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A Letter Regarding the National Park Service’s closing of the Stehekin Valley Road at Car Wash Falls.
By William (Billy) Sullivan
If you search “Stehekin” on the web, go down the list to “Focus on Stehekin: Lake Chelan National Recreation Area”. The National Park Service (NPS) states “Stehekin serves as a hub to explore the 62,000 acre Lake Chelan National Recreation area and is a gateway to the rest of the North Cascades National Park Service Complex as well as the adjacent National Forest Wilderness areas.” The NPS additionally states, “ The National Park Service cares for special places saved by the American people so that all may experience our heritage.”
This may be the first letter I have written, so it must be important or I am getting senile in my old age. I am here in Stehekin in my retirement to take photos and re-live my heritage as I grew up in Stehekin from 1955 to 1972. This last year I hiked most of the trails in the Park’s Stehekin Drainage, some of them many times. I was shocked to see how very few hikers there were in the upper valley: in the 13 days of hiking the Stehekin Valley Road from Bridge Creek to Cottenwood Camp, and then on the trail up to Doubtful Falls, that I saw no hikers. On the upper valley trailers I saw no one. I hiked up Flat Creek, spent 2 days in Park Creek, 2 days up Goode Ridge, 3 days up the North fork of Bridge Creek and still did not see another hiker. The closing of the Stehekin Valley Road at Carwash Falls has reduced the hikers to a very very few. Now young families, Baby Boomers and those with limited time miss seeing the high country. They miss the alpine trees, fields of wildflowers, waterfalls, lakelets and the sun going down on the snow covered Cascade mountain tops. Those things were accessible to all in my childhood growing up here in Stehekin, but not now that the Park has closed the Stehekin Valley Road.
Please re-open the Stehekin Valley Road “so that all may experience our heritage”.
Sincerely,
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