NORTH BEND – The state’s most popular hiking route – the Mount Si trail about 30 miles east of Seattle – has undergone a major renovation.
This weekend marked the end of a three-year effort to rehabilitate the trail, which sees about 200,000 pairs of boots every year.
Volunteers contributed 13,000 hours of work to fix eroded trail beds and muddied switchbacks, keeping the cost of the renovation to $100,000. They widened the trail for two-way traffic in some spots, added rock steps at steep inclines, and used retaining walls to fortify switchbacks.
“In today’s funding climate, this is the way a significant project gets done, and this is a significant project,” Mike Stenger, trails coordinator for the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, told a Seattle newspaper.
The trail, just outside North Bend, twists up 3,500 feet of elevation to a stunning panorama of Seattle and Puget Sound. Established by the Mountaineers in 1973 and last renovated in 1990, it is popular with weekend warriors as well as those training for more serious climbs, such as Mount Rainier.
The state Department of Natural Resources and the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust coordinated the volunteer work. Many of the volunteer hours were clocked by the Washington Trails Association, and AmeriCorps crews camped for months at a time to do heavy excavation work. The work was all done without closing the trail.
Peter Kingham, a DNR crew supervisor, spent six weeks in 2005 and a month this summer camping and working on Mount Si. On Saturday, he admired some of the work as he hiked up the trail.
“This was just a way to spend a lot of time in the woods, and doing good work,” said Kingham, 28.
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