Mission Possible: Sauk River Road

Hello blog, nice to see you.  It's been a long time.  Sorry couldn't help the Conway Twitty intro, I've been listening to the new radio station in Everett 1520 AM - all classic country lately.  I love that I can listen to the Oak Ridge Boys or Alabama without the Hermit complaining about the iTunes library.

Since April, I've graduated, of course, and planned on blogging all summer about our adventures.  Unfortunately, I owed the Hermit a lot of free time, and so we spent most weekends looking for the latest flea market, yard sale or swap meet, and spent one weekend in Gold Bar buying a sluice box and another gold pan.  I am a victim of too many episodes of "American Pickers" and "Gold Rush."  Anyone who knows me, knows this was complete torture, but I did manage to slip in some Beach Boys and Chicago records (and one Waylon and Willie) into the yard sale/swap meet piles.   "As I was walking down the street one day..."  hit the brass. :)

I've also been spending a lot of time applying for jobs, two of which I had interviews, made it to the final selection only to have them cut from the budget.  Anyone who has ever applied for a government or engineering job knows how long and complicated just the application process is.  It's very disheartening, so I have decided to put my skills to use while I still have 4 months left of my contract job to something worthwhile.  I will be volunteering for the Friends of Darrington Public Lands to fight the lawsuit threatening the permanent closure of the Sauk River Road. 

In order to shift the economic focus of Darrington from a logging center of business to a tourism center of business, a lot of work needs to be done.  I am going to be putting my mapping skills to work making them destination maps of trails with pop-up photos.  Hopefully soon, I will be able to take a mapping in the cloud course to be able to make it a mobile app. The trail maps will feature either historical or ecotourism destinations on trails in the Darrington area, including those on currently closed forest roads.  Hopefully this will put enough public pressure on the Forest Service to know that public users are extremely responsible and want to bring their own solution to the table for the future of these roads.  Their future use should not be determined by an ecomaniac hiker from Lake Stevens or a litigation focused "non-profit" "wilderness" group from Montana.

Stay posted for how you can help.  I know some of you who, like me, used to hike along the Sauk River road, and were looking forward to its opening next year.  I'll be posting potluck opportunities soon where we will be drafting a plan of action.