How Do You Enjoy the Olympics? Help Plan the Future of Olympic National Forest
Olympic National Forest is looking to hear how you create in the region as part of their Sustainable Recreation plan.
Washington’s Olympic Peninsula offers varying landscapes iconic to locals and visitors alike. In Olympic National Forest (ONF), people enjoy plentiful opportunities to camp, hike and play. An integrated and strategic approach to sustainable recreation is necessary to drive recreation planning — and Olympic National Forest is looking for your help to do this!
Olympic National Forest is beginning the process of creating their Sustainable Recreation plan. This effort will prompt the forest to rethink how they manage their recreation sites to ensure recreation opportunities exist today and for the future. Throughout the process, the forest will work with regional stakeholders — land managers, tribes, community organizations and other partners — to imagine new and better ways of overseeing Olympic National Forest’s 134 recreation sites.
A hiker stands next to the Lower South Fork Skokomish River on a dusk hike in fall. Photo by Rebecca Cooper
Why now?
Olympic National Forest is one part of the larger Olympic Peninsula, an area that encompasses public lands at local, state, and federal levels in addition to tribal lands, working farms, towns, cities and more. This region is juggling lots of growing challenges to sustaining outdoor recreation activities — from impacts of climate change and increased visitation to bringing a fresh focus to equitable access.
To better prepare for these factors in the coming decade, the forest is looking to develop a common vision on how partners can work together to strengthen the economic and quality of life benefits that recreation offers across the Olympic Peninsula.
Trail volunteers pause for a moment on a Backcountry Response Team trip along the Dry Creek Trail in 2018. Photo by Al Mashburn
Taking care of Hiking Trails Today ... And tomorrow
WTA has worked in Olympic National Forest for two and half decades and is one of WTA’s oldest partnerships with a Forest Service region. Dedicated volunteer crews and longtime volunteer crew leaders conduct trail work on the forest — from annual maintenance to big projects like rebuilding the Dry Creek trail and rerouting trails around the South Fork Skokomish River.
There is incredible hiking in Olympic National Forest. Making sure those trails are taken care of today, and managed in a sustainable way for years to come matters to WTA and hikers across the state. We plan to continue advocating on behalf of the hiking community through the creation of the Sustainable Recreation plan, but there is an opportunity for your direct feedback now! This form represents the first of ongoing opportunities to include your perspective as a trail user, making sure your voice becomes a part of the Olympic National Forest Sustainable Recreation plan.
- Take this survey to share your experience recreating on the Olympic Peninsula now!
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