[melc]

For those interested you should take a look at the Gold Creek Pond Restoration plan. Public comment period is open now and ends very soon. there is also impact to Lake Keechelus boat ramp https://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=57415&exp=detail

[pipedream]

In a nutshell the plan is to, starting in the spring of 2025: * Fill between 75-100% of Heli's Pond * Restore the Gold Creek Pond area to its natural wetland setting (what it was before they excavated it for material to build I-90) * Close access to the Lake Kecheelus lake bed except via the boat launch until the launch itself dewaters in the early summer at which point they'll close access to the boat launch area entirely There's a lot of details regarding gates, access restrictions and fee collection once the work is complete. I find it laughable that the FS will have any sort of mechanism to control access in such a remote area via a NW Forest Pass scanning / fee payment system. Esp. considering the kind of folks that visit the area after dark... But, the restoration of the Gold Creek Valley is very important for the state's dwindling bull trout population and cutting down on the riff-raff that litter, have illegal fires, etc. on the Lake Kecheelus lakebed is probably worth the trade-off of up to 10 years of access restrictions and the future reduction of recreational access.

[thunderhead]

Camping/litter enforcement would be much more logical than blanket access restrictions.

[Randito]

[thunderhead]

After reading the documents it sounds like the keechelus access restriction is brief and mainly to install gates and guardrails to keep people from driving on the lake bed. Seems silly when snowmobiles and cars run through the entire watershed leaking all over the place oh and not to mention the giant interstate that runs along half the lake, shedding more tar, tire fragments microplastics and oil in a day than lakebed camping will produce in 100 years. Closing the lakebed is going to reduce pollution in the lake by about 0.0001%. Getting rid of gold creek pond and turning it back into wetlands might do something more useful but i'm skeptical.

[Cyclopath]

Nobody should be able to do anything good as long as any bad is still happening?

[pipedream]

The issue w/ the lakebed is that yahoos rip around it in their 4x4s and lifted trucks, smashing & splashing thru areas that the bull trout like to chill out in the late summer when they cannot get up dry Gold Creek. I have personally seen pick 'em up trucks stuck in so many places on that lakebed it seemed like a foregone conclusion this was bound to happen sooner or later. The Pass community will be quite upset about losing access to their "beach" but they've never been particularly great stewards of it.

[Ski]