Karen Sykes in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has an update on the beatings trails have taken in the Cascades.

Especially hard hit are trails in the area known as The Mountain Loop, between Darrington and Granite Falls. The Darrington Ranger District is still reeling from the floods of 2003, so the floods of November 2006 only made a bad situation worse.

For example, there is only one heavy-equipment operator to clear landslides from forest roads in the entire Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. More than 70 percent of trails in the Darrington district will require a lot more effort to access this year due to numerous road closures, which may remain closed for some time.

Paull writes, “I have only been hiking trails in the forest since 1970, but in that time I would say that the access issues faced by hikers this coming summer are unprecedented.”

Just noticed this: The PI has a hiking blog.