LAKE ROESIGER — It was a triumphant day in October for Elena Shinner of Snohomish when she found a crude little cabin in the middle of nowhere east of here.
Shinner, 21, of Snohomish, had heard about the cabin from relatives and friends, and she had been searching for it for years in the woods north of Lake Chaplain, an Everett city reservoir.
It’s a place of legend in the Snohomish area, where hikers took rest and drank in the magnificent views to the south and southwest from an elevation of about 1,500 feet.
Part of Lake Chaplain is visible to the left, and Everett to the right. The skyscrapers of Seattle rise nearly dead ahead to the south. It’s a place Shinner calls the "top of the world."
An avid hiker and lover of the outdoors, Shinner felt rewarded when she finally found the cabin, she said this week.
Her joy, however, has been squelched by the knowledge that the state also has recently discovered the frail structure and is about to tear it down.
Partly because of abuse by some who use the facility, the cabin will be torn down this spring, said Laurie Bergvall, area district manager for the state Department of Natural Resources. The cabin is on state land managed by DNR.
"This is like wrong structure, wrong place," Bergvall said.
It’s a brisk, two-hour walk to the cabin from the gate established by the state DNR and Everett, Shinner said. The path is along the road for a while and then up a steep trail.
Just getting there is a lot of work. Since she found it last fall, Shinner has made dozens of pilgrimages to the spot, treating the cabin with tender love and care.
Like many who have used it for more than 30 years, she is kind to the cabin, hauling materials in to make repairs, leaving a makeshift first-aid kit and caching nonperishable food in metal cylinders for others to use.
Others haven’t been so kind.
The steep bank below the viewpoint is littered with beer cans and other junk. There’s evidence of teenage drinking parties, and there are some broken windows. Until recently a makeshift toilet had been perched on the edge of the bank.
With construction of a logging road in the vicinity, access to the cabin has been made easier, and some people have damaged the gate or cut locks so they could drive there.
In short, the cabin has become an attractive nuisance that bothers the state and city.
"Unfortunately, it’s not being used responsibly," Bergvall said.
Besides, the cabin has a makeshift fireplace and a stovepipe that wouldn’t pass inspection under today’s codes. That makes it a fire hazard in an area where Snohomish County may someday get some money from timber sales.
Now that the state knows about the cabin, it would face liability if anyone is injured seriously while using it, Bergvall said.
The city has other concerns.
In about 45 days at the beginning of this year, locks on the gate were broken or cut off 17 times, said Dan Mathias, principal engineer for the city.
His concern is protection of the drainages that lead to the reservoir.
Twenty-three five-gallon containers of paint were found dumped within a half-mile of the lake, and city water officials found the remnants of a methamphetamine lab nearby.
"That’s what the city’s concerned about," Mathias said. "The bottom line is trying to protect the water quality."
Another former cabin user, Donald Heirman of Snohomish, said the structure was built in 1968 by Boy Scouts. Bergvall said there are no records to verify that, and the place has no historic importance.
Shinner said that hikers who labored long and hard to trek to the cabin were generally more responsible then those who drive in after damaging a lock or slipping in behind a logging truck.
Heirman agrees the cabin has become a problem.
"With accessibility from the road, it just allows people to bring in more junk and garbage. It’s just a garbage pit up there. I don’t want to see it go, but people need to respect it and take care of it if they want to keep it," Heirman said.
That’s not likely.
The cabin, Bergvall said, will go the way of several state roads that have been closed to motor vehicles in recent years because people abuse the land, steal cedar, dump junk and ruin timber by using trees as shooting targets.
"We’re getting more behaviors that are harmful to trust lands," Bergvall said.
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.
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