Reporter ISSAQUAH | SAMMAMISH
Friday, February 17, 2012
www.issaquahreporter.com
Blank Slate State plans for Raging River Forest filled with recreational potential
plan for the Snoqualmie Corridor Feb. 1 with a public meeting. cgracey@issaquahreporter.com While most of Raging River’s second-growth forest, which has urveying a path through an impressive network of logging roads and a power line clearing that the ravine, Sam Jarrett runs its length, has been impacted by stands on the edge of logging, it is otherwise unexplored a clearing. A screen of trees by hikers, bikers and horsemen alike. The three groups have a history of trail hides the Raging River from dispute. view, but not its sound. The Raging River Forest is an opHe glances back at portunity for all three a power substation, user groups to figure out before slipping through what types of trails they a nest of blackberry can share and where bushes and down to they need their own. the rivers edge. Mossy “This is a blank slate,” rocks turn logs into said Douglas McClelteeter-totters above land, a DNR assistant swirling water, which region manager. washes out the eery Raging River was pribuzz from power lines. vately owned until DNR Imagine a trail along acquired it about four the pristine river. It’s a years ago. The only trails – Sam Jarrett, DNR possibility, says Jarrett, are logging roads. a recreation manWhile some hikers ager for the Department of Natural have ventured to explore the forest, Resources. few know the Raging River better than The scene reveals the potential of Ralph Owen, who regularly explores the Raging River Forest to become the the forests on foot. next big recreation site along I-90. He remembers when DNR decided About four years after acquiring the to allow biking on East Tiger Mounland, DNR is now planning what to tain, which butts up agains Raging, do with it. It kicked off the developabout 15 years ago. Trails that hikers ment of its recreation management had created were given over to bikers, he said. “There is always going to be tension,” he said, but having bikers in the plan from the beginning will help. The recreation plan, which also inBY CELESTE GRACEY
S
“It could be a destination landscape for recreation.”
Sam Jarrett, DNR, stands at the edge of the Raging River. The land, recently acquired by DNR, has big recreational potential for multiple user groups. Celeste gracey, Issaquah & Sammamish Reporter
Eastlake grad killed in shooting BY bill christianson Reporter newspapers
Claire Thompson, a people, pet and nature lover, hoped one day her nurturing, generous personality would lead to a career in nursing. Thompson, a 20-year-old Sammamish native who was fatally shot early Sunday morning in Redmond, enjoyed giving to others and never asked for anything in return, according to her friends. “She was the best friend I could have ever
asked for,” said Mikaela Boyd, who was talking to Thompson when a bullet pierced a nearby wall and struck Thompson in the neck. “She had a beautiful soul. She wanted to be a nurse. Claire Thompson She truly saw the beauty in everything.” A memorial is scheduled for 4 p.m. Saturday at Mars Hill Church in Sammamish, where Thompson grew up. “She had no enemies,” said friend Cole
Kradin. “Her laugh lit up a room. She was an incredibly great person. This is a huge loss.” Thompson and Boyd were at a house party in the Education Hill area talking about the unappetizing food at McDonald’s when Thompson was hit with the bullet, according to Boyd. Thompson was rushed to Harborview Medical Center, but was pronounced dead at around 10 a.m. Cornelius J. De Jong IV, a 21-year-old Redmond resident, faces first-degree See shooting, 13
See Raging River, 7
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