LAPUSH — Public access to scenic Second Beach in Olympic National Park may reopen today pending approval by the Quileute Tribal Council.
After meeting for more than an hour Thursday with U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks in Port Angeles, Quileute Tribal Chairman Russell Woodruff Sr. said he was willing to reopen the trailhead to what many visitors consider the most beautiful beach on the Washington coast.
The tribe last week closed the Second Beach parking lot and trailhead, which are within the reservation, to protest the park’s reluctance to swap land with the Quileute.
In reaction, the park closed the remainder of the trail down to Second Beach because it did not have access to maintain the trail.
Tribe seeks higher ground
The tribe says it needs to move its school, senior center, offices and older housing out of a tsunami zone and onto higher ground that the park says is within its boundary.
“I would applaud that,” Dicks said of Woodruff’s announcement on reopening the trailhead, plus the parking lot at nearby Rialto Beach.
Park spokeswoman Barb Maynes said that she had not been told of Woodruff’s offer and would have no comment until the park received official notice from the tribe.
“We will wait and continue to be eager to resolve the issues that are at hand,” Maynes said.
Dicks, D-Belfair, said those issues are thorny. A permanent solution will require an act of Congress, he said.
“This has gone on for a long, long time,” Dicks said after the meeting.
“We’ve got to get started. The tribe has waited a long time.”
The United States established the Quileute reservation in 1889. Olympic National Park spread to next door in 1953.
