The PUD manages 960 acres of wildlife habitat in the Sage Hills known as the Homewater Property. Locals refer to this property more generically as the Sage Hills. The PUD manages the area first and foremost as wildlife habitat--recreational use of the area is priviledge rather than a right.
Because parts of this habitat has been fragmented with so many trails, the PUD recently placed wooden barricades across spur trails it wants returned to their natural state. Most of these spurs access places accessed by another trail and are redundant. Unfortunately, vandals have torn down a number of these barricades and if this behavior continues it will result in a closing the entire area to public use. Patrick Walker, the Trails Coordnator with the Chelan-Douglas Land Trust, recently sent out the message below informing members of the Land Trusts's Trail Committee about the predicament and its possible consequences.
" I have not had the chance to update all of you on what has been happening on the Home water Property, I apologize. About a month ago Von and I walked the property and looked at all the trails that were there and identified trails that were either a.) Redundant b.) Un-sustainable or c.) inappropriate. We identified a number of locations that we would like to block access to for the above stated reasons.
We came up with an attractive and un-offensive plan to use a split rail fence section or two where necessary to prevent further use of these areas. This was an effort to work with Von and the PUD to show that the property is being properly managed for wildlife under their FERC mandate, and was really a low impact tool for the users of the trail. We did not close any of the major trails and any trail that was seemingly closed had an alternate route around.
I have had a few conversations with people since the fences were installed and it seemed like the plan was working well and no one was having any problems with the new fences etc. Well I was wrong... Von called me today and said that four of the installations had been ripped out and have completely disappeared. From Von's description the fences were completely removed and there were no sign of them within a 50 yard radius, so whoever did it had help and a serious plan.
I can't tell you how disappointing that is and I need your help to spread the word. I plan on making up some signage and putting it at the bike shops to let folks know that whomever it is that has decided that these need to be removed is likely going to have the whole property closed to public access. None of us want this, including the PUD, but if we can't stop this it is likely to happen. The Mountain Bike community is already taking the hit for having done this and I sure hope it isn't true.
If you could please spread the word and the threat of serious bad trail karma to the perpetrators hopefully we can stop this. There is no reward, threat of prosecution or anything of that sort. We don't even really care who did it as long as they don't do it again."
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