The Iron Goat Trail is a rail-to-trial conversion along the old Great Northern Railway grade within the Stevens Pass Historic District in Washington State. Since 1990 volunteers have transformed this abandoned railway bed into a 10-mile hiking trail. Families, tourists, organized groups, rail fans and hikers of all abilities tread through lovely forests of ferns, alders and evergreens from Martin Creek to the Wellington townsite. About 10,000 people a year walk this historical scenic interpretive trail. It is featured in guidebooks, tourism brochures, railroad history accounts and trail websites.  More than half of Iron Goat Trail is built to ADA standards. Workers with Volunteers for Outdoor Washington and the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest have amassed about 150,000 volunteer hours with almost 60 work parties and 100 individual volunteers every year since the project started.

All Areas West and Downhill of the Road Remain Closed.  Whiskey Bend Road, the 4.5-mile road that connects Olympic Hot Springs Road to the Whiskey Bend trailhead, has reopened to public vehicle access.  “We are pleased to invite the public back to the Whiskey Bend Road and trailhead,” said Olympic National Park Superintendent Karen Gustin.  “While the road is open again to driving and trailhead access, we remind visitors that all areas west and downhill of the road remain closed for public safety.”  

Areas west and downhill of the Whiskey Bend Road are closed due to dam removal activities and quickly changing sediment conditions around Lake Mills.  “Safety is our highest priority, so these areas must remain closed at this time,” emphasized Gustin.  
The road had been closed to vehicles since December 2010, when winter storms caused extensive damage to the road. During an assessment of the damage, road engineers discovered large voids where log cribbing beneath the road had eroded away, seriously compromising the road’s stability and motorists’ safety.  
Olympic National Park staff is working to provide public viewing opportunities of the Glines Canyon dam removal by this summer.  

Webcams of Glines Canyon Dam removal and Lake Mills are available through the Olympic National Park website (http://www.nps.gov/olym/) or directly at http://www.video-monitoring.com/construction/olympic/js.htm and provide updated images throughout daylight hours.

Camp Murray, Wash. – Washington’s Alert and Warning Center’s set a record in 2011 for total missions and incidents handled in a year. The center, which is continuously staffed through rotating shifts of state emergency operations officers, logged 4,372 missions and incidents last year.
The total represented a 4 per cent increase over the 4,201 missions and incidents recorded in 2010 and broke the previous record of 4,210 mission set in 2007.
The center receives emergency citizen reports of wildfires and hazardous material spills and serves as a coordination point for emergency notifications of tsunami and lahar events, severe weather warnings, Enhanced 9-1-1 system outages, and search and rescue support missions.
The largest part of last year’s record were hazardous material spill reports, which amounted to 56 per cent (or 2,450) of the missions and incidents reports.
Overall, total mission and incident reports have climbed nearly 24 per cent in the last 10 years.
For more information about the 2011 mission and incidents reports, see the “2011 Year-End Analysis” at http://www.emd.wa.gov