Last chance to hike Nisqually dike trail is this weekend

Last call for walks around the Brown Farm Dike Trail at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge, planned to shut for good on Monday.

This weekend is the final chance to enjoy the 5.5-mile trail at the refuge, atop a dike that will be removed to restore the natural function of the estuary.

A heavily used one-mile boardwalk trail near the refuge headquarters will remain open throughout the project and is not being replaced or changed.

The trademark twin dairy barns at the refuge, built in 1934, also will be untouched.

In 2010 the refuge will provide a trail that doesn't exist today, creating at the northwest corner of the delta a nearly three-mile path to allow visitors to walk through the restored estuary on an elevated boardwalk to the mouth of McAllister Creek.

The refuge will maintain 246 acres of freshwater wetlands inside the newly configured dike as a refuge for freshwater birds and wildlife.

The refuge hosted an April 18 farewell walk for the dike trail attended by more than 1,200 people.

In all, project managers hope to restore 762 acres of estuary habitat at the 3,000-acre refuge that were converted to upland pasture and freshwater wetlands when farmers build dikes to farm the land.

The estuary-restoration project is the largest of its kind in the Northwest, and the managers hope it will increase by 50 percent the amount of functioning estuary habitat in South Puget Sound.

More than $3.4 million was provided in federal economic-stimulus money for the project.

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com