June 2015
News from the Trail
AN UPDATE FROM THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST TRAIL ASSOCIATION

Pacific Northwest Trail Association is thrilled to welcome Stephanie Campbell to the team!

 

Please join us in welcoming Stephanie Campbell as the new Eastern Regional Coordinator for the Pacific Northwest Trail Association!

 

As Regional Coordinator, Stephanie will head up the operations on the trail's east end where it runs through Montana and Idaho, about 400 miles of the Pacific Northwest Trail's 1,200 total mileage. She will be based out of the quaint little resort town of Whitefish, Montana within a stone's throw from one of our nation's crown jewels, Glacier National Park, where most of our thru-hikers begin their trek. 

 

Originally from the Midwest, Stephanie is lucky enough to have adventured all across the country's vast and incredible landscape in order to pursue her life's passion for connecting people to one another and to their public lands through conservation and stewardship, especially in working with trails. Utilizing her background in communications and community engagement, Stephanie has gained fantastic, life-changing experiences in a diverse array of roles including developing a trail town program for the Great Allegheny Passage, leading backcountry and frontcountry trail crews for the US Fish & Wildlife and Forest Services using traditional tool skills, teaching environmental education as a park ranger, and patrolling mountainsides as part of a search & rescue team. When she's not working, Stephanie can often be found in the wilderness following winding rivers in hopes of spotting mountain goats.

 

Over the next few months, Stephanie will be taking time to explore the trail primarily where it traverses Montana and Idaho as well as spreading the word about the Pacific Northwest Trail by attending local events, meeting with partner organizations, and visiting towns the trail runs through. Stephanie is looking forward to spending time on the trail and with those who enjoy it and work to protect it. She is your resource for the trail in Montana and Idaho so please feel free to contact her. Stephanie would love hear from any and all user groups from thru-hikers to mountain bikers as all inputs are appreciated in order to learn about this spectacular and valuable public natural resource. 

 

She can be contacted at scampbell@pnt.org or at her office: 750 2nd St. W, Suite A, Whitefish, MT 59937.

June is Great Outdoors Month!

June is Great Outdoors Month! What PNT gem is on your list?


National Trails Day

 

National Trails Day is a great opportunity to get outside and give back to the trails that mean so much to you. Join us on June 6th as we work with Pacific Northwest Trail Association chapters, partners and trail maintaining organizations. Here are some of the events along the Pacific Northwest Trail.

 

Oroville Chapter of the Pacific Northwest Trail Association

 

The Oroville PNTA Chapter will be hosting a full day of National Trails Day events!

 

At 9:00 AM there will be a National Trails Day work party meeting at the Whistler Canyon Trailhead (Oroville, WA) to put in water bars and construct a switchback retaining rock wall on the PNT just east of the trailhead.

 

A bike ride will begin at 4:00 PM at the Oroville Pacific Northwest Trail Trailhead going to the Enloe Dam overview and back.

 

At the conclusion of the day there will be a BBQ potluck dinner and celebration at the Depot Museum in Oroville starting at 6:00 PM. The Oroville PNTA Chapter will be raffling off some items along with giving away National Trails Day goodies and would love to see you there!

 

For more information, visit the National Trails Day Website or contact Dave Tobey: coachtobey@gmail.com

 

Buckhorn Range Back Country Horsemen of Washington

 

The Buckhorn Range Back Country Horsemen of Washington (BCHW) will be teaming up with the PNTA for our annual National Trails Day clearing of the Larry Scott Trail located in Port Townsend, WA starting at 10:00 AM. Work will include moving gravel on horse trails between Mill Road and Jacob Miller Road as well as mowing and clipping brush. Meet at the Cape George Trailhead.

 

For more information, visit the National Trails Day website or contact Jeff Chapman: bbbranch@olympus.net.

 

Skagit-Whatcom-Islands Trail Maintaining Organization

 

On National Trails Day SWITMO will be working in Deception Pass State Park building a connector trail. This 1000-foot long trail will parallel Highway 20 and will connect the Cranberry Lake parking lot with the former park entrance to the north. Meeting time will be 9:00 AM at the Cranberry Lake parking lot off of Highway 20. Lunch will be provided at noon at the Park Office grounds.

 

For more information, visit the SWITMO website or contact Joan Melcher: jdmelcher@comcast.net.

 

Montana Conservation Corps

 

Join Montana Conservation Corps (MCC) and local area partners as the perform various service projects in the Lone Pine State Park and Herron Park. Meet time will be 8:30 AM at the North Foy's Lake parking lot. A free BBQ and raffle finishes off the day. 

 

For more information, visit the MCC website or contact Clifford Kipp: clifford@mtcorps.org

 

For more information on PNTA events, check out our Calendar of Events

2015 Summer SKY Job Corps Crews off to a Great Start

 PNTA's SKY Job Corps Crew members work on stairs along the Lake Serene Trail.  Crew Leader Cody Pohern (shown in orange) leads crew members in stair building while PNTA mascot Zeus oversees the work. 

 

The Service Knowledge Youth (SKY) Job Corps crews have started up for the season and are doing wonderful work in Western Washington. Led by Crew Leader Cody Pohern, each crew is made up of new students with Cody acting as lead. Crews work along the trail corridor in Western Washington and on US Forest Service contracts.

 

The SKY Job Corps program is a partnership between the Pacific Northwest Trail Association and Job Corps with the goal of offering trade skills to high school and college-aged students. Through the Pacific Northwest Trail Association, Job Corps students learn the ins and outs of trail maintenance and construction.

 

We caught up with the SKY Job Corps crew while they worked a US Forest Service contract on the Lake Serene Trail. Devin, a crew member who has been able to move up to second-in-command, is gearing up for a career as a masonry foreman. He feels he is learning much from his time with the SKY Job Corps program. He notes "As a masonry foreman, I will be in charge of assuring that the days' tasks are properly performed. As this is my second time on crew with the PNTA, I have a better idea of what we need to do and the other guys really listen to me. It was my idea to build the rock foundation under the stairs, and Cody seemed really open to the idea of me explaining it to the others. I really hope I get to work on another crew with the PNTA as I really enjoy the work, learning how to lead the crew members, and interacting with Cody and Lewis (Regional Coordinator, Western Washington)."

 

For more information from the Western Washington Region, contact Regional Coordinator Lewis Trout: ltrout@pnt.org.

 

Crew Member Devin admiring the trail he and his fellow crew members are rebuilding. 

Updates from the Western Washington Region

The Pacific Northwest Trail route through the Colville and Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest is mostly snow free below 5000 feet, but has not yet been completely logged out. All of the road walk portions of the Pacific Northwest Trail are now snow free. Trail users can expect patches of snow on north and east slopes down to ~4500 feet elevation.

 

The Sullivan Lake Performance Crew continues to do log out and light maintenance work on all trails on the Newport-Sullivan Lake Ranger District on the Colville National Forest. The Pacific Northwest Trail route through the District is still mostly snow covered so work is focused on front country and lower elevation trails at this time.

 

The Pasayten Performance Crew will commence work this month logging out the Pacific Northwest Trail on the Tonasket Ranger District from Corner Butte to the 4th of July Trailhead on the north side of Bonaparte Mountain. The crew will return to the Long Draw Trail reconstruction project in the eastern Pasayten Wilderness in late June or early July. 

 

For more information from the Eastern Washington Region, contact Regional Coordinator Trygve Culp: trygveculp@gmail.com.

Annual Cowboy Dinner BBQ in Sedro-Woolley

I'd like to send out thanks to all those businesses who donated to the PNTA's Annual Cowboy Dinner and Auction.  With your help and support, this years event was a great success!  

 

A hearty thanks is owed to the many private and corporate individuals who generously donated for the auction, and to the many friends, family members and long time supporters who attended.  With your help, we raised over $1,500 to support our summer youth crews! 

 

For those who couldn't attend this year, we look forward to seeing you next year.  Follow us on the PNTA website, Facebook, and Twitter pages early in 2016 for the dates of our Third Annual Cowboy Dinner and Auction.

 

Happy trails!

 

Jon Knechtel

Director of trail Operations

 


View from the Going to the Sun Road, the only road that crosses Glacier National Park in Montana, USA. Photo credit: Eastern Regional Coordinator Stephanie Campbell.
If you've got photos or stories that you'd like to share with the Pacific Northwest Trail Association community, contact Samantha at sjhale@pnt.org to be featured in the next addition of the newsletter.