Rogue Restoration

Cedar shavings clung to every sweat-soaked fiber of our heavy flannel shirts and canvas pants, nature’s deodorant softening the olfactory assault of six days of hard labor in muggy conditions. We were fragrant, thanks to our steaming leather boots, upright-standing socks, diet of beans and cheese and hot sauce, and one damp, muddy, and thoroughly content German shepherd.

When Cameron—an engineer who quit his corporate job just prior to the coronavirus pandemic—asked if I wanted to help reestablish a dilapidated and decommissioned trail in the heart of Washington’s Cascade Mountains, I was intrigued. The Milk Creek Trail once provided key and direct access to Glacier Peak and the Pacific Crest Trail from the west. In 2003, severe flooding swept away the bridge spanning the Suiattle River, which Bridget Wisniewski, forestry technician for the U.S. Forest Service, called “a scary river to ford by foot or horse.” While it still appears on maps as “unmaintained,” nearly twenty years of neglect, deadfall, and the indomitable force