Fall 2002 - The North Cascades - An Uncertain Future

Fall 2002 - The North Cascades

An Uncertain Future
by Alison Bickerstaff
Photos by Katie Kulla

Hikers in the Golden Horn Roadless area trek through deciduous larch forests.

From atop Cutthroat Pass in the Golden Horn Roadless Area, the peaks of the North Cascades appear to stretch into infinity in all directions.

Here, in the middle of one of the largest unprotected roadless areas in the North Cascades, Tina and Eliot Scull rested in a boulder-strewn meadow. The retired physicians had hiked up from the North Cascades Highway to the crest of the range, where east meets west.

"We love this place," Tina Scull said as she propped herself up to speak. "We've been coming up here for 25 years to ski and hike."

Nearby peaks glow gold under a pale blue sky. Crustal uplift and erosion exposed the rock - the Golden Horn batholith -that served as the parent rock for these peaks.

Golden Horn is 30 miles east of Winthrop, Wash. The area, part of the Okanogan National Forest, is home to old growth and mature stands of evergreen trees and a stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail. Golden Horn is a diverse ecosystem - a convergence of climates, vegetation and habitats for rare species. Currently, state and federal laws do not permanently protect Golden Horn, but visitors to the region often think the area is protected.

"Yes, the area is permanently protected, as far as I know," Eliot Scull said.

Like others who enjoy hiking, skiing, biking or resting in this 118,000-acre region that straddles the North Cascades backbone, Scull's assumption is incorrect.

In the late 1970s, the U.S. Forest Service identified the area as "roadless," said Jennifer Zbyszewski, a Methow Valley Ranger District resource assistant.

"I don't know why it was not selected as a wilderness area back in 1984 when the Washington State Wilderness Act was passed," Zbyszewski said. "It looks just like wilderness up there and seems to fit the requirements."

Wilderness designation for Golden Horn would permanently protect its natural character for future use and enjoyment, and preserve it as a place of solitude. A long stretch of Golden Horn falls within the North Cascades Scenic Highway Corridor, where the Forest Service permits some motorized recreation, such as snowmobiling, and prohibits timber harvest and grazing.

As use of Golden Horn increases, so do complaints of poor management. Some argue that Golden Horn deserves permanent protection - either as a wilderness area or as part of the North Cascades National Park.

Enthusiasm for designating Golden Horn a wilderness area is not new. Nearly half of the people who commented on the Okanogan National Forest's draft Forest Plan in the early 1980s expressed a preference for the government to designate the area as wilderness, according to the Forest Service. The plan was established to give direction for managing the land and resources of the forest.

"Just this October we began the revision process for our Forest Plan," Zbyszewski said. "We expect to be done by 2007."

According to the Washington State Wilderness Act of 1984, the Forest Service must reconsider designating the area as wilderness during this review process.

Dennis O'Callaghan, a retired veterinarian, has enjoyed hiking and backcountry skiing in Golden Horn for more than 25 years. He said he thinks public approval for designating the area as wilderness has increased.

"I feel strongly about maintaining this place as it is," O'Callaghan said. "There is very little degradation in this area now, and there's the chance to maintain it as a wilderness."

He said the area is an important part of the 2 percent of U.S. forestlands that are still roadless. O'Callaghan said the Forest Service has not analyzed the impacts of the combined effects of multiple types of recreation in the area.

Recently, at the request of North Cascades Heli-Skiing Inc., the Forest Service permitted the company to double the maximum number of clients allowed in Golden Horn to 1,050 a year.

"The Forest Service was supposed to do this analysis before allowing more helicopter-assisted skiing in Golden Horn, and they never did this," O'Callaghan said. "They said they made a decision of non-significance. That doesn't fly. It's not true."

Matt Firth, a member of the North Cascades Back Country Skiers, filed an appeal against the Forest Service's decision.

"The Forest Service's decision was so poor that we had to stand up," Firth said. "In the last six years, there's been an eight- to ten-fold increase in the number of backcountry skiers there, but heli-skier numbers just go up and down a lot.

