Judge blocks moving new shelters to Olympic National Park

TACOMA — Concerns over natural preservation trumped arguments for historical preservation when a federal judge blocked the National Park Service from flying two trail shelters by helicopter into the backcountry of Olympic National Park.

U.S. District Court Judge Franklin D. Burgess ruled Monday that moving the prefabricated shelters into the mountainous area northwest of Lake Cushman would violate the federal Wilderness Act, which prohibits roads, structures and motorized equipment in areas designated as wilderness.

Burgess said that placing new structures into the wilderness would "surely be disconcerting and obviously distract from experiencing, in the Park Service's words, 'wilderness on its own terms.'"

The two new shelters are replicas of now collapsed historic shelters that had been at Low Divide at Quinault Pass and Home Sweet Home near the headwaters of the Duckabush River.

The Park Service wanted the three-sided replacement shelters to give hikers safety from poor weather and to preserve the historical nature of the two areas.

Olympic Park Associates, Wilderness Watch and Public Employees for Environmental for Environmental Responsibility brought the lawsuit.

Barb Maynes, spokeswoman for Olympic National Park, said she didn't know whether the decision would be appealed. The debate over the two shelters is just part of a larger conflict over other shelters in the park, she said.