Out & About: Gone to the lake: winter’s version

Gone to the lake: winter’s version

OUTGOING – Ice anglers weren’t the only ones attracted by near-perfect ice conditions at many area lakes during two recent cold, snowless weather windows.

Skaters scratched tracks for miles as nature groomed surfaces with a Zamboni’s touch at lakes from North Idaho to the Washington scablands.

Last weekend, Jim Seyfert of Sandpoint found a slick new bike route as he pedaled from town to Oden Bay and back along the frozen shoreline of Lake Pend Oreille. His bike was equipped with studded bike tires.

“In places, the ice was so smooth and clear, it was like riding on a mirror,” said his pedaling partner, Jim Mellen.

Washington plans to manage wolves

OUTREACH – Friday is the deadline to comment on Washington’s proposed wolf management plan, which was developed over the past two years by the Fish and Wildlife Department, a 17-member citizen advisory group and wolf experts.

The draft plan was presented to more than 1,150 people attending 12 public meetings across the state.

The gray wolf was removed from the state by the 1930s through hunting and trapping and remains federally protected under the federal Endangered Species Act in the western two-thirds of Washington, and throughout Washington under state law.

No federal or state plans call for releasing wolves in Washington, but the animals are moving in on their own from Canada and Idaho.

Washington’s first breeding wolf pack in at least 70 years was found in western Okanogan County in 2008. A second breeding pack was confirmed in Pend Oreille County last summer.

Reports of other possible packs are being investigated elsewhere in the state, including the Blue Mountains.

Standout quotes from 2009

“We had 169 new fires last night alone.”

– Kim Seinbart, British Columbia fire info officer referring to an Aug. 2 perfect storm of record high temperatures, tinder-dry conditions and thunderstorms scattered the width of the province, where more than 2,000 wildfires had broken out by that week.

“I thought about food, beer, coffee, level ground and sunshine.”

– Jason Schilling, 33, of Corvallis, Ore., who stayed behind after a helicopter crew rescued his climbing partner in July. Weather closed in, leaving Schilling to wait four nights in a small cave on a rock face of 8,031-foot Mount Terror east of Mount Baker before the crew could return. As an addendum, he said he also thought about his girlfriend, who was nearby during the interview.