Reporter ISSAQUAH | SAMMAMISH
Friday, April 13, 2012
www.issaquahreporter.com
Going global Teen leads Sammamish toward first ever sister city
The completed Grand Ridge Trail now connects hikers, bikers and horsemen from the Issaquah Highlands to Duthie Hill. The trail has three large bridges, including a 600-foot boardwalk.
BY KEVIN ENDEJAN KENDEJAN@ISSAQUAHREPORTER.COM
It might not get done when she’s still here, but Rachael Martel has laid the groundwork for a Sammamish first. As part of her Eastlake High School senior project, Martel has dedicated nearly a full year to finding the 13-year-old municipality a sister city. “There’s so much to be gained from another culture,” she said, noting she first got the idea last spring when talking to a friend in passing. That interest has turned into a passion for the 17-year-old, who has since organized a committee of community members and last week presented a list of five candidates to the Sammamish City Council. Among that list were Cookstown, Northern Ireland; Grenada, Nicaragua; Bucaramanga, Columbia; Xi’an, China and Slough, England – all cities with connections or similar interests to Sammamish. “It has never been to this point,” said Martel, who is now waiting on word from the council to take the
CELESTE GRACEY, Issaquah & Sammamish Reporter
From Issaquah’s backdoor The completed Grand Ridge Trail connects Highlands with a splendid hike BY CELESTE GRACEY CGRACEY@ISSAQUAHREPORTER.COM
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After 11 years of work, the Washington Trails Association has connected its High Point trailhead, which is just East of Issaquah, to Duthie Hill Park on the Plateau. The crew celebrated the milestone last week, but the work is far from done. On a sunny spring afternoon, volunteers dig up stumps and clear brush to reroute part of the trail. Water doesn’t drain well from the original trail, leaving a slop of mud. It will be a couple more years before the reroute is complete. “I haven’t gotten a sense that it’s all done,” confessed Mike Owens, chief crew leader for
SEE SISTER CITY, 2
the project, during the celebration. He leads volunteers up the trail four days a week a few months of the year. One heads to the mountains once the snow melts on alpine trails. WTA estimates that its volunteers have put in about 40,000 hours on the trail so far. Much of the Grand Ridge Trail was built from scratch, allowing King County to construct a stronger route with better drainage. The bulk of the route swirls around the Issaquah Highlands, before jutting up to the popular mountain bike park. The final leg of the project is a 600-foot puncheon bridge, about a quarter mile from Duthie Hill Park, that runs a few
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feet above ground across a bog so thick with mud it once threatened to steal shoes off feet. “We didn’t spend a single day up there where we weren’t soaking wet and mud up to the knees,” Owens said. The project took a year and a half. Made of salvaged cedar, the bridge is strong enough to withstand the weight of
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ake just a few turns on Grand Ridge Trail in the Issaquah Highlands and the noises of the suburbs fade into those of a deep forest. While a thatch of vegetation and cedars block any view of