADES • Fall 2020 1 THE NORTH CASCADES CONSERVATION COUNCIL was THE WILD CASCADES Fall 2020 formed in 1957 “To protect and preserve the North Cascades’ scenic, 3 President’s report — Phil Fenner scientific, recreational, educational, 4 N3C Actions — July to October 2020 and wilderness values.” Continuing 6 Mountains on their minds: Early women climbers, conservationists and this mission, N3C keeps government chroniclers in the Pacific Northwest — Joan Burton officials, environmental organizations, and the general public informed about 8 NPS ignores Wilderness in Thunder Creek planning — Dave Fluharty issues affecting the Greater North 9 Olympic mountain goats arrive in the Cascades Cascades Ecosystem. Action is pur- Trees in Trouble by Daniel Mathews sued through administrative, legal, and public participation channels to 10 Sahale harm reduction — Phil Fenner protect the lands, waters, plants and 11 Monte Cristo CERCLA route status — Ed Henderson wildlife. 12 Glacier monitoring is essential work — Tom Hammond Over the past half century N3C has 16 Corvid’s eye led or participated in campaigns to create the North Cascades National 17 N3C comments on scoping for the Nisqually to Paradise Road corridor Park Complex, Glacier Peak Wilder- plan ness, and other units of the National 18 Forest Service thumbing its nose at locals in Nooksack logging row Wilderness System from the W.O. Douglas Wilderness north to the 19 Restore Gold Creek Valley or maintain Gold Creek Pond? Restoration at Gold Creek Valley: Hope for the future — Jim Evans Alpine Lakes Wilderness, the Henry M. Jackson Wilderness, the Chelan-Saw- 20 Park proposes rotten land deal in Stehekin to give away public land — tooth Wilderness, the Wild Sky Wil- Dave Fluharty and Carolyn McConnell derness and others. Among its most 22 Support Wild Wallace land reconveyance to save forest near state park, dramatic victories has been working Gold Bar — Kathy Johnson with British Columbia allies to block It’s not over till it’s over at the Marblemount quarry — Jose Vila, Skagit the raising of Ross Dam, which would River Alliance have drowned Big Beaver Valley. 23 In Memoriam, Frank Fickeisen N3C is supported by member dues N3C membership application and private donations. These contri- butions support the full range of the Council’s activities, including publica- COVER: Researcher Mariama Dryak explores the terminus of the Lower Curtis Glacier. tion of The Wild Cascades. As a 501(c) It’s not every day you see someone (in shorts!) crawling out from under a glacier. —Tom Hammond photo (3) organization, all contributions are fully tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. Membership dues for The Wild Cascades one year are: Living Lightly/Student $10; Individual $30; Family $50; Sus- Journal of the North Cascades Conservation Council taining $100. EDITOR: Anne Basye EDITORIAL BOARD: Philip Fenner, Anders Forsgaard, North Cascades Tom Hammond, and Ed Henderson Conservation Council P.O. Box 95980 Pat Hutson, Designer | Printing by Abracadabra Printing University Station The Wild Cascades is published three times a year (Winter, Spring-Summer, Fall). Seattle, WA 98145-2980 Letters, comments, and articles are invited, subject to editorial review. N3C Website The Wild Cascades Editor www.northcascades.org [email protected] North Cascades Conservation Council PO Box 95980, University Station, Seattle, WA 98145-2980 The Wild Cascades is printed on recycled paper. 2 THE WILD CASCADES • Fall 2020 N3C Board Officers PRESIDENT Philip Fenner VICE PRESIDENT Founded in 1957 Carolyn McConnell SEATTLE, WASHINGTON TREASURER Tom Brucker THE PRESIDENT’S REPORT FALL 2020 Lisa Bergman, pro tem 2020 is getting a reputation as the worst year anyone can remember. Those of SECRETARY us who grew up in the 60s and 70s lived through a sort of Golden Age, despite Marc Bardsley what seemed the turmoil of those times. We’d conquered disease and set aside enough of the natural world that the next generations would have it better than we did. Or... maybe not. The idea of controlling nature and saving it at the same Other Directors time has just about reached its limits. With no “planet B” in the offing, this one- and-only home of ours now seems to lash back at us and our many misbegotten Scott Crain efforts to subdue it to our purposes. Dave Fluharty I don’t need to list the depredations that have befallen us as a species this year. But I do want to reassure our members that we have not lost sight of our Anders Forsgaard mission. We may be playing a defensive game now, but we‘re defending the exceptional and unique natural heritage the founders of N3C worked so hard Jim Freeburg to preserve for us. It’s not always a linear process, and progress can sometimes seem transitory. There continue to be disturbing trends bigger than anything David Gladstone our founders faced, like climate change with all its impacts on our glacier-clad mountains, which we’re continuing to monitor and report on to raise public Ed Henderson