Longest Day of Trails Event in Port Townsend

Longest Day of Trails

The 4th Annual Longest Day of Trails, a fundraiser for trail organizations in Jefferson County, including the Jefferson Trails Coalition which promotes the Olympic Discovery Trail on the Quimper Peninsula, will be held this year on Sunday, June 23, 2013.

We are hosting the event differently this year. there will be a timed 10K running race in the morning and a 15 mile bike ride (not a race) in the afternoon. Both events will happen on the Larry Scott Trail. Please park at the Park & Ride at Haines and 12th (turn away from the water at the light near Safeway).

* * * Register on-line HERE * * *

Mail in Registration Form CLICK HERE

Day of Race Registration Form CLICK HERE

Sunday, June 23rd.

10K race

• Starts at 9 AM, from the PT Boatyard/start of the Larry Scott trail.
• Race entry for the run costs $20 for pre-registration. Register online by going to www.OlympicDiscoveryTrail.com. Make sure you click on the button confirming your acceptance of the waiver.
• $25 for day-of registration. Day of registration opens at 7:30 am.
• Runners, Walkers, Strollers welcome. Please line up at start line with runners in front, walkers next, and strollers in the back.
• This event will be timed.
• Prizes will be awarded.

15 mile bike ride (not race)

• Starts at 4:00 PM, from the PT Boatyard, the start of the Larry Scott Trail.
• The bike ride is free, if you’re wearing a helmet.
• All are welcome: tag-alongs, Chariots, youth on bikes, mountain or road bikes, Striders, etc.
• Ride the entire trail, or just a portion.
• Speed depends on group — we will split into smaller groups as needed.

Registration forms and more details can be found at Longest Day of Trails or call Nicole at The Broken Spoke bicycle shop in Port Townsend: 360-379-1295 or Jeff Selby in Port Hadlock: 360-385-0995.

North Olympic Discovery Marathon

North Olympic Discovery Marathon on the ODT

The 11th annual North Olympic Discovery Marathon was held on the trail on June 2, 2013. This race has been termed the best boutique marathon in North America and draws runners from across the country and beyond.

The Marathon and Half-Marathon are run on a unique point-to-point course that incorporates the Olympic Discovery Trail – with stunning views of the Olympic Mountains and a five mile finishing stretch along the shores of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Dates for the next race will be noted here in the spring of 2014.

See the race website for details and registration.
NODM RACE LINK HERE

Olympic Adventure Trail Run 2013

The first OAT Run, in April and featuring the Adventure Route with half-marathon and 12K options, was a huge success. Race results can be accessed at:
http://oatrun.org/
Watch this space for updates on a 2014 event.

Adventure Travel Slide Show Series

Every winter the Peninsula Trails Coalition presents a series of slide shows featuring travel to exotic places, often including adventures in hiking, bicycling, or kayaking. Over the past decade the shows have visited almost every corner of the globe. Presenters are a mix of travel professionals and local folks with the skills and daring to explore the unusual. Currently the PTC offers 4 shows in January in Port Angeles and 8 shows in Feb – March in Sequim. The suggested donation is $5 (kids free) and supports volunteer work on the trail. Watch this page for our 2014 schedule.

Events at the Audubon Center at Railroad Bridge Park in Sequim

RiverFest

The annual Dungeness River Festival is held each fall at Railroad Bridge Park in Sequim. Although admission is free, donations are appreciated to support the River Center and the Park.  Watch this space for the 2013 event!

Interested in joining our Board? Contact Jeff Bohman 360-477-8881
Work parties? Chuck Preble 360-683-4549
Trail adoption? Carrie Kalina 360-681-0420

We need your help!

The Peninsula Trails Coalition has had an eventful year. Below is a summary of what has been accomplished. Details for many of these milestones can be found in the “What’s Happening on the ODT” column…
• We established and nurtured excellent working relationships with numerous government jurisdictions and agencies that have a stake in the ODT at Discovery Bay. We are awaiting final results of the grant applications done by Jefferson Co and WA Dept Fish and Wildlife. Despite the quality of the applications, there are many other worthy projects ranked higher than ours, so we are beginning the search for private grants, just in case we need them.

We need your help!

The ODT’s expansion–while glorious, note-worthy and exciting–greatly increases the demand on our volunteer
workforce. We are about half way to the 126-mile ODT vision. Sadly, as trail duties expand, the county and city
maintenance coffers have shrunk. This increased pressure on volunteers has sorely taxed our capabilities. Workers come and go, and while many have contributed for years, our pool, frankly, is “graying.” They simply cannot physically continue indefinitely.

