Forest roads not ready for visitors, officials say

Thinking of a hike in the hills after the Easter ham? Or itching to try out a new tent?

Wait, please. That’s the plea issued this week by the Idaho Panhandle National Forests.

The unseasonably warm and dry weather has lured people into the region’s forests two or three months earlier than normal, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Dave O’Brien. Shaded roads remain icy, resulting in higher numbers of slide-offs by vehicles and ATVs.

The ice melts during the day and freezes at night, creating a surface slicker than most hockey rinks, but often with steep, dangerous consequences on either side of the roadway. Craig Ely, road manager on the Coeur d’Alene River Ranger District, compared conditions in some areas to an ice cube sliding across a mirror: “No traction, no control, just gravity.”

Forest Service firefighters even had to use chains after one of their engines became stuck in an icy creek bottom during a recent fire call, according to a statement from the agency. The statement went on to note that the combination of early fires and slick ice is “a first for area wildland firefighters.”

Roads not covered by ice are deep with mud. Vehicle traffic on these stretches can damage roads and cause fish-choking sediment to wash into nearby creeks and rivers, O’Brien said.

The largely snow-free backcountry this season has allowed hikers, climbers, campers and ATV enthusiasts the earliest recorded access to many trails across the region, O’Brien said. A recent hike to the top of Chilco Peak, about 10 miles south of Bayview, Idaho, revealed only a few 3-foot-deep pillows of crusty snow at the very top of the mile-high mountain.

“Those are usually bigger than that in July,” O’Brien said.

Despite the dusting of snow on nearby mountains in recent days, forest conditions remain dry, O’Brien said.

Most parts of the Inland Northwest have received less than a quarter-inch of moisture this week, said Bob Tobin, meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Spokane.

“Even though it’s been cold and showery, it hasn’t amounted to much, just some drips and drabs,” he said.

“But when you haven’t had much most of the winter, that little bit helped.”

A series of storms is expected to begin rolling through the region beginning late Saturday, but warming temperatures mean only the mountains above 4,000 feet have much of a chance at picking up snow.

The high-pressure bubble off the Washington coast that has kept the region dry appears to be weakening.

That could mean a gradual return to a more normal weather pattern, Tobin said, but he cautioned against becoming too hopeful at the prospect of rain or snow.

“We’ve been pretty unlucky,” he said.

“Four or five days out it looks like we’re going to get a wet system and then they end up splitting and going around us. This one looks like it’s actually going to stay together. It looks promising, but that will not get us out of any kind of drought.”