Fallen Trees Close Recreational Trails

Unpublished correction: The name of Higgens Point is misspelled in this story. This information is from the Idaho Department of Parks & Recreation.

Cross-country skiing would have been great recently if many of the popular trails hadn’t been littered with fallen trees.

Cleanup of storm-damaged trees on city, state and federal park land in the Idaho Panhandle will continue well into spring.

Among the hardest-hit local parks are Tubbs Hill in Coeur d’Alene, Mineral Ridge hiking trail at Beauty Bay and Round Lake State Park’s campground and cross-country ski trails.

“We estimated we had over 100 trees down over one mile of the ski trail,” said Gary Parker, Round Lake park’s manager. “It took two of us three days to clean it out.

“When the springtime meltdown comes, we’ll have a major cleanup.”

One 22-inch diameter Douglas fir crashed down on the campground’s main restroom. The nearly 4 feet of snow on the roof appeared to protect it from serious damage, Parker said.

Tubbs Hill lost as many as 1,000 trees alone in the ice storm and ensuing heavy snowfall. The Bureau of Land Management closed its Mineral Ridge trail, initially because of the danger of falling trees.

“If people try to hike the trail, they’re going to find it very difficult,” said the BLM’s Terry Kincaid. “I’m concerned about damage to the hillside when they hike around the trees. In some places you can’t even see where there is a trail.”

At Farragut State Park, “we probably had 1,000 trees or more come down on the trails,” said Al Leiser, the park’s assistant manager.

The park also lost power to the swimming area facilities and other buildings when power lines were torn down by falling trees. The lines won’t be repaired until spring.

While Farragut’s cross-country ski trails are open, snowmobile trails on the northern end of the park remain closed indefinitely because of downed trees, Leiser said.

In Post Falls, the full extent of the damage is unknown. Parks personnel have not ventured onto the trails in Q’Emlin Park, but the main park area near the beach appears unscathed, said parks director David Fair. The city’s cemetery lost 22 trees.

“We fared better than we expected,” he said.

Logging is being discussed for several affected parks, including Tubbs Hill, Mineral Ridge and Higgins Point.

Kincaid said a small helicopterlogging sale already was planned for Mineral Ridge’s Douglas fir before the ice storm hit.

“We had a lot of disease problems with the trees on the hill. They were about to die and fall over anyway,” Kincaid said. “The ice storm just sped up the process.”

The sale likely will be revamped to take out the fallen and damaged trees, he said. “It gets the work done for free and we collect a little money on the side,” Kincaid said.

The agency also may contact volunteer groups to help clear the trail in the spring, he said.

Higgens Point, the eastern end of the Centennial Trail, might get a dose of salvage logging, too, said park ranger Jim Richards.

“There’s probably a couple loads of fallen trees,” Richards said. The trail still is littered with debris east of Tony’s Supper Club, and Kootenai County has offered to help clear it.

“It needs to get done,” said Terry Hubbard, supervisor of county waterways department. “There are still people trying to cross-country ski the trail in the slush.”

Priest Lake State Park didn’t suffer much damage, but hardly anyone can get there. The road to the park hasn’t been plowed, and the slush requires a heavy duty four-wheel drive to negotiate.

The four permanent park employees still are without power and expect to stay that way for another month.

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