IATC History-Chapter 26 (2006): IATC Stretches to Greenway
Chapter 26: 2006
IATC STRETCHES TO GREENWAY
By Doug Simpson
January – March: Marathon to Greenway
In an article on the Issaquah Alps, Joe Toynbee pointed out the various peaks in each mountain. Cougar Mountain is about 3,000 acres with over 50 miles of hiking trails. Its summit is 1,595 feet at Wilderness Peak. Squak Mountain has about 2,440 acres of public ownership divided between King County and Washington State Parks. The highest point is just about 2,000 feet at Central Peak. Tiger Mountain is the largest and highest, with 13,500 acres of Tiger Mountain State Forest, and East Tiger is the highest point at 3,004 feet; Tiger has over 100 miles of trails.
On his resignation as Hikes Coordinator, Fred Zeitler reviewed his seven-year term (1998-2004), during which 1,004 hikes were led, with 8,962 hikers for an average of 8.9 per hike. Zeitler noted a decline in 2005, which he attributed to the club’s hikes not being listed in newspapers or on the web.
A lengthy article reviewed the IATC career of Jack Hornung, who first took on a rehabilitation of Squak Mountain trails after years of relative neglect, and then promoted “marathon hikes,” which became known as Grand Traverses. In one letter, Hornung wrote about IATC’s “good people”—Harvey Manning, Dave Kappler, Bill Longwell, Ralph Owen, Gail Palm, Rodi Ludlum, Lauren McLane, Stan Unger, Gus Nelson, Tom Wood and Ted Thomsen. “These leaders of the Issaquah Alps Trails Club are a CEO’s dream—you couldn’t BUY this assemblage of talent,” he wrote.
Meanwhile. Ralph Owen elaborated on IATC’s first two Grand Traverses. The first was 26 miles with 6,500 feet of total elevation gain on October 29, 1988. The second, slightly longer, was on September 30, 1989. Both, Owen wrote, were results of Jack Hornung’s “marathon hike” idea and preceded the eventual establishment of the Mountains to Sound Greenway. The article is an excellent history of how these marathons were created and carried out.
April – June: IATC and Greenway Set in Motion
The club president reported that county officials and the U.S. Department of Interior were closing off large areas of the Cougar Mountain park due renewed danger from fires underground from old coal mining shafts. Possible cave-ins represent great danger. The biggest threat where areas were closed off is in the northwest section of the park.
Cougar Mountain trails were rated #15 in tje nation in the Top 100 Trails by Trails.com.
At IATC’s annual meeting January 26 two veterans were added to the club’s board of directors—Bill Longwell and Steve Williams, now retired from his long-time post as manager of the Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park. Doug Simpson, Ken Konigsmark, Jackie Hughes and Sally Pedowitz were reelected as president, vice-president, treasurer and secretary. By-laws changes approved were making the club presidency a two-year term and initiating a new position of president-elect. Former president Steven Drew and former treasurer Frank Gilliland left the board as they were moving out of the area.
Bill Longwell discussed the development of the IATC concept. “In the beginning. . . was Harvey Manning and friends. . . and the bus 210 bus.” Longwell explained: “It seemed in those early years (the 1970s) that most people who hiked the Issaquah Alps came from Seattle.”
After gaining cooperation with the Issaquah Parks Department, the first “Parks” hike was April 7, 1979. Harvey was to lead a hike up to the Middle Tiger summit with Longwell to bring up the rear. “And the rear was a long way back. . . as 68 people showed up in downtown Issaquah early on that Saturday morning. Soon, the Issaquah Alps Trails Club was organized as Manning and friends organized atop Cougar Mountain on the historic “Day of Three Thunderstorms.”
In the same issue, Ralph Owen recounted the July, 1990 Mountains to Sound March, an 88-mile, 5-day march from Snoqualmie Pass to the Seattle waterfront. Jack Hornung was asked to represent the club at a meeting of the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Commission. His impactful speech led State Representative Gary Locke to request a written proposal, which after written by Hornung was soon responded to by the leadership of Jim Ellis, who called it “one of the best ideas I have seen in a long time.” After extensive and elaborate planning and execution, the march came off—and the Mountains to Sound Greenway soon materialized. (Editor’s note: both the lengthy articles are well worth reading in their entirety.)
July – September: Issaquah Alps National Park?
The herculean efforts of Manning and Hornung raised visions of an Issaquah Alps National Park. One official asked Manning specifically if that was his goal. Ralph Owen discussed this possibility in the Alpiner issue. “Harvey believed that the National Park Services’ overall management and planning skills would be the ideal way to coordinate the efforts of the individual land managers in the Issaquah Alps” including King County Parks, State Parks, State DNR, the local cities of Issaquah and Bellevue, the Seattle Water Department and the US Forest Service). Manning proposed this to Congressman Mike Lowry in 1980.
In an article entitled “Tiger Mountain Fireworks,” Longwell told not only of Manning-led hikes and campouts up Tiger on July 4 to view fireworks from Seattle, but he also told of the lawlessness on Tiger Mountain in the 1980s. “Hikers in those days would often meet noisy motorbikes bearing down on them, hear constant gunfire, see animal poaching, see tree poaching, and find abandoned cars and garbage dumps.” On one July 4 campout with his daughter Gretchen, the Longwells were terrorized by rockets fired east toward their Manning Reach campsite. (Note: camping is no longer allowed on Tiger Mountain.
October – December: Naked Volleyball?
IATC’s president discussed the two –sided tug-of-war for Issaquah Park Bond moneys. The club and other “greenies” sought to preserve green space and acquire properties along Issaquah Creek and upon the Alps. The other side aggressively sought athletic fields primarily for soccer fields.
King County Councilman Larry Phillips announced that over a half million dollars was being used to purchase 40 controversial acres on Squak Mountain near the Bullitt Access Trail to preclude development there.
One of Harvey Manning’s last articles, entitled “Naked Volleyball Anyone?” was a jocular piece about his confrontation (with friends) with leaders of the Fraternity Snoqualmie nudist colony off the Issaquah-Hobart Road. Manning drew the line over stripping to enter the group’s clubhouse. He and Cathy Sarbo of the Seattle PI decided that while “nude is not lewd,” Sarbo explained that naked karaoke or naked volleyball would be!
Bill Longwell told of the storm track phenomenon on Tiger Mountain, which presents unusually heavy windstorms on the West Tiger trails and peaks. Whereas “Issaquah receives about 38 inches of rain per year, five or six miles to the east, Preston receives 77 inches of rain.” The Raging River, he noted, is the fastest rising river in King County.
The only new hike leaders in 2006 were Rich Johnson and Karen Tom.