"Backcountry skiers are already confining themselves so they don't run into heli-skiers out there. It's not too bad now, so we want to get a handle on this before it does get bad."

Firth said he felt Golden Horn needs better management, not necessarily more protection.

Zbyszewski said she strongly disagrees that her agency is doing a poor job. In fact, she said the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest regional office recently affirmed her district's decision to allow more heli-skiers. This decision was based on an environmental assessment that looked at the cumulative impact of winter recreation on wildlife habitat, cultural resources and water and air quality.

"We have seen use increase (in Golden Horn), but we have no scientific evidence that the recreation occurring there is having an effect on the landscape," she said. "We found that the recreation there is not causing a significant environmental impact."

George Wooten, a former Forest Service employee and current member of the Kettle Range Conservation Group, also filed an appeal against the decision. KRCG members advocate wilderness protection where they feel it is appropriate and possible. Wooten said the group would like to see Golden Horn protected as a wilderness area.

But, snowmobiling, helicopter-assisted skiing and mountain biking - all of which now occur in some parts of Golden Horn - are incompatible with the ideals of wilderness designation, he said.

"I don't think heli-skiing is all that bad and we are not against recreation," Wooten said. "We only want the Forest Service to do its job and really analyze the cumulative effects before any additional recreation is permitted like that."

Wooten said the Bush Administration's Healthy Forest Initiative could threaten roadless areas like Golden Horn. He said the initiative uses fire protection and thinning efforts as a front to promote logging of mature and old-growth forestlands.

"This thinning critter is a whole other beast," Wooten said. "It might be very practical for them to say, 'oh, we're only going to do thinning, and it will be just as beautiful after as it was before, more fire-safe.' I don't buy that. This is going to be on the block. Don't fool yourself."

Zbyszewski said currently the Forest Service has no logging or road construction planned for the area.

"The area hasn't had any road construction and there's been no logging, so the forests there are a classic mosaic of stand structure," she said. "So there are old-growth and mature trees there."

Wilderness advocates said they consider this even more reason to preserve the integrity of the landscape.

Peter Morrison is executive director of the Pacific Biodiversity Institute, a research institute based in Winthrop, Wash., which studies and maps conservation priorities like Golden Horn and offers nature outings there. Morrison said he believes the Park Service is the most qualified agency to manage landscapes with high recreational use like Golden Horn.

"Most areas in the North Cascade range got some kind of protection, but not this place," he said. "Golden Horn was included in original national park proposals for the North Cascades that date back to the 1930s, but the area got chopped off for political reasons. So now it is a huge gap in what is otherwise protected country."

Morrison said he felt adding Golden Horn to the North Cascades National Park would help make the area more viable and continuous in terms of recreation.

"This is national park-quality land," Morrison said. "It's a logical extension of the existing park. The NPS could also manage the area as a wilderness. I think they would be more qualified than the Forest Service, who has a mixed record with managing its own wilderness areas."

He said more people are discovering Golden Horn and the Forest Service is not managing the impacts from the increased use.

"Getting some really good professionals in there that know how to manage now would be better and you wouldn't see the degradation of the place slowly take place," Morrison said.

Whether or not Golden Horn should be permanently protected - either as an addition to the park or as a wilderness area - is a murky issue. It is clear, though, that no matter how the area is labeled, its popularity among hikers, climbers, skiers and new visitors will continue to rise.

Ben Nimmer and Morrow Pettigrew, two new visitors to Golden Horn, stood admiring the views from Cutthroat Pass. The friends said they moved to Seattle last year to work and enjoy outdoor places like Golden Horn.

"Is this place part of the National Park?" Pettigrew asked.
The pair said that they were not sure but they would probably come back again.

Senior Alison Bickerstaff is an environmental science major at Huxley College. She has previously been published in Whatcom Watch, the Every Other Weekly, Tidepool.org, Northwest Ecosystem Alliance's quarterly newsletter and The Planet Magazine.

Fall 2002 - The North Cascades

An Uncertain Future by Alison Bickerstaff Photos by Katie Kulla

An Uncertain Future
by Alison Bickerstaff
Photos by Katie Kulla