awareness, as you’ll read on page 12. Kurt Lauer I was personally lucky enough to be able to take some time away from other obligations to seek my own solace in our North Cascades in September, and Thom Peters the timing couldn’t have been more dramatic: I left for the mountains just as the huge smoke cloud invaded the skies and turned a fine summer into a grey Advisors morass. Canceling my other plans, I opted to just find a stream of cool, clear water coming off the slopes of Eldorado Peak, where I found the fresher air that Brock Evans hovered just above the water surface. The rain returned to clear the skies and the air we breathe, a welcome relief despite the wetness. That was the right time Kevin Geraghty for me to hike into the deepest, most isolated ancient forest I could find. Then the skies cleared and I could get a dose of the high country with its sea of peaks Tom Hammond and bright autumn colors. Those scenes will stay with me through the shorter days and longer nights ahead. Helping the Park Service restore the damage to Robert Paul Kendall Sahale Arm had special importance to me (see page 10). The impacts of the Mon- te Cristo mine remediation also drew me on a ground-truthing mission attended Fayette Krause by the local media (see page 11). Dave LeBlanc Looking ahead, we as a nation face a crucial choice next month. We have great power to set new priorities and values when we emerge from the current politi- Thom Schroeder cal morass. Phil Fenner [email protected] visit www.northcascades.org • www.facebook.com/northcas/ THE WILD CASCADES • Fall 2020 3 DEFENDING WILD ESTABLISHING, AREAS AGAINST EXPANDING AND DAMAGING PROTECTING N3C INDUSTRIAL USES WILDERNESS AREAS Why it matters: resource extraction — Why it matters: federal land designation mining, logging, hydropower — is the as Wilderness and Park is the gold Actions most harmful use of public land. N3C standard of ecosystem protection, strives to save what remains wild, miti- precluding most damaging industrial and gate what’s been lost, and restore what’s commercial exploitation. JULY to OCTOBER been damaged. 2020 Submitted letter to the National Continued public participation in Park Service (NPS) and the North Advocacy carried out by the Seattle City Light (SCL) Skagit Cascades National Park (NOCA) ob- Hydroelectric Power Relicensing. jecting to the proposed McGregor dedicated N3C volunteers As the relicensing process moves Meadows land exchange in the Ste- to the next phase with the Federal hekin Valley. N3C objected based Energy Resource Committee (FERC) on adverse environmental impacts in the last three months N3C board members are participat- on public lands in the Stehekin ing on the Steering Committee and River Valley of Lake Chelan Nation- to protect and preserve Resource Workgroups meetings. al Recreation Area (LACH), lack of transparency of the public process the North Cascades lands, Continued consulting with Skagit in developing and proposing this River Alliance to prevent any re- exchange, and NPS failure to pro- waters, plants, and wildlife. sumption of mining at the former vide sufficient detailed information quarry site near Marblemount. (See to allow for knowledgeable public page 22.) comment. (See page 20.) Signed joint letter to the Bureau of Land Management regarding a geothermal Lease Sale in the Mount Baker area. The letter restated the conditions agreed to in the 2015 final EA and Consent to Lease agreement for potential geother- mal development in the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest (MBSNF). Participated in a “plant carry” work party at Cascade Pass where the NPS is attempting to stabilize the rebuilt trail at Sahale Arm. The native plants are being used to re-vegetate the meadow around a recently constructed retaining wall. (See page 10.) 4 THE WILD CASCADES • Fall 2020 PROMOTING PROTECTING ANCIENT FORESTS, WILDLIFE ENVIRONMENTALLY AND WILDLIFE HABITAT SOUND RECREATION Why it matters: like real estate, they’re just not making ancient forest anymore. We seek to restore watersheds and fisheries damaged from decades of heavy logging and IN WILD AREAS road building and protect significant forests from degradation. From microscopic fungi Why it matters: balancing access with to top predators, the wilderness ecosystem’s living members are interdependent, so economics and Wilderness preservation, keeping viable populations of each species is essential to preserve the ecosystem for we evaluate motorized use and places future generations. where it needs to be limited to reduce land impacts and recurring road repair costs. Signed joint letter with 30 conserva- Signed joint letter to the Secretary of tion organization to the Washington Agriculture opposing proposed exemp- State Department of Natural Resourc- tion of the Tongass National Forest Submitted comments to the NPS on es (DNR) supporting the Trust Land from the 2001 Roadless Area Conserva- a revised EA for relocation of a trail Transfer (TLT) specifically endorsing tion Rule.