By Susan Ernsdorff My friend Dee and I had a plan to hike on July 24. The air was not good in the valley, so we decided on Maple Pass, starting somewhat early to hopefully beat the crowds. We were at the trailhead by about 8:15 a.m. — the parking lot was already full, so […]
My Turn
My Turn – Keeping emergency care close to home
By Mike Pruett and Cherri ThomasThree Rivers Hospital As members of the Three Rivers Hospital Board of Commissioners, we’ve had the privilege of seeing firsthand what a community-owned hospital means to the people who live here. Every day, our physicians, nurses and staff are there for neighbors experiencing medical emergencies, often during the most difficult […]
My Turn – Choose quiet road recreation, not WATVs
By Tim Hennings The debate over wheeled all-terrain vehicle (WATV) access is often framed too narrowly, as if the only question is whether one more kind of vehicle should be allowed on selected roads. That misses the larger issue. The real question is what kind of recreation economy the Methow Valley wants to build. The […]
My Turn – TwispWorks’ evolution continues, bumps and all
By Ray Johnston When the old U.S. Forest Service complex in Twisp was surplused, an ad hoc group of citizens formed a committee to consider what to do. Through a generous donor, this group became a nonprofit and succeeded in acquiring the property. Heated discussions ensued. Should it be a trade school, an arts center, […]
My Turn – A road trip to the previous century
By Richard Rapport We left from the Methow Valley to drive again across the north central section of Washington state to visit Steptoe Butte, a peculiar land formation near the Montana boarder named for Edward Steptoe. A 19th-century fort built nearby and its surrounding little community that sprang up known as “Steptoeville” adjoined the 3,612-foot […]
My Turn – Protecting balance on Fish and Wildlife Commission
By Melanie Rowland (Editor’s note: this column is partially in response to an article by The Washington State Standard that appeared in the Feb. 25 issue of the Methow Valley News). When I agreed to serve on the Fish and Wildlife Commission four years ago, I had no idea that I was placing myself directly […]
My Turn – What you’re not being told about forest ‘thinning’
By Chad Hanson, Ph.D. Recently, a guest column in the Methow Valley News by Susan Prichard, a well-known promoter of logging on our national forests, took aim at me in the course of attempting to advocate for a series of large logging projects being proposed and implemented right now on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest (“Setting […]
My Turn – Do your research on forest ‘thinning’ pros and cons
By Gina McCoy Since 2001, despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent on suppression, fires have scorched over 730,000 acres in the Methow watershed, killing more than 350,000 acres of forest. Simple math shows that this rate of destruction is incompatible with maintaining mature forests across much of the watershed. While opponents of thinning to […]
EDITOR’S NOTE
The debate about whether “thinning” is an effective method for mitigating the devastation of wildfires has grown notably heated in recent months. Proponents on each side have challenged “the science” of the other side’s arguments, and in some cases made it personal. Included in this week’s issue are two submitted columns taking opposite sides of […]
My Turn – What I learned from my time in Greenland
By Dwight Filer In 2014, I had the great privilege to work in Greenland at Summit Station, the highest point on the Greenland Ice Cap. I was the plumber for the Arctic summer field season at this remote international research station supported by the National Science Foundation. I flew in a military LC-130H transport plane […]
