The US Forest Service (USFS) was expected to release the Mount Hood Annual Report for 2018 at the end of February, offering a look at all that transpired on the Mount Hood National Forest last
year. Laura Pramuk, Public Affairs Officer for the (USFS), noted one of the
aspects the report highlighted was all the progress that has been made in fish
restoration.

“That’s been a real testament to our commitment to fish restoration on the
Mount Hood National Forest,” she said, adding that a number of program
partners, including the Freshwater Trust, the Clackamas River Basin and the
Sandy River Watershed Council have been involved throughout. “That’s been
a real accomplishment for the forest.”

Specific projects highlighted in the report include:
– the completion of the Zigzag water system improvement project to connect
the Zigzag Ranger Station to a municipal water supply (Rhododendron Water).

– replacing two undersized culverts with a bridge on the upper Marco Creek to
benefit native resident fish and aquatic organisms, and minimize the potential
for a primary arterial road to washout.
– decommissioning of seven miles of roads decommissioned in lower
Collawash and Oak Grove Fork, and the Middle Clackamas River watersheds
that crossed or paralleled stream corridors, and were located on large,
unstable earthflow landforms. Decommissioned roads were re-planted with
native seedlings and grass seed.
– the Ant Farm crew, consisting of youth from Sandy, assisted the Zigzag Trail
Crew in the Sandy River Basin, including work on Mirror Lake Trail, Little
Zigzag Falls Trail and rehabilitation activities in the Salmon River Corridor and
Old Maid Flats where inappropriate or illegal dispersed camping and dumping
often occurs.
– trained 60 volunteers with Trailkeepers of Oregon for the first Trail Skills
college volunteer training event held on the Zigzag Ranger District.
– relocated the Mirror Lake Trailhead and added 1.4 miles of accessible trail.
The new trailhead project provides a more sustainable and safe alternative to
roadside parking. The project also improved drainage and parking
improvements at Skibowl, and included improvements to the intersection of
Glacier View and Hwy. 26.
– trail Crew, volunteers and partners maintained 406 miles of trail.
– replaced the Buttercup ski lift at Mt Hood Meadows. The new lift is a
SkyTrac fixed grip quad which doubles capacity and will run 30 percent faster
than the old Buttercup, thanks to a conveyor that beginners step on that
matches their speed to the lift chair.
– in the first year of the multi-year Upper Sandy Watershed Restoration Action
Plan, The Freshwater Trust, Bureau of Land Management and USFS teamed up
to restore all non-Wilderness instream reaches of Lost Creek and fully
restored Cast Creek in 2018. The partners placed 945 logs and whole trees to
construct 70 wood jams and reconnected 5,639 feet of historic floodplain side
channels.
– in the “Marco Reach” of the West Fork Hood River, a large wood placement
project was completed in collaboration with the Confederated Tribes of the
Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon and Weyerhaeuser Columbia
Timberlands. Approximately 60 trees were hand-tipped and 180 alders hand-
felled into a 0.7-mile reach of the river to create log jam structures just
upstream of Marco Creek.
– the USFS partnered with Portland General Electric to replace an undersized
and failing culvert with an open-bottom arch, benefitting resident native fish
and aquatic organisms, and mitigating the potential for a major failure of
Forest Service Road 45, offering access to tens of thousands of acres.
– the 2018 fire season was below average in the number of ignitions and
acres burned. In all, 54 ignitions for 89 acres occurred on the MHNF. Fifty-two
fires were human caused with the remainder started by lightning. Resources
from the MHNF supported neighboring cooperators and National Forests
including Oregon Department of Forestry, the Columbia River Gorge National
Scenic Area, Willamette National Forest, and the Confederated Tribes of Warm
Springs (CTWS), in addition to many fires in the Pacific Northwest and the
Western United States.

Meanwhile, Pramuk shared that 2019 includes a few notable projects,
including replacing a culvert on the 2612 Road (Still Creek Road) during the
summer. This culvert is located near Mile Post 7 on a tributary to Still Creek
and is the final project of the Watershed Restoration Action Plan for Still
Creek.

The MHNF and Sandy River Basin Partners acquired grants of nearly $2.2
million dollars that resulted in significant improvements in habitat quality,
water quality and ecosystem function in Still Creek. From 2012 through 2019,
in-stream restoration actions impacted more than eight miles of the Still
Creek main channel and an estimated 185 acres of floodplain habitat.

2019 will also see a new electrical system improvement project at Timberline
Lodge to address the cleaning and maintenance of electrical service
equipment, replacement of obsolete equipment and creating a current set of
schematics for the electrical systems. The project will include the historic
lodge and the newer day lodge.

The contract has not been awarded yet but could begin this summer or fall,
and it may cause minor disruptions to visitor services at the lodge. The
current electrical system is out of date and improvements are needed to bring
the lodge’s system up to current code.

“There's a lot of enthusiasm on the forest because we are making some
substantive progress on long standing projects,” Pramuk said. “(But) there’s
always more work to do.”