Current Human Impact

The Olympic Mountain range consists of an extremely steep and rugged terrain. These mountains also have some of the most picturesque and pristine forests in North America. So naturally tourists, hikers, fishermen, and outdoor enthusiasts from all over the world want access to these beautiful forests. However this access comes with a heavy price. From a road management perspective, the only viable way to build roads into these otherwise inaccessible areas is to construct them along valley bottoms near streams, rivers, and lakes. Traditional methods of constructing these roads so close to these waterways include bank hardening and revetment construction; yet, these techniques have lately proved harmful to the ecosystem's streams and rivers.

Road-stream interaction in the Olympic National Forest has been a large problem. Take for instance the Dosewallips River washout in January of 2002. This watershed is home to many high-value salmon fisheries, including a threatened run of Chinook Salmon. So in the winter of 2002 a 100 m section of Forest Road 2610, used for access to campgrounds and trail heads, was washed out after a flooding of the river. Since that winter the washout has continued to grow, threatening the downstream salmon runs. A lot of controversy has developed over what to do with the washed out road. Various solutions have been proposed and the three most popular include: the reconstruction of the washed out section of the road, a re-routing of the road through a section of centuries old trees, or a conversion of the last five miles of the road above the washout into a non-motorized hiking trail.