Blazing new trails

Horse riders are hot to trot for a neglected gem of wilderness just off the four-lane stretch of U.S. Highway 2 between Spokane and Newport.

While motorists speed past by the thousands, members of the Backcountry Horsemen of American have been unloading their horses and mules along the highway and packing chain saws and tools into Pend Oreille County Park.

The equestrians are riding to rescue a 440-acre chunk of forest and old-growth trees that’s been tainted in recent years by squatters and partiers fostered by a dearth of funds, if not a lack of interest by county officials.

“This park has a little bit of everything for working young horses,” said Trygve Culp of Addy, the area volunteer trail coordinator for the Pacific Northwest Trail Association. “It’s free of snow and open early in the season. It has some wide flat roads as well as forest trails and, believe it or not, there’s also some good hills in there.”

The park is well-marked with huge green signs 22 miles north of Spokane and a short leap from communities such as Deer Park and Newport.

Yet there is no lake or river in the park to lure the masses off Highway 2.

“We like what we see here,” said Bob Gish, who was cinching up his horse.

“It’s a good place to bring the kids to get them involved volunteering for public service,” said Vicki Gish, Bob’s wife, as she set out with pruning sheers in the scabbard strapped to her saddle.

“We heard this was a favorite getaway for local families to come during the Depression when they didn’t have enough money to go far from home.”

Evelyn Reed of the Pend Oreille Historical Society said the old highway between Newport and Spokane ran through what everyone in the area called “the park.”

“It was just a natural place to go,” she said.

The horse riders have been working this spring, continuing the effort they started last fall to re-work the park’s seven-plus miles of neglected trails.

“It’s really not going to take much re-routing and work to improve the trails,” Culp said.

And if the Pend Oreille Park Board succeeds in getting a state grant, the Northeast Chapter of Backcountry Horsemen promises to provide the muscle to stretch the dollars for maintaining trails, improving the campground and building an equestrian staging area.

Other school and service groups also are pledging volunteer support, said Deana Edmiston, a Park Board member and the local AmericCorps coordinator based at the Forest Service office in Newport.

Additional interest has come from Cusick and Newport students, the Conservation District, WSU Master Gardeners, Public Works Department, Tri-County Economic Development District, Newport/Oldtown Chamber of Commerce and County Weed Board, she said.

Volunteers are planning National Trails Day activities in the park on June 6, with a work party starting at noon followed by a potluck dinner at 5 p.m.

“There is quite a bit of enthusiasm for the backcountry experience you can find in this miniature wilderness.”

“The facilities are not in the best shape right now, but we are hoping to change that,” she said. “It’s very rustic, you could say. Many people love it that way, but to appease people who like it a little less rustic we are applying for a grant to improve it.”

Nature already has left a fine backdrop.

“The trees are 350-400 years old,” she said, noting that the park was purchased by concerned citizens and donated to the state in the 1920s to save it from being logged. The state gave it to Pend Oreille County in 1980, she said.

“Since then, not much has really been done to improve the park, aside from what was necessary,” she said.

“I actually rode a mule there a few weeks ago, and there are some amazing views from that park that I was totally unaware of. Not a lot of people know about it.”

Currently the park has a day-use area and 20 campsites with a restroom. The county has applied to the Interagency Committee for Outdoor Recreation for a Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program grant for new picnic tables, fire rings, picnic shelter, grills, restroom, signs and more.

The state Department of Transportation plans to incorporate an interpretive trail and other improvements to the park entrance when it commences on road work scheduled to begin this summer, she said.

The park already has power, water and septic service. “We’ve been looking for a park host to stay there this summer and take over maintenance and operation of the park,” Edmiston said.

“Mostly the people who go there want to get out in nature, nothing super fancy, but just get out,” she said.