[Obi Tony Kenobi]

If this sounds like a rant, well sorry but I have basically have had it with these extreme militant environmental groups. If it is not the Suiattle Road it is some other road they want to shut down. Of course we have all heard about the Green Mountain Lookout and today because of Wilderness Watch; a group of pathetic lawyers, a judge ordered the lookout remove. WTA: Federal Judge Orders Rremoval of Green Mountain Lookout Just because a helicopter was used to bring the lookout down? Because 25% of it is not original wood? I can keep going, but it will just make me more angry

[Slugman]

[Foist]

I'm a lawyer, but I don't care about the legal case. I could easily imagine that repairing a lookout could technically violate some stupid broadly written regulation. What I want to know is what motivates these "Wilderness Watch" types. I want to peer inside these people's dark souls. What do they care about? What could possibly motivate them to fund a non-profit organization and lawyers to have lookouts removed and destroyed? What do they want wilderness for? Do they ever go there? Are any of those idiots here on nwhikers and care to explain?

[Malachai Constant]

Hard to understand but zealots are capable of cold blooded murder also

[treeswarper]

Hey, they've virtually shut down the logging. They now can work on other things....just as some people predicted. No surprise for some of us. Welcome to the group.

[Allison]

They can't use a helicopter and they can't use horses, so it stays. Now there is nothing stopping anyone from doing a little renegade maintenance.

[cascadeclimber]

[Damian]

[Sore Feet]

So what doesn't make sense to me is the whole helicopter argument. Technically the helicopter was never in the wilderness because it didn't land. I suppose the technicality is there is some sort of airspace restriction where aerial vehicles have to stay X feet above the ground, but then what about S&R rescues that mandate an airlift? What about helicopters that use lakes for water retrieval for fighting forest fires? Seems to me like they're arguing semantics. Either way, if they can't use a helicopter to take the thing down, I think the Wilderness Watch people should volunteer their time to haul it out on their backs as penance.

[Snowbrushy]

[Schroder]

It is legal to use a helicopter in a Wilderness for maintenance, as well as SAR missions. One thing that pisses me off about this whole issue is that the original Glacier Peak Wilderness boundaries were specifically drawn around the lookout to exclude it. When the boundaries were expanded again in the 80's, they ignored it.

[Logbear]

When I saw the article in the Everett Herald my first thought was that the USFS Darrington District got caught and now they have to pay the piper. I’ve read the article and I’ve read several blogs and documents that are available at Wilderness Watch regarding the history of this lookout. I don’t think the judge had a very difficult time making his decision in this matter. The law is pretty clear. And what the USFS did showed a blatant disregard for the law. I like Fire Lookouts. In the pursuit of a Geocaching challenge, I’ve visited 55 Fire Lookout sites in Washington State. 19 of those sites had a still standing structure. The rest of the sites, like Barlow Point, French Point, and Signal Peak just had remains. I never got to the Green Mountain lookout site, but if I had gotten there, I would have preferred finding the remains of the old lookout instead of finding a brand new lookout building. I’ve been to several lookout sites that have new buildings and those are great, but I drove to those sites. When I walk up to an old site like Barlow Point I can find the old bolts in the rocks and try to imagine what it was like when the building was there. I wouldn’t want to see a new building on Barlow Point and that’s not even in a Wilderness Area. The idea of a new lookout in a Wilderness area just doesn’t seem to have much “historical” appeal to me. There is an old miners cabin that was built in the 1930’s in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness that has been maintained by a few people that know it’s there. Everybody and everything that gets there arrives by foot. This cabin has a great deal of historical and cultural value. I’ve spent many a rainy and snowy night in this cabin. When this old cabin falls down or gets crushed by one of the huge trees nearby, I’ll be saddened by its loss. But I wouldn’t want the USFS to helicopter a new cabin in to replace it. To sum up my thoughts: The USFS should have done the right and legal thing and left the remains of the old lookout where they were for us to enjoy. I’m saddened that I never got to visit the old lookout on Green Mountain. Maybe when the new building is removed I’ll go there and imagine what the old one was like. But I don’t have much desire to visit the building as it is now. But that's just me.

[Schroder]

[Allison]

Totally.

[Slugman]

Hey, good idea, whenever an old building needs repair, instead just let it crumble so a few weirdos can gape at the wreckage. You know that post was agenda-driven BS by the constant use of "new building", "new lookout", again and again. You can call it a new building all you want, but that doesn't make you right.