[pct-l] Forest Service closes Middle Fork Snoqualmie Road for road repairs and bridge construction Beginning September 8, 2009

[Brian Lewis]

W.r.t. Rena Farrington's note about this, I looked at the website and it's a
little ambiguous for me as to whether this suggests that thru-hikers doing a
walk-around of the Lemah Meadows area closure wouldn't be allowed to walk
(all of) the bypass route I suggested earier.  The "non-motorized access"
comment is a bit worrying --- I didn't find the exact text that Rena found,
the closest I found was
http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/mbs/conditions/road-closures.shtml#roadclosures,
which includes a map of the closure point (Taylor River bridge, well west of
the bypass route):
http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/mbs/conditions/mbs-closure-target-shooting-i90-corridor.pdf

In the same place it has a link to a 2-page pdf of the closure order, but at
this point at least their link is bogus, I can't access the document.  The
map and the summary text say the closure is *at* the Taylor river bridge,
which IMO doesn't at all make clear whether they care if people walk the
road well east of there.  Practically speaking, I can't think of a reason
they would care --- to get road equipment to do anything serious further on,
they would have to fix the bridge first ... I suspect this is just about the
bridge, and about people who (in the vast majority of cases) want to access
road 56 from the west (North Bend).

If anyone is really concerned about this, note that the middle fork trail
could be used instead of road 56 from the bridge just north of Goldmeyer Hot
Springs, though per previous at least some of that next stretch of trail is
going to be very brushy.   The only portion of road 56 that I proposed as
part of a Lemah bybpass is the eastern-most part of the road to where it
ends, road that already wasn't driveable (and left intentionally
unmaintained).

I'm not advocating the violation of any rules, I'm just not seeing any clear
statement that would preclude the Snow Lake/Rock Creek/Middle Fork/Dutch
Miller Gap PCT closure bypass from still being viable.

In terms of the Lemah Meadows area PCT closure, I don't see any change to
what was posted on August 28th,
http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/wenatchee/conditions/
It's always possible that something would change and the website not be
immediately updated --- heck, that same page near the end talks about
closure to stock on trail I walked on this year and deem fine for stock
(that text ends by saying "we may not get this done in 2007").    So for
anyone impacted by this, it might not be a bad idea to call the Cle Elum
ranger district and ask, (509) 852-1100


Brian Lewis / Gadget '08
http://postholer.com/brianle