Fascinating. Thank you so much for the research Phyllis! Hoping the
weather improves so we can see the progress on Saturday. If you'd like
the board's help in drafting a letter to help improve the roads, we'd be
happy to do that.
I also like the idea of a darker site to use occasionally, definitely
interested in hearing more on that.
Nick
On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 10:37 AM, Eide, Phyllis <eide@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Lindsay of the BLM called me this morning and here's a bit more 'scoop.'
Trail worker volunteers will be at Fishtrap from 8-1 pm on Saturday to
work on the trail. Turns out BLM does 'own' the road from the Miller Ranch
turn off, and did put gravel down. Estimated time to complete gravelling
the parking lot is end of Oct., which is about the same time the new toilet
is open for business. Sounds like they have the porta potty contract until
Nov. and figured it'd be better to let that play out before opening up the
new one (which will be open to the public, 24/7 I think). They didn't get
funded to do more road work in LIncoln County (where our site is at), but
will be going to reapply - I told her I thought the club could certainly
supply a letter of support - she was enthusiastic about that possibility.
Finally and not least, her husband was tracking the K index and actually
went out to the site last night to see if he could see aurora (not) - and
noted the city lights from Spokane visible even there. I grabbed that
opening to see if there were other BLM sites that might be darker, and
she's going to keep her eye out. The Lakeview Ranch north of Odessa (my
hometown!) could be a candidate, but there's lights there. Maybe they could
be turned off? It's 3x farther to go (90 minutes to Odessa, and then a few
more to head north), but might work for those nights when you really REALLY
need dark skies (if the lights could turn off). I invited her to join us @
the next meeting, but she'll be in MT. She did hop on our website while we
were talking and was very impressed with the pictures of the aurora she
found there. So ... Yay! P.
________________________________________
From: sas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [sas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] on behalf of
Eric Strang [estrang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2016 12:46 AM
To: sas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [SAS] Re: Fishtrap report 2.0
Thanks for that update. Very interesting.
Eric
On Sep 28, 2016, at 6:42 PM, Eide, Phyllis <eide@xxxxxxx<mailto:eide@wsu.
edu>> wrote:
Hi all – here’s some updates I got from Lindsay Babcock of BLM:
Where we have the star party is actually the parking lot for what BLM
calls Farmer’s Landing trailhead. Two years ago they signed off on an
environmental assessment to develop an 8 mile non-motorized loop trail,
beginning at the pkg lot. This weekend will see trail development work
begin as part of the National Public Lands Project – and sadly, looks like
they might get rained on. Not so great for the Star Party as well, perhaps.
The gravel piled up is for graveling the parking lot! YAY! (didn’t get a
timeline for when that would be done). BLM has nothing to do with the
road in (which is county road) – but I have a feeling that after the first
load of gravel jounced along the road from Miller Ranch, one or more of the
subsequent gravel trucks probably let some gravel slip out the back end –
thus, there is some improvement in the road. The new toilet (vault type)
is also part of the overall effort to improve this trailhead – no idea when
it will be ‘open for business’.
If I get some more info from her re: timelines, I’ll be happy to pass that
along! Cheers, Phyllis
PS nice Iridium flare on Sunday night at the ‘Trap. No aurora action from
back yard viewing last night. Maybe tonight?
