Washington

Doug Huddle

Elk of the Colockum, including management of their winter range, will be the focus of an evening meeting held by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on Jan. 6 in Ellensburg.

Agency officials will discuss the pending late winter/spring closure, for a third year, of the Whiskey Dick and Quilomene wildlife areas to entry by motor vehicles.

Jose Mora Villanueva, 22, was charged in U.S. District Court in Yakima with damaging the land through off-road use of a vehicle.

Kristi Pihl

County officials hope to be a step closer to securing public access to the Juniper Dunes Wilderness Area east of Pasco next year by taking over the first two miles of a private road leading to the public land.

Peterson Road, which is privately owned and maintained, is the most popular route to access Juniper Dunes, a popular area for off-road vehicles. But landowners along the road periodically have blocked it off because of problems with people using the road without permission to reach the dunes

Noah Haglund

GOLD BAR -- Snohomish County has dropped a plan to allow off-road vehicles on county roads near the state's Reiter Foothills.

The idea was supposed to boost tourism and economic development by allowing off-road vehicles better access to the state recreation area. It would have applied to off-road motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles and dune buggies.

Washington Trails Association has named Milk Creek Trail in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest as the most threatened trail in the state.

The trails advocacy group recently released its annual report of the top 10 endangered hiking trails, citing trails that are vulnerable and degraded because of a decline in funding and damage from motorized recreation.

Kie Reylea

For years, we've championed the need for public access to the Juniper Dunes Wilderness Area.

This weekend visitors driving onto the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest will need a map showing them what type of motor vehicle they can use and where they can use them. The maps are free at Forest Service offices and on the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest website. Roads and trails will no longer be signed in the field as to permissible uses.

The map changes how the Forest Service will enforce road closures to motor vehicles on national forests. Those travelling on a forest road, area or trail not shown on the MVUM can be cited.

We treasure Amon Basin Community Preserve! On our first visits we knew little about shrub-steppe habitat, but we enjoyed glimpsing resident beaver, jackrabbits, otters, coyotes, herons, hawks, red-winged blackbirds and side-blotched lizards.

Those first years were also deeply disturbing: We'd see many old growth Wyoming sage ravaged by off-road vehicles and trucks. Garbage was everywhere -- sofas, tires, toilets, car "carcasses," even jugs of antifreeze dumped in the wetlands.