SEQUIM — Their idea of a party includes muddy knees, hours of yanking noxious weeds and thorny bushes that apparently grow a foot while backs are turned.
These are the people of the Peninsula Trails Coalition, and the organizers of monthly and weekly work parties on the Olympic Discovery Trail.
During the coalition’s 19th annual meeting at the Dungeness River Audubon Center Thursday night, the workers shared cookies and cake, iced with optimism about extending the Discovery Trail, some day, from Port Townsend all the way to LaPush.
This has been a good year already, said coalition president Chuck Preble.
“We’ve reached a new high in volunteers,” and this spring, a highly skilled crew added another leg to the Discovery Trail, by rebuilding a circa 1914 railroad trestle just across U.S. Highway 101 from the Sequim Bay Lodge.
Besides the appreciation showered on volunteers — who have put in more than 3,000 hours just in 2008 — Jefferson and Clallam county leaders engaged in some friendly verbal jousting.
Sequim, Port Angeles and points west have about 17 miles of completed trail for cyclists, equestrians, dog walkers and hikers, plus the 26-mile Adventure Route from the Elwha River to Lake Crescent. And east of Sequim, another stretch of trail will be paved to Blyn.
Trail travelers will enjoy views of Sequim Bay and the many totem poles towering over the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe’s buildings.
The paving will be finished this summer, said Clallam County trail planner Rich James.
He warned trail lovers about ignoring the “closed” signs posted at some sections.
Riding on the path during the paving work, James said, risks damage to the trail.
And with workers driving excavators and other dangerous equipment, the trail isn’t safe for walking or cycling.
After the Sequim-to-Blyn leg is complete, more trail sections are planned: along Lake Crescent’s edge, and going west from Port Angeles’ Marine Drive.
Jefferson County, meanwhile, has a 4.5-mile trail starting at the marina in Port Townsend.
“As soon as they get the funding, they’ll pave another 3.5 miles to Four Corners,” Preble said.
There’s the catch: The Olympic Discovery Trail is built largely on state and federal grants; and to hear Jefferson County Commissioner Phil Johnson tell it, Clallam County has been more successful in winning that kind of money.
During Thursday’s meeting, Johnson said he’d told U.S. Sen. Patty Murray that since she’d helped garner $1.5 million for the Clallam segments of the Discovery Trail, she “owed” Jefferson the same sum.
He had second thoughts about the remark and later wrote her a note thanking her for Clallam’s $1.5 million.
“We’re all part of the same system,” Johnson told the senator.
But then he joked that he’d like to see the Discovery Trail-related economic development concentrated in his county.
His vision: People will come from everywhere to ride the trail; they’ll spend the night in Port Townsend, have breakfast there and go out on the trail. They’ll have just a snack in Sequim — and then return to Port Townsend for another night.
James, in turn, has an idea for some Clallam touring.
He’s hoping to throw a grand opening party for the Adventure Route this August, in which cyclists ride from the Joyce area west to Lake Crescent, spend the night at Camp David Jr. and ride back the following day.
Jefferson County Engineer Monte Reinders explained some of the reasons for the trail’s slow movement through his territory.
“We don’t have the large population centers like Sequim and Port Angeles,” so grants are tougher to come by.
“We’ve got some topographic challenges — some steep slopes.”
Then there are the problems of rights of way and of pleasing everyone.
“It’s challenging,” Reinders said, “to find a route that every neighbor supports.”
That’s tripped up planners in Sequim, too, as residents of Fir Street protested a proposal to pave a leg of the trail in front of their homes.
In the case of the old railroad trestle east of Sequim, however, there were no neighbor issues.
The 144-foot bridge is in the woods off Bugge Road; it crosses a nameless creek.
Preble, a member of the trestle rebuilding crew, said a train derailment in the 1960s had gouged the bridge, and dry rot had set in.
The bridge wasn’t fit to work on without safety gear, so the volunteers used harnesses and a lifeline to remove and replace 72 damaged railroad ties.
Several volunteers were retired professional builders, which meant the bridge turned out looking expensive, Preble said.
The volunteer crew put in 1,000 hours — $40,000 worth of labor — “and we had a lot of fun,” he added.
“It’s a beautiful trestle.”
For information about the trail, work parties and other events in Clallam and Jefferson counties, visit www.OlympicDiscoveryTrail.com.
