Push is on to save Orcas Island landmark

Turtleback Mountain is getting by with a little help from its friends — some you've heard of, and some you haven't.

A coalition of conservation groups — the San Juan Preservation Trust, the San Juan County Land Bank and The Trust for Public Land — has one more month to raise money to buy the mountain on the west side of Orcas Island. Once in trust, the 1,578-acre natural landscape would be opened to hikers and forever closed off to developers.

Financial support has ranged from a $1 million matching gift from a Stuart Island family to 20 percent fee discounts that Orcas Island's chimney sweep is offering customers who have contributed to the Turtleback campaign.

"The Far Side" cartoonist Gary Larson has created an original artwork for the effort. The cartoon is screened on T-shirts being given away to donors who give at least $150. It features doctors tending to the mountain in a hospital emergency room. One doctor is applying a defibrillator while another is removing developers and tossing them into a waste can.

Larson and his wife, Toni Carmichael, who own a place on Orcas, are members of the campaign steering committee.

"Having spent time on the island off and on since I was a kid, it's amazed me that to this day it's been able to retain as much of its unspoiled beauty as it has," said Larson, who grew up in Tacoma.

"My sense of why this is so is because many, if not most, of the people who live here are like-minded in their appreciation for the island's intrinsic beauty and disconnect from the kind of blight we all see around other parts of the state, where farmlands are converted into shopping malls, rolling hills have become housing developments and sprawl goes unchecked."

Turtleback is owned by the Medina Foundation, a Seattle-based philanthropic organization started by the late Weyerhaeuser tycoon Norton Clapp. The foundation put the land — its most valuable asset — on the market last fall to fortify its charitable endowment.

A developer with plans to build estate homes on Turtleback offered to buy the mountain for $18.5 million. But the foundation instead offered it to the conservation groups, which have until Nov. 15 to come up with the money.

Although closed to the public, Turtleback is beloved in the islands, its green hump serving as a landmark for boaters on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Over the years, few have had the chance to scale the mountain and enjoy its far-reaching views. A gazebo near the top where Clapp used to entertain guests has evolved into a romantic hideaway for trespassers.

The campaign is about $1.5 million shy of its $18.5 million goal. The bulk — $10 million — is from a San Juan County Land Bank bond issue. Private gifts total about $6 million so far, and the San Juan Preservation Trust has added $1 million.

If the goal isn't reached, the groups probably would borrow the remaining money and consider selling pieces of Turtleback for development, said Tim Seifert, executive director of the San Juan Preservation Trust.

No new development is planned on the mountain's slopes or summit, beyond carving out hiking trails and possibly a small cabin for the caretaker.

More than 540 individuals have donated to the campaign, some inspired by the gift of Sue Cooley, of Seattle, and her son-in-law, Bob Cooley-Gilliom, who are matching individual donations up to $1 million. The family has had a vacation home on nearby Stuart Island since the 1980s.

"There are very few opportunities left to preserve such large areas of land," said Cooley-Gilliom, 52, a hydrologist who lives in California's Sierra Nevada foothills. "It's important for the community to rally and seize those opportunities, because you only get one chance."

On a Saturday last month, about 1,200 people paid up to $15 a ticket to attend a rally for Turtleback. The event raised $200,000, about one-third of it through an auction of works by local artists. A limited-edition, two-volume "The Complete Far Side" book and lithograph set, both signed by Larson, sold for $32,000.

Prospective donors have been escorted up the mountain. Bob Lundeen, a former chairman of Dow Chemical who retired on Orcas in 1986, took the tour on a clear day a couple of months ago. He ended up donating $300,000 and prefers to think of his gift as an investment in maintaining Orcas' quality of life.

"I had no idea until I got up top there how much diversity and beauty there was," he said. "There is old-growth forest, wetlands, and you get to see the origins of a lot of our streams. And the views, particularly from the steep west side of the mountain, are unbelievable.

"Turtleback is unspoiled, kind of like the way God made it."

Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com