What will fix the Enchantments’ crowding issues?

I didn’t see a single piece of trash throughout my first mile and a half hiking in the Enchantments earlier this month.

Normally, that would be a welcome sight. But on this occasion, the cleanliness of our surroundings made my host and hiking companion, Mat Lyons, sweat bullets. 

Lyons runs TREAD, a nonprofit that promotes sustainable outdoor recreation in Chelan and Douglas counties. His group has been working with local Forest Service staff on how to handle overcrowding and understaffing in the Enchantments.

On this summer day, Lyons had agreed to take a reporter up to Colchuck Lake in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest to point out how the Forest Service’s staffing problems this year had resulted in a wilderness area abused by garbage, human waste and illegal fire rings.

So how was everything suddenly hunky-dory? Had the lone wilderness ranger patrolling this fragile alpine zone — down from a staff of 11 last year — really managed to keep things looking so pristine?

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how I teamed with ace Seattle Times photojournalist Nick Wagner to report out a story published Aug. 12 about alarm bells in the Enchantments.

Trouble in the Enchantments

Lyons and I found out why the trail looked so clean when we stumbled upon volunteer Orin Melville, who was hiking just ahead of us and filling a trash bag with food wrappers, toilet paper and plastic bottles. When we encountered Melville, he was pondering what to do with a platter of cut fruit he had found floating in a creek.

That Melville, a Wenatchee resident, was inspired to go on a backcountry litter pickup is indicative of the issues U.S. Rep. Kim Schrier (a Democrat whose district includes the Enchantments) raised in an Aug. 1 letter to the U. S. Forest Service chief and the secretary of agriculture. 

Schrier demanded that the agency hire more rangers in the Enchantments, pronto. Her elevating the issue of the woefully understaffed Enchantments to the congressional level prompted Nick and me to make a reporting trip over the mountains to see for ourselves. 

I have followed the Forest Service’s understaffing issues for almost a year. Sources began reaching out in September when the Biden administration’s Forest Service chief announced a hiring freeze on seasonal employees. The Trump administration’s February move to fire probationary employees compounded concerns that there wouldn’t be enough staffers to maintain trails and campgrounds this summer. As winter came to a close, Washington’s outdoor recreation advocates warned that by summer, the Enchantments would become the poster child of an understaffed hiking season.

The issue cooled a little after a judge overturned the USFS firings in March, but as it turned out, only some employees returned. The prospect of getting fired again in a volatile political climate spurred some — including former Enchantments wilderness rangers I had interviewed — to find work elsewhere. To compound matters, there were no seasonal employees coming to the rescue at the busiest time of year.

But as summer kicked into high gear, it was difficult to pinpoint exact cause and effect as to whether reports of deteriorating conditions on public lands could be directly attributed to staffing issues, especially across Washington’s millions of acres of public land.

While climbing Mount Adams in late June, I met a volunteer climbing ranger who said he’d hauled out the overflowing trash can in his truck because the Mount Adams Ranger District was short-handed. But on a weekend hike up to Talapus Lake, everything was in tiptop shape. 

Schrier’s letter spurred me to take a closer look.

Volunteers picking up the slack

In the age of social media influencers, gorgeous alpine body of water Colchuck Lake has become TikTok-famous. Posts about Colchuck get millions of views on TikTok. All follow a similar formula: a hiker dives into the aquamarine water while the camera shows off panoramic views of the lake basin, with Dragontail Peak and Colchuck Peak towering above. Usually, there are few, if any, other people in the frame, giving the illusion of solitude. These posts in recent years have inspired thousands of people to descend upon the Enchantments. That volume, coupled with the understaffing issue due to Forest Service cuts, had resulted in chaos, my sources said.

Contrary to all the social media videos, I knew Nick and I wouldn’t be alone if we hiked to Colchuck on any summer day. Pretrip inquiries yielded intel that a number of volunteers have stepped up in an attempt to backfill work that rangers should be doing, like stocking toilet paper, advising hikers on adequate preparation, educating visitors on Leave No Trace principles and the toughest, nastiest job of all: digging pit toilets.

I was hoping we could tag along with a volunteer in action for a firsthand look not just at the problems but also some solutions — however stopgap.

Then I reached Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison by phone. For two years, Chelan County officials have demanded the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest start regulating day use in the area — there’s been a permit system in place for overnight camping for almost 40 years — but the agency has so far declined to act.

Morrison spoke of how the lack of parking or day use management has strained his department, from road and trailhead parking violations to backcountry search-and-rescue missions. Then, he made an enticing offer: Meet in Wenatchee at 8 a.m. the next day, and he and his deputies could fly us up to the Enchantments core zone at nearly 8,000 feet and then down to Colchuck Lake at 5,500 feet.

The catch? There was only one spare seat in the helicopter.

I winced, realizing it made more sense for our photographer to head up in the whirlybird because he would be able to capture visuals far more vivid than anything I could scribble in a notebook, even with a bird’s-eye view.

Sure, I said, Nick will be there.

I hung up the phone, disappointed that I had just missed out on a once-in-a-lifetime offer for a helicopter flight into the Enchantments.

After spending the night in Leavenworth, we parted ways in the morning. Nick boarded the chopper, and I met Lyons to begin our 9-mile hike.

At Colchuck Lake, I sent Nick a text message via satellite. Lo and behold, he was on a small wooden platform that serves as a landing pad near where the trail tops out at the lake. Nick and I compared notes as hikers milled about, wondering what had brought the sheriff’s office to the area.

I interviewed Morrison and Deputy Mike McLeod in person, where the commanding view prompted serious reflections on the predicament local government finds itself in amid federal inaction. The setting inspired a fitting observation from McLeod — ”It’s mind-boggling there’s only one person to manage this Disneyland” — that ended up as the print story’s headline.

Where we go from here

My story about the problems plaguing the Enchantments this summer resonated deeply with readers. It reminded me of the impact of my January 2023 story on Mount Rainier National Park limiting winter access, or my January 2022 reporting on mismanagement at Stevens Pass Ski Area. Our audience clearly gets up in arms when their most treasured outdoor recreation destinations are not well cared for, whether by the public, land managers or private entities.

As of press time, Schrier’s office has not received a response to her letter from the Department of Agriculture or the Forest Service. Morrison wrote via text that since the story published, he had “set up quarterly meetings with our regional Forest Service partners to strengthen communications and understanding of our partnership.”

Managing day use in the Enchantments isn’t rocket science. The Forest Service does it in lots of other popular places across the West. Concessionaires run campgrounds at Trillium Lake near Mount Hood in Oregon and Kachess Lake near Snoqualmie Pass, and they charge for day use. If the parking lots are full, operators turn people away. Some detractors view this approach as a money grab, however, with private contractors collecting fees while not honoring the annual Northwest Forest Pass or America the Beautiful Pass that most regular hikers purchase for unlimited access to federal land.