Don't plan on hiking Cooper Spur any time soon

[vibramhead]

Forest Service is keeping the road to Cloud Cap closed until some unspecified time later this summer, to clear dead trees from the Tilly Jane Fire.

[Peder]

Thanks for the warning! That is a long drive to find the road closed...

[Couloir]

Although the road is closed, it's not that big of deal to park down at the gate and take a near direct line up the Tilly Jane trail to get to the timberline trail. It might be an extra 2.5-3 miles, but it's a beautiful stretch.

[Peder]

Although the road is closed, it's not that big of deal to park down at the gate and take a near direct line up the Tilly Jane trail to get to the timberline trail. It might be an extra 2.5-3 miles, but it's a beautiful stretch.

I had thought of that! I have never done that bit and now I wish to see this "beautiful stretch"! Thanks.

[kepPNW]

Although the road is closed, it's not that big of deal to park down at the gate and take a near direct line up the Tilly Jane trail to get to the timberline trail. It might be an extra 2.5-3 miles, but it's a beautiful stretch.

I had thought of that! I have never done that bit and now I wish to see this "beautiful stretch"! Thanks.

As good an excuse as any! ("Me too.")

It's an extra 2.5-3 miles each way, though, right?

[Splintercat]

Yes - that's 3 miles each way, plus about 2,000 additional elevation gain, so it turns Cooper Spur into sort of a Mt. Defiance slog (which might be good for those who are into that sort of hike!). I'll wait for the gate to open...

...besides, my favorite time to hike that area is really in late summer (September) after a first dusting of snow on the higher elevations... beautiful!

Tom

[Peder]

...besides, my favorite time to hike that area is really in late summer (September) after a first dusting of snow on the higher elevations... beautiful!

Yes! One of my best hikes ever was there in those conditions!

[SonOfTamarack]

http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/mthood/ne ... RDB5427169
http://www.thedalleschronicle.com/news/ ... ead-trees/

Now it seems like the road won't be open at all this year.

[Guy]

From the Forest Service Link:

Because of the large number of trees this will likely be done with heavy machinery and this may drive the need for environmental analysis and mitigations to insure that natural resources are protected during operations.

In other words thousands of dollars spent on government inter departmental / agency study before anything ever gets actually done!

It reads as if they are surprised that these trees have rotted & something has to be done now

[retired jerry]

Or, maybe they need big machinery to remove all the trees which may damage the soil which will cause problems down the road so they need to study it more carefully