History of the Larry Scott Memorial Trail

Larry Scott Memorial Trail—From Dream to Reality

Full Newsletter HERE….

For more information the link to the City of PA Parks and Recreation Waterfront Trail site is http://www.cityofpa.us/parksrecreation.htm and you can reach them by phone at (360) 417-4550.

PTC Vice President, Chuck Preble, on a roll in West Port Angeles

Discovery Bay — Grant applications for funding to build the Maynard section and design the ODT the rest of the way to Hwy 20 have been submitted by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and Jefferson County (Jeffco). They have given preliminary presentations on the grants to the evaluators, and the feedback received will significantly strengthen the applications for the final round. Our gratitude and a huge thank you to: Nik Worden, who worked with Jeffco on this; Jeffco for prioritizing their staff time to write grants, and WDFW for revising their grant plans so they could help the ODT at this critical time. It takes a village to build this trail!

Spruce Railroad Trail — See report in What’s Happening on the ODT.

Fundraising Committee — We need some help with this, folks. For starters, we have offers on the table that the board cannot handle alone; we sure don’t want to just say no! Your interest and enthusiasm trumps any lack of experience in garnering funds. Please, can you give us a hand? Contact Chris per info on back page. Thank you.

Full Newsletter HERE….

After the construction of Phase 1 in 2009, the ONP staff determined that the remaining four miles of pathway (Phase 2) would be the subject of an Environmental Assessment (EA) to examine the impact on the lakeshore.  The Spruce Railroad Trail (SRRT) EA was released in September 2011 and was subsequently withdrawn due to a number of safety and usability questions raised during public comment.

[The 2012 SRRT EA was released and available for review and comment until June 8, 2012.] 

Sadly, the Preferred Alternative (PA) chosen by ONP still falls short of the minimum standards necessary for a shared use path. 

The PTC board of directors has carefully evaluated the new PA and has come to the conclusion that while it is greatly improved from the PA of 2011, it has three major shortcomings:  surface, grade, and scope.

When evaluating the suitability of a trail design, it is important to have a clear understanding of the user community and types of uses the facility is designed to serve.  The proposed SRRT upgrade is intended to become a portion of the 126-mile ODT, and as such, needs to recognize and conform to the needs of ODT users.

The ODT is a shared use path.  Shared use paths have both a recreation and a transportation function and embrace the widest range of users:  pedestrians, equestrians, both road and mountain bicyclers, folks with wheelchairs, folks walking with assistive devices, and others such as rollerbladers and skateboarders.  A key aspect of this user community is that it can include large numbers of relatively inexperienced users.  Trail design must provide a safe environment for all.

Surface:  The 2012 PA proposes a 10 foot wide compacted gravel surface for the trail.  While compacted gravel is an acceptable surface for shared use paths in many regions of the country, it is inappropriate in a temperate rainforest environment.  The proposed all-gravel surface is unlikely to maintain the firm and stable properties required for wheelchair and road bicycle use—given the high rainfall (up to 100 in/yr.), thick canopy cover, and high rate of accumulation of leaf litter and other detritus.   In the 2011 EA, p. 109, the Park dismissed any consideration of an all-gravel surface, stating that

“…it became clear that the use of stock on the shared gravel trail would result in an uneven surface not suited to use by people with mobility impairments, such as those requiring the use of a wheelchair.  This would not meet the definition of a firm and stable surface as defined by the ABAAS/Outdoor Recreation Guidelines.  For this reason, the park did not retain an alternative that would use compacted gravel along the entire trail corridor.”

The PTC board concurs with this statement by the Park and notes that there is no information in the current EA that would support an alternate opinion.  The board further notes that research conducted by the United States Forest Service on the stability of a compacted gravel surface in wet and dry conditions showed that a freshly manicured and prepared surface that, when dry, met the standards test “for firm and stable,” would barely meet the standards when wetted. 

When saturated with rain and impregnated with leaf litter pulverized by stock and bicycles, we believe the surface will be inadequate in terms of stability and traction.  We cannot understand why ONP chose to abandon its previous correct assertion, and chose the only non-paved alternative in the current EA.

Grade:  The Preferred Alternative proposes using steep grades on gravel.  While the PA does not describe in any detail the anticipated grades in Segment D (the area of greatest elevation change), the design standards referenced by the Park allow for grades up to 12%. 

The PTC board is very concerned about the safety of slopes greater than 5% with a gravel surface.  The limited traction available on a gravel surface (compared to asphalt) is unsuitable on steep slopes.  We note that the Park states that this trail is “designed for relatively inexperienced users”.  We think that a 12% downgrade on a wet, leaf-covered gravel trail is unsafe for novice or intermediate wheelchair users and road bicyclists. 

Scope:  The Preferred Alternative dismisses [as do all five of the alternatives] consideration of a segment of trail [southwest of Fairholm Summit] in the Park separate from the SRRT that was present in all alternatives in the 2011 Environmental Assessment.

The southwestern part of this segment is critical to the ODT as a connector between two sections of the trail [the Mt. Mueller Bypass and the 2918 Road] that lie outside the Park.  The reasons for dismissal involve issues at the northeast end of this segment—far removed from the critical ODT area. 

PTC finds this dismissal will leave unaddressed a portion of the proposed route of the ODT within the Park, necessitating further negotiation, and possibly requiring another EA to resolve the route.  We believe the ODT-relevant section of this segment should be reinstated in the EA.

The PTC board is pleased to find that the 2012 EA does contain an alternative we can support, Number 5.  While Alternative 5 still falls far short of meeting the minimum requirements for a shared use path and the ODT, we feel its 8 foot wide paved surface with a 3 foot wide accompanying equestrian gravel path provides sufficient mitigation for stability and grade.

The red x’s along the bay show the old route leading to trestle that will now be removed; orange dashes show proposed new route of ODT on slope just above lagoon.

Discovery Bay — PTC has been working HARD (lots of miles, meetings, and “seat time”) to get on top of this issue. We have made major progress in assuring the ODT will have a viable route through this bottleneck (the Maynard section: the narrowest strip of land between the bay and Hwy 101).

We cannot adequately express our gratitude, awe, and appreciation for our ODT supporters, near and far. The response to our plea for funds has been overwhelming. We have achieved our goal of raising $35,000 in less than two months! (This literally brought us to tears on more than one occasion.) It is an incredible privilege to lead the effort for such a constituency; your love for and support of the ODT are gratefully acknowledged.

Our trail design is well underway, and we have been able to identify a route that will meet both the restoration and trail goals. We expect to have a final design soon. With our planning monies secured, we have turned our effort towards finding the approximately $600K needed to construct the trail through the Maynard section and the approximately $100K needed to design the southern and eastern route around the head of Discovery Bay.

Full Newsletter HERE….

A Day in the Life of a Trail Project — Building the Olympic Discovery Trail

Things are heating up on the ODT!

Three developments this fall have the potential for tremendous impact on the ODT:

1. There is new hope for breaking the routing deadlock around the head of Discovery Bay, as reported under JTC news. This pinch between the shore line and Hwy 101 may finally be solved!

2. Olympic National Park’s results of the Environmental Assessment of the proposed Spruce Railroad Trail upgrade at Lake Crescent will have a huge impact on how soon and how well that bottleneck is solved. Your pair o’presidents logged a lot of computer, road and meeting time chasing down the facts and regulations pertaining to this complex issue. We worked with cycling groups, Olympic National Park, county and state officials, US senators, and Representative Norm Dick’s office to urge a true ODT-level upgrade of the SRRT. PTC thanks all of you who sent comments to the Park during the response period. Soon we hope to know if we had an effect.

Full Newsletter HERE….

Carrie Blake Park Detour - Sequim

The Longest Day of Trails event in Port Townsend on Sunday, June 19, was a great success, despite the somewhat soggy weather. The LDoT is the major fundraising event of the year for the Jefferson Trails Coalition, the Jefferson County contingent of the Peninsula Trails Coalition.

Held on the Sunday closest to the Summer Solstice, participants are encouraged to travel as many miles as they can between sunrise and sunset on the Larry Scott Trail, the eastern end of the Olympic Discovery Trail, to raise money for three local trail organizations: The Jefferson Trails Coalition, the Pacific NW National Scenic Trail, and the Quimper Trails Association.

Full Newsletter HERE….

New Bollard Markings

Peninsula Trails Coalition is currently accepting applications for new members for our Board of Directors. The next several years promise to be exciting ones for the Olympic Discovery Trail. After years of hard work by many people, agencies, and organizations, the momentum has built and progress is imminent.

But with this progress comes added responsibility, and added work. The Olympic Discovery Trail will become one of the most beautiful trails in the country, attracting trail users from around the globe. But before that can happen, some challenges need to be surmounted. That is where you come in! Becoming a Board Member allows you the opportunity to shape the future of the Olympic Discovery Trail.

Full Newsletter HERE….