Mat Lyons who is heading up the Central Washington Chapter of the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance sent us this emai:

I just heard about his. I'll be making the appropriate inquiries tomorrow.

Here's a pic of the destruction!! I'm told they started at the road that crosses the trail about half way up. They started there and went all the way to the bottom.

I understand the feelings here on both sides but first determine if in fact it was the FS that removed the trail? Second, remember that the FS land belongs to all of us and in defense of the FS action we can't all just go up into the forest and start building, cutting, digging, riding, wherever we want. Consider the scenario if anyone that wanted to could do what they please with our public lands?

Believe me, I have strong opinions on what needs to be done on our FS lands but I'm not going to take it upon myself to administer my choices on others by circumventing the rules and regulations put in place to protect our forest resources.

You just can't go into the forest with your shovels, and picks and start building trails wherever you want to - it's illegal.

The plot thickens...

We just talked with Mary Bean, the Recreation Supervisor for the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, who says this is as big a shock to her as it has been to recreationalists. She has checked with other Forest Service personnel in the Wenatchee River and Entiat districts to see if they are aware of any projects in Number 2 Canyon. No one is aware of any such project.

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((Note: We took down the remainder of this comment because a different arm of the Forest Service (Timber, not recreation) actually did obliterate this trail. See the explanation below -- fifth comment.))

Aha! My initial thought was that this did not seem to me to be the work of the fine FS employees that I know on the forest.

I can see how some can take an exception to user built trails of any sort. I wish there was more of an outcry when we see the numbers of motorized vehicles tresspassing in designated non-motorized areas. I believe there are several non-motorized areas up in the Twin Peaks area; one gate is signed closed to snowmobiles and motorbikes.

I would like to see the FS patrol and enforce the rules in this area more closely.

Getting the details to this issue has been a work in progress. First we didn't know who did it. Then we thought it wasn't the Forest Service. Now the mystery is solved and... it was the Forest Service. In this case the recreation people with the Forest Service hadn't gotten up to speed with what the timber people knew.

So here's the story as told to us today by Jeff Rivera, the District Ranger for the Wenatchee River District. Two timber sales have taken place in the general Twin Peaks area over the past decade, the Pendleton Sale in 2003 and the Crow timber sale that finished up around 2007-2008. As part of the NEPA process connected to those sales, some skid road and access roads were identified for obliteration. Part of Suspended in Paradise was one such road/skid trail.

Because two sales were taking place in short order, it was decided that none of the roads targeted for obliteration would be worked on until both sales were completed. According to Rivera it often takes several years for the K-V dollars (Knutson Vandenberg Act) collected for road/skid path removal to come through. It's been about about three years since the Crow Sale was finished and this lag time is typical.

Rivera says it unfortunate that when we contacted the Forest Service the recreation folks did not know that was on the books and approved for obliteration. Rivera has not actually seen the work on Suspended in Paradise, but the protocol with the contractors used is to seed the tilled ground and he believes such soil preparation took place here. It's common to rip the ground and seed it in the fall and let the soil lie over the winter because then the seed is ready to germinate in spring.

Rivera sees the need for hiking and biking groups to collaborate with the Forest Service and to establish trails of different lengths and different difficulties that service a broad base of users. "We need to get authorized trails for different users established and in the system, but I can't hold up work that has been approved and gone through the NEPA process because there happen to be unauthorized, user-generated trails there."