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puzzlr
Mid Fork Rocks



Joined: 13 Feb 2007
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puzzlr
Mid Fork Rocks
PostMon Feb 20, 2017 10:56 pm 
Shooting is rare these days. I think I heard it on two occasions last year on maybe 30 trips. And I'm finding almost no new shooting debris in the pullouts along the road - I'm in those a lot looking for invasive weeds. The bullet holes in that map at the Middle Fork trailhead were there before the road was paved, showing up sometime between May 2008 and April 2011 based on some photos. From what I can see, signs are lasting longer than they did five years ago. But the partying in the paved Middle Fork trailhead parking lot is a new problem. The old spot used to be at the pullout just before the Big River Bridge 5 miles in. It looks like debris from the old regular pallet burners, probably high school kids out for a good time. The problem with fires on the paved lot is that the asphalt starts burning. I was not going to the valley before 2006 so I can't personally compare with how it was before then, but from what I hear things are way better now with all the side roads blocked off leaving no places to cause trouble without being seen by the increasing number of visitors.

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joker
seeker



Joined: 12 Aug 2006
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joker
seeker
PostTue Feb 21, 2017 12:07 am 
Tom wrote:
I actually loved the abandoned cars. Gave the place some character.
Same with the mobile meth lab...

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joker
seeker



Joined: 12 Aug 2006
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joker
seeker
PostTue Feb 21, 2017 12:12 am 
RandyHiker wrote:
the half-life of a street parking space is measured in seconds and the monthly rent for parking space in a garage is over $600
Randy - you might appreciate this song:

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Randito
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Joined: 27 Jul 2008
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Location: Bellevue at the moment.
Randito
Snarky Member
PostTue Feb 21, 2017 12:31 am 
Joker, nice. Actually crime hasn't been an issue while we've been here. In fact people on the street are remarkably friendly, its easy to strike up a conversation. When pushing the double stroller with the twins , I've never lacked offers of help getting the stroller up and down stairs to the subway or into/out of the brownstone. This is in central Harlem, a couple blocks from the Apollo theater. In the '80s the street I'm on was dead center of the crack epidemic, but things are different now.

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Tom
Admin



Joined: 15 Dec 2001
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Tom
Admin
PostTue Feb 21, 2017 1:39 am 
joker wrote:
Same with the mobile meth lab...
No doubt the tales of it being a haven for meth labs were true and not embellished to drive an agenda. I still get warm fuzzies knowing it has been returned to its criminal-free natural state. embarassedlaugh.gif http://blog.rei.com/hike/middle-fork-trail-follow-the-newly-paved-road/

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Backpacker Joe
Blind Hiker



Joined: 16 Dec 2001
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Backpacker Joe
Blind Hiker
PostTue Feb 21, 2017 8:09 am 
"Once a haven for hidden meth labs and illegal shooting, the 110,000 acres of the Middle Fork Valley in the Central Cascade Mountains, an hour outside of Seattle, was a place to stay away from." Never kept me away. People are so weak. The Rainier district is (was) a place to stay away from. LOL. I wonder what the combination of the increase in the population of the Seattle area AND the paving of the road has done to the amount of people who are up the Middle Fork at any one time?

"If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide." — Abraham Lincoln
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boot up
Old Not Bold Hiker



Joined: 12 Dec 2006
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Location: Bend Oregon
boot up
Old Not Bold Hiker
PostTue Feb 21, 2017 9:15 am 
I had Fridays as my day off from my job back in the late 80's. We had a group from work that would go back there a lot on Fridays to hike and mtn bike. It was one huge teen party back there on Fridays regularly. Lots of teens getting their parent's SUV's stuck on the side roads. Groups would just stop on the road and start up huge parties. Since we would go in early and be coming out in the afternoon, we had to get past the groups blocking the roads. That could get a bit scary with a pack mentality fueled by booze blocking our exit. We had a few tense moments. A party in a parking lot is definitely toned down from the Olde Days. Bummer if they set the asphalt on fire though. And what is with the nails???

friluftsliv
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NacMacFeegle
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NacMacFeegle
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PostTue Feb 21, 2017 11:09 am 
The Alpine Lakes region should have been made into a National Park long ago IMHO.

Read my hiking related stories and more at http://illuminationsfromtheattic.blogspot.com/
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joker
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joker
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PostTue Feb 21, 2017 11:35 am 
I didn't see it in the '80s but sure do miss some things about the valley from the '90s and early 'oughts.

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joker
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joker
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PostTue Feb 21, 2017 11:36 am 
RandyHiker wrote:
In the '80s the street I'm on was dead center of the crack epidemic, but things are different now.
Yeah, my impression of the upper west side (including tales of fun with parking and car oriented crime around Riverside Drive) were formed mostly from the '80s. ETA: but people were friendly back then too. Would go out of their way to help you, or offer help even if you didn't need it.

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KekistaniProphet
LOL I WIN



Joined: 25 Sep 2016
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KekistaniProphet
LOL I WIN
PostTue Feb 21, 2017 11:42 am 
I'll have to check out that Dingford Creek trail. I want to see that 1000 foot tall black bear and cub thats standing out there!

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KekistaniProphet
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KekistaniProphet
LOL I WIN
PostTue Feb 21, 2017 11:43 am 
Backpacker Joe wrote:
I wonder what the combination of the increase in the population of the Seattle area AND the paving of the road has done to the amount of people who are up the Middle Fork at any one time?
I can only hope the middle fork acts as a vacuum to suck all the city people into. That way they stay off my side of the mountains.

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Chico
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Chico
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PostTue Feb 21, 2017 11:44 am 
boot up wrote:
And what is with the nails???
Wow people. Never burned up a pallet? Cheap fuel source but full of nails!

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Old Not Bold Hiker



Joined: 12 Dec 2006
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Location: Bend Oregon
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Old Not Bold Hiker
PostTue Feb 21, 2017 12:13 pm 
Chico wrote:
boot up wrote:
And what is with the nails???
Wow people. Never burned up a pallet? Cheap fuel source but full of nails!
Nails in the photo looked like they were in a pile, not spread like you would expect from burning pallets. Unless maybe the party folks tried to sweep them into a pile.... a fairly unlikely scenario, considering they were destroying pavement and leaving a bunch of trash.

friluftsliv
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Nancyann
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Nancyann
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PostTue Feb 21, 2017 12:49 pm 
At the risk of boring more people with my tales of the '70's, when I was 18, I bushwhacked up to Lake Carole with my boyfriend at the time. We parked at the base of Treen Peak on the road that continued on to the Nordrum Lake trailhead. This was in 1971, and I do not remember seeing much, if any garbage on the long drive up the Mid-Fork. In the late 1990's, I volunteered on a work party put together by Friends of the Trail, North Bend, and WTA. There was an astonishing amount of the most disgusting garbage imagineable, literally mountains of it. They even had helicopters pulling old rusted vehicles out of the river. Looking back at how trashed the area became between the early '70's and the late '90's really makes me wonder how and why our culture "de-volved" so dramatically.

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