Hikers fear plan to log Blanchard Mountain

Blanchard Mountain towers more than 2,200 feet above Samish Bay -- along with adjacent Chuckanut Mountain it's the only place where the Cascade Range touches the briny tidelands.

Blanchard's flanks shoulder maturing, second-growth forests, curious talus slopes known as the Bat Caves and a high, open prominence called the Oyster Dome. Here on the dome of stone generations of hikers have paused to sit and snack on sandwiches or crackers and cheese while taking in with wide eyes panoramic views of Samish, Guemes, Lummi, Cypress, Orcas and the other San Juan Islands. On the clearest days, you can gaze from the Oyster Dome to the Olympic Mountains and even Mount Rainier.

Trails climb Blanchard Mountain from Chuckanut Drive at its bottom and circle its slopes from trailheads on the south, to Lily and Lizard lakes, Raptor Ridge, North Butte and other points.

Sandwiched between the fast-growing cities of Bellingham and Mount Vernon, hardly more than an hour's drive from Seattle and snow-free virtually year-round, Blanchard Mountain is heavily hiked, ridden by mountain bikers and equestrians, and serves as a premier launch site for hang gliders and parasailors.

Yet very possibly, beginning within months, Blanchard Mountain's landscape will be dramatically altered by logging approved and managed by the Washington Department of Natural Resources.

So if you want to see Blanchard Mountain as it is, you might want to do it soon. Our two recent hikes there amply demonstrated that it is well worth hiking. The Lily and Lizard Lakes Trail provides a pleasant forest walk, recently alive with massive yellow skunk cabbage blossoms, delicate white trilliums and wild ginger, and rampant with sword ferns.

But the crown jewel of Blanchard Mountain, and perhaps all of the Chuckanuts, is the trail to the dome, with a short side trip to the Bat Caves.

You can shorten this hike and eliminate 1,000 feet of the gain required by starting at Samish Overlook, the popular hang glider launch site. But we recommend you hike the entire three miles (six round trip) and 2,000 feet of gain by starting near sea level at the Chuckanut Drive trailhead.

Be forewarned: The way is steep, full of roots and rocks and often muddy, and you will sweat heavily before reaching the dome. But the view from the top is worth every drop, and by starting from the bottom you'll experience all levels of the mountain.

In about a mile you reach a bench and a small viewpoint looking out over Samish Bay that is directly below Samish Overlook. On one of our recent visits, we saw gliders and parasailors soaring in the thermals. The trail then side-hills into stately maturing second-growth forest of hemlock and fir, on our first visit shrouded in a spooky midmountain mist.

The real work begins soon as the trail crosses a stream and climbs steeply over roots and rocks, finally reaching huge, mossy forest boulders that signal the approach to the caves. Shortly, find the marked side trail on your left, cross a small stream on a rickety bridge and emerge at the base of a huge field of talus directly below the Oyster Dome. The caves are simply large and deep crevices between house-size boulders.

The boulders are slippery and precarious, and it is not recommended that the caves be explored because of the danger and the possible impact on the bats that once lived there and may still. It's enough for most to gaze up at the dome and take it all in. Return to the main trail and climb steeply to another trail intersection. The right leads about a mile to Lily Lake. The left climbs easily to the top of the dome, another spot where caution is advised.

Here on our second visit we met two separate parties of local notables, the first being Western Washington University geology professors Dave Tucker and Scott Linneman. We asked Linneman if the mountain was important geologically. He replied "not really" before launching into a fascinating, brief discussion of the talus field's possible origins and the major geologic complex that makes up the mountain -- the Chuckanut Formation, well known for its fossils.

Later atop the dome we experienced the unexpected arrival of friends Jennifer Hahn and her husband, Chris Moench. Jennifer is a well-known naturalist, kayak guide and author who wrote a fascinating book about her solo paddle from Southeast Alaska to Puget Sound, "Spirited Waters." Chris is a potter.

A few years before, we had paddled with Jennifer and Chris on Padilla Bay, which we could see clearly from the dome.

We chatted, snacked and took in the view -- considered the best in all of the Chuckanuts -- and wondered if it would be the same on our next visit.

The looming logging, and its potential impact, has many riled up.

"It's an outrage," says Frank Eventoff, a resident of Bow just south of there. "Here we have this gem, this treasure that we live around. In 50 years it will all be old-growth. It will be priceless. It's used by so many for recreation. I'd like to see it protected for conservation and recreation, and managed responsibly."

The Washington Department of Natural Resources, which is required to generate revenue from its lands for the state school trust, insists that it will be managed responsibly. In 2003 the DNR convened a panel of diverse interests to develop a strategic plan for the 4,827 acres it controls there. Some 1,600 acres would become a "core area" managed primarily for mature forests, recreation and habitat, where timber harvest would be allowed only to enhance the quality of same.

"There's no question (Blanchard Mountain) is very important to the local recreational community," says Bill Wallace, the DNR's Northwest Region manager. "Part of what the Blanchard Strategies Group did was put in the core the areas most favored by the recreational community, in terms of the viewscape and the hiking experience."

However, many area residents, hikers and conservationists consider the size of the core area and the overall plan's protection of recreation and habitat inadequate. Two groups have filed suit against the DNR in King County Superior Court. They are the Chuckanut Conservancy, a group dedicated to protecting the two mountains, and the North Cascades Conservation Council, the 51-year-old group that was instrumental in the creation of North Cascades National Park.

"Many of us feel strongly that the current deal on the table is not even close in terms of something that would be acceptable or that really fits the landscape," says Ken Wilcox of Bellingham, a member of both groups and a hiking guidebook author. "The area that would be protected is too small. People have been hiking these trails for 50 years, and we're going to lose it."

The Oyster Dome Trail, an exquisite, year-round hike and the mountain's most popular, would be inside the core area and not logged. Buffers of forest would be left along some trails outside the core. But others, including the first mile of the Lily and Lizard Lakes Trail, would be clearcut, to be later rerouted or restored. In addition, based on DNR maps and two recent visits, it appears that not only would clearcutting occur in places within several hundred feet of the Oyster Dome Trail, but also that clearcuts would be plainly visible from the dome's magnificent viewpoint.

DNR's Wallace doesn't think the clearcuts would be visible from the dome. "I think for the area you're talking about, you would see very little if anything in the harvest area."

Wallace also notes that much of the logging would be inside "visual management" zones and done in a way that would preserve views of the mountain from the Samish Delta and Chuckanut Drive below.

"We will take precautions to mitigate or avoid damage to trails" outside the core area, he says. "I guess the issue here is balance, and my belief with a place like Blanchard is, there's a place for a working forest in the landscape. These areas are not mutually exclusive."

But Wilcox, who knows the trails of Blanchard Mountain as well as anyone, thinks clearcuts would be plainly visible from the dome. "I disagree with Bill. I think, based on what they've said in the past and the core area map, that trail will be visually impacted."

Opponents point out that Larrabee State Park, which stretches from the shores of Samish Bay up onto Chuckanut Mountain, attracts an estimated 1 million visitors a year, and that Blanchard Mountain may be almost as popular.

"It is the only place where the Cascades meet the sea, and it is also unique in the fact that it is between these great metropolitan areas and is used by so many people," says Eventoff.

Not all hikers, riders and conservationists oppose the plan. Mitch Friedman, director of the Bellingham group Conservation Northwest, formerly the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, was one of 10 members of the Blanchard Strategies Group. He argues that working forests are preferable to development and that the plan is an acceptable compromise that will keep the mountain green. Wallace also says members of the Backcountry Horsemen of Washington, a group that helps maintain the mountain's trail network, also support the plan.

Another separate effort involving the mountain is the Chuckanut Mountains Park District. This is a group of concerned Whatcom and Skagit county residents trying to pass a ballot measure that would modestly raise real estate taxes to generate money to create a unified management plan for both mountains, buying private lands from willing sellers if necessary to consolidate public ownership.

Eventoff and Wilcox are members of that group, and both say they would prefer all of the Chuckanuts unified into park lands managed for conservation and recreation. But neither is opposed to logging on Blanchard Mountain if the plan adequately addresses the need to protect habitat and recreation.

"There is a lot of level forest the DNR could manage for timber," Wilcox concedes. "It wouldn't take that much more of a core to protect the values that are there. We need to zoom out a little bit and look at the bigger picture and come up with a vision that works for everybody."

Commissioner of Public Lands Doug Sutherland signed off on the Blanchard Mountain plan last August. A hearing in the lawsuit is scheduled for May 15. Barring any decision in the suit, Wallace says the DNR intends to move forward on the plan within months.

If you go

Getting there -- There are several trailheads for hikes on Blanchard Mountain, with most accessed from state logging roads B2000 and B1000. Find them by taking the Alger exit (240) off Interstate 5. Go west of the freeway shortly to Lake Samish Drive, head north about 0.4 mile and take a left on Barrel Springs Road. In 0.7 mile turn right on a good gravel road, B1000. The upper Lily and Lizard Lakes trailhead is less than two miles in, shortly beyond a spur to the left (B2000) that heads to Samish Overlook and an optional trailhead for the Oyster Dome Trail. For the full climb to the dome, find the lower trailhead along Chuckanut Drive a mile south of the hairpin Oyster Creek Bridge.

Book -- To find out more about the trails of Blanchard Mountain, see "Hiking Whatcom County" by Ken Wilcox (Northwest Wild, 256 pages, $14.95).

Online information -- For more about the state's logging plans and the resulting controversy, see the Department of Natural Resources' Web pages at goto.seattlepi.com/r1405, as well as the sites of the Chuckanut Conservancy at www.chuckanutconservancy.org and North Cascades Conservation Council at www.northcascades.org.

P-I reporter Greg Johnston can be reached at 206-448-8014 or gregjohnston@seattlepi.com.

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