Their wildest dream comes true: Wild Sky Wilderness opens

INDEX, Snohomish County — After years cajoling fellow lawmakers, strategizing with environmentalists and attending countless community meetings, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray stood on the bank of the Skykomish River Friday and looked into the newly created Wild Sky Wilderness.

"Rick," she declared, pointing to a forested mountain and then gleefully slapping the arm of U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, a fellow Democrat, "we did it!"

Murray, Larsen and several dozen wilderness advocates, congressional aides and Forest Service officials, many seasoned veterans of the Wild Sky campaign, gathered near the tiny mountain town of Index Friday to celebrate the creation of Washington's first wilderness area in more than two decades.

Wild Sky boosters said their success heralds future campaigns for creating still more protected wilderness in Washington.

"We broke the logjam," said Murray, who helped lead the effort in Congress. "I think now people are saying, 'Well, this is a doable process.' "

But it wasn't easy.

Environmentalists first conceived it in 1999, hoping to protect a slice of lowland forest near Seattle, and introduce a new generation of citizens and politicians to the idea of creating wilderness areas.

In the ensuing nine years, it weathered opposition from a powerful House committee chair, threats of a Senate filibuster and hours of careful negotiation with snowmobilers, campers and other interest groups afraid they would be shut out of their favorite places. Along the way, it shrank from a proposed 126,000 acres to the final 106,000 acres of the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

The effort made the victory celebration that much sweeter for Mike Town, founder of Friends of Wild Sky and an environmental-sciences teacher at Redmond High School.

"I can't wipe the smile off my face," Town told the crowd. "My jaw muscles are getting fatigued."

The land includes low-lying forests, some logged decades ago, some with centuries-old Douglas firs. There are high alpine ridges, sheer granite cliffs and the North Fork of the Skykomish River, where steelhead leap upstream. Town takes students to a stream flowing out of the wilderness where pink salmon still spawn so plentifully they fill the creek from bank to bank. All of it lies a few hours drive from Seattle, near Highway 2.

The wilderness designation bars virtually all mechanized activity there — no logging, motorcycles, cars or new mining claims. You can't even legally fire up a chain saw. Wild Sky advocates carefully drew the boundaries to avoid opposition from snowmobilers and the heavily used Barclay Lake.

Mark Rey, a Bush appointee who oversees the Forest Service, spoke at the event, praising the Wild Sky proponents for taking a moderate approach that built broad support for the wilderness. He also announced plans to name a trailhead leading into the wilderness after the late Jennifer Dunn, the longtime Republican congresswoman from Bellevue who supported Wild Sky, and who died last September.

Still, today the wilderness faces obstacles of a more practical sort. One of the main roads leading to it was cut off by flooding several years ago and has yet to be repaired.

That, combined with lingering snow on the ground, meant Larsen and Murray never set foot inside the wilderness Friday. But the weather cooperated, giving the revelers a clear view of craggy Gunn Peak and Merchant Peak, both now protected as wilderness.

Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com

This story, published May 31, 2008 was corrected on June 21, 2008. A previous version of this story incorrectly spelled Rep. Rick Larsen's name in the caption under the photo.