[RodF]

Help clean up Olympic National Park's wilderness beaches, from Shi Shi to South Beach, on April 26. Join us for this annual Earth Day event to remove marine debris from Washington's Pacific Coast. Plastic water bottles, fishing nets, tires, and all kinds of other items that are harmful to the environment wash up on Washington's beaches all year and need to be removed before they cause irreparable damage to countless marine mammals, fish, plants, and birds. You can help with general beach cleanup or several other tasks that will make this year's event a success. - Washington Clean Coast Alliance Its a great excuse to plan a spring beach hike of any length! More info here.

[Quark]

Jan Klippert, founder of the coast clean-up day passed away yesterday. Click to read article. Of course the Clean up Day must go on.

[goats gone wild]

RodF, thanks for passing this on. And Quark, thanks for the link re Jan Klippert. That was really interesting. Last year there was a HUGE pile of debris at Norweigen that had been removed from the beach and stored up in the camping area. We filled our backpacks on several occasions but could not begin to carry it all out. There were heavy tires and such that we could just not pack out. I wonder if they are still there? Do you know if that is why they are listing the remote places as "closed to cleanup"...as they have not yet figured out a way to remove the garbage from these remote places once it is collected?

[grannyhiker]

I was wondering the same thing as goats gone wild. There was an enormous pile of debris at Shi-Shi Beach in late August last year. Does this ever get picked up?

[Washington CoastSavers]

Hi everyone, Actually, no you should never leave collected garbage on any of the Park's beaches, especially the remote ones. Only collect what you can carry back out with you to the nearest garbage receptacle. Retrieving debris caches from remote beaches is a surprisingly expensive and logistically complex project that Olympic National Park does not typically have the resources to accomplish (and the Coast Guard really has nothing to do with it). The debris piles that Goats Gone Wild and Grannyhiker report seeing are evidence of this. This is also the reason that we do not have any cleanup activities scheduled for the remote beaches for Washington Coast Cleanup Day (April 26, 2008). We're working on finding a better long-term solution to the problem, but for now we simply ask that no one leave any garbage or collected marine debris on any of Washington's beaches. Thanks for bringing up this important topic, though! We look forward to seeing you all on the beach!

[RyanS]

I'm signing up once our group votes on what place we'd like to go. Is there any sections that are categorized as worse than others?

[Washington CoastSavers]

Closer to the end of April, we'll have a better idea what the distribution of debris is, but typically it's all over the place. Plus, last-minute storms can significantly redistribute the debris - or bring lots more.

[RodF]

Earth Day Weekend Celebration Lake Quinault Lodge is launching its first Volunteer Vacation event. The storms of December 2-3, 2007, caused a great deal of damage to the beautiful Quinault Rain Forest blowing down or uprooting hundreds of large trees. The Olympic National Forest staff is working very hard to reclaim these trails in time for summer visitors, and you can help! Please come join us April 26th and 27th, for a working Volunteer Vacation and help make a difference by helping the U.S. Forest Service throw branches and roll cut log rounds off the trails.

Special lodging packages are available for this event. Contact the Lake Quinault Lodge front desk or call 1-866-562-6672 for more info. This is the same dates as the Coastal Cleanup, so one could plan an extended trail+beach cleanup weekend!

[Dayhike Mike]