Darrington’s economy needs to increasingly rely on tourism. Increased logging of the area’s second growth forests will help and will improve the environment. But their biggest asset is the remaining old growth forests. If we hope for tourism to flourish, we need to keep the tourists’ objects of enjoyment usable. Dan Catchpole’s article “Talk returns to tourism” is right on. However, there is a detail Sen. Murray may be missing.
Hiking, mountain biking and trail riding are all mentioned at the beginning of the article. I am told by Darrington District U. S. Forest Service officials that trail maintenance is woefully underfunded. This is true both locally in the Darrington area and nationally. Foreign tourism in our great wilderness areas is a real plus for our nation’s balance of payments. Recreation is becoming the No. 1 use of our national forests. Yet Congress keeps reducing the funding for trail maintenance, both locally and nationally. The Darrington District of the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest needs two or three times as many trail crew personnel as they can presently afford in order to do justice to the tourists coming in to enjoy the wilderness. Such trail maintenance funding would be a great investment that will be returned many times over for Darrington and for the United States of America.
Richard and Louise Guthrie
Snohomish
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