Outdoors

Trails at the English Point Recreation Area near Hayden Lake are back open after extensive work to clear fallen trees. 

I have a memory from many years ago, standing on a stone beach under a full moon, stripping off every layer of clothing, leaving my skivvies in a pile, and plunging into the dark waters of the lake. It is a primal, natural feeling, though then accompanied with the vulnerability of my nakedness and the brashness of adolescence.

PALOUSE TO CASCADES TRAIL, 5 MILES EAST OF RATTLESNAKE LAKE – Like a scene out of “Train Dreams,” railroad workers toiled on the steep slopes of the Cascades foothills in the 1910s to carve a path for the iron horse out of an unforgiving landscape. They cut down trees, laid brick, piled up gravel and forged a flat ribbon along a rugged hillside so steam engines could ply the route between Chicago and Puget Sound via Snoqualmie Pass.

The work to get mountain bikers back on the trails at Camp Sekani is underway, but it’s too soon to say exactly when the park might be ready for two-wheeled traffic.

Fly fishing

A moose and two calves look around at Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge in this July 12 photo by Rich Zwyiak.

The federal government has announced plans to shift management authority for threatened grizzly bears to state wildlife agencies.

Conservation groups pushed back Tuesday against a Trump administration rule change that could wipe out habitat protections for threatened and endangered species.

An investigation of Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission members launched by Gov. Bob Ferguson last summer is taking longer and costing more than expected.

Yellowstone National Park officials are enacting fishing restrictions on three rivers within the park due to warm temperatures and low river flows.

Campers on the Colville National Forest are paying more money for a place to rest their heads this summer thanks to a suite of fee increases that forest officials say were long overdue.

In the first steps of what could turn out to be a larger study, the Nez Perce Tribe found walleye in the Snake River may be consuming a concerning number of juvenile salmon.

A little more than two weeks ago, the director of the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife ordered the killing of one or two wolves in southeast Washington after a series of attacks occurred on livestock.

The plan meant to guide the next 20 years of trail work and major projects at Mount Spokane State Park has been finalized.

Fly fishing

A marmot hangs out at Saltese Flats in this July 2 photo by Tami Sanborn.

When the Gold Hill Trail No. 3 of Bonner County was opened in 1990, it felt like an incursion on our home turf. Our family had only moved there seven years earlier, but had been self-proclaimed explorers and discoverers since.

A plan meant to guide the next 20 years at Mount Spokane State Park faces its final hurdle on Thursday.