DISCOVERY BAY — Trail blazers Jeff Selby and Daniel Collins are excited that their Larry Scott Memorial Trail is now a leg of the Pacific Northwest Trail system, which has been designated as a National Scenic Trail.
It is a designation Congress approved this year that ultimately will cover the entire 100-mile Olympic Discovery Trail once it is built from between Port Townsend and LaPush.
The federal designation means money will be provided to connect all portions of the trail, build bridges and other improvements, and erect signs and access points along its length, Pacific Northwest Trails Association representatives say.
Selby is ready to do what it takes to round up a volunteer work crew. He’s done so several times to help extend the Scott trail further south.
As Jefferson Trails Coalition’s volunteer organizer, Peninsula College math instructor Selby, a Port Townsend resident, has helped rough-cut and gravel much of the most recent segment of Scott trail — two miles of trail that wraps around private pasture land and ends at the north end of Discovery Bay Golf Course.
Next section
There, work awaits final private-land negotiations and acquisition that would route it about another two miles down to Four Corners Road near state Highway 20, extending it to about eight miles.
The three Jefferson County commissioners recently accepted a grant of more than $500,000 form the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program to acquire and punch through that section of the trail.
Collins, a Port Townsend resident, is the Pacific Northwest Trail Association Olympic regional coordinator who organizes youth trail work crews around Jefferson County.
He represents the association’s local region, overseeing development and maintenance of what will ultimately be the 1,200-mile Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail, running from the Continental Divide at Glacier National Park in Montana to the Pacific Ocean.
“I think both Daniel and I feel like we are at a critical point in the development of the Pacific Northwest Trail and Olympic Discovery Trail and are both anxious for their completions,” Selby said after walking the gray hard-packed gravel lining the section that gently winds through natural trees and brush.
It abruptly stops at west shoulder of South Discovery Road, about 1,000 feet south of Douglas Way.
“This designation has not been given in over 25 years, and its status given to the Pacific Northwest Trail — and thus the Olympic Discovery Trail and our own Larry Scott Memorial Trail — will bring great focus to our local trail system, and should help in concentrating energy and funding to our efforts,” Selby said.
Volunteers ready
Collins, who lobbied for the scenic trail designation signed by President Obama in March, said he was confident that the trail would be built with the help of a strong force of volunteers, although he was reluctant to say when, since funding trickles in slowly and sporadically.
“I think there’s no limit to volunteers, if we have the funding and negotiate the right of way,” Collins said.
The state Department of Transportation budget includes money to upgrade volunteer-constructed sections of the Larry Scott Trail, south of the Cape George trailhead to South Discovery Road.
That could widen the now narrow section to the standards required by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration for funding non-motorized trails — and, one day, could result in lightly paving the trail, Collins and Selby said.
Selby believes the trail to Four Corners could be cut through some time in 2010.
There’s no question that interest in Olympic Discovery Trail is running parallel to its continuing growth, now at more than 50 miles in Clallam County.
Clallam County
“I’m getting a lot of inquiries about how to get through from Port Angeles to Port Townsend,” said Chuck Preble, vice president of the Peninsula Trails Coalition.
Preble said the Clallam County-based Peninsula Trails Coalition was happy to be a part of the Pacific Northwest Trail and the national scenic designation, but that Olympic Discovery Trail was less like a hiking trail and more “a main trail like 101 is a highway.”
Clallam County’s Olympic Discovery Trail section already attracts cross-country cyclists, who stay in campgrounds or lodging establishments.
About 50 miles of trail has already been completed from Blyn to Port Angeles.
Another stretch from state Highway 112 to near the Elwha River, west of Port Angeles, is usable to Lake Crescent; close to half of that is on logging roads.
The three Clallam County commissioners recently called for trail construction bids along the Spruce Railroad grade on the shores of Lake Crescent.
Preble believes that once Jefferson County gets past the difficult acquisition and climbing-elevation construction of the section from Four Corners south to Discovery Bay, about seven miles, then the other five miles to the Jefferson-Clallam County line at Diamond Point and Gardiner should go quickly because right of way acquisition along Gardiner Road is mostly complete.
“All but a half-mile are public property from Discovery Bay to the county line,” he said.
Jefferson County is disadvantaged by many small parcels that are privately owned, many of them requiring lengthy negotiations with landowners, while Clallam County has long tracts of state and federal land that can be easily deeded over to the respective counties, Selby said.
“We have a lot more work here than in Clallam County,” he said.
For more information on the Peninsula Trails Coalition, phone Preble at 360-683-4549 or e-mail him at chuckpreble@msn.com.
For more information on the Jefferson Trails Coalition, phone 360-379-2671.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
