Stop the Beehive Timber Sale! Save the Siouxon Ancient Forest

This past week I visited the wild and little visited valley of North Siouxan Creek to explore and document the old growth forest that would be destroyed if the Department of Natural Resources goes through with the Beehive Timber Sale. This area was burned a hundred years ago in the Yacolt Burn, and has now regrown into a complex, natural forest full of both big living trees and ancient burned snags. Everywhere I went there was the constant sound of woodpeckers, and I frequently heard larger animals moving in the brush. It's quite clearly a wildlife hotspot, and is prime Northern Spotted Owl habitat.

I spent 4 hours fighting my way through devils club, climbing up and down cliffs, and over gigantic fallen logs, averaging a speed of only around a quarter of a mile per hour. However, I was rewarded with a waterfall that must be quite spectacular at any other time of the year, and the experience of immersing myself in an beautiful and diverse forest of a quality that is vanishingly rare in Southwest Washington.

Beehive is part of a contiguous area of unroaded, never cut, virgin forest that extends for miles between several creek valleys on both state and federal land. This same chunk of de-facto wilderness is also threatened by the imminent Serenity Now Timber Sale, which would erase the Sugar Loaves trail which is the only remaining easy access to Mt. Mitchell.

Both the Beehive and the Serenity Now timber sales MUST be canceled, and the whole of the roadless, ancient Siouxon forest MUST be preserved. Please ask DNR save this place.

Contact:

Hilary Franz: cpl@dnr.wa.gov

waDNR: pacific-cascade.region@dnr.wa.gov

Board of Natural Resources: bnr@dnr.wa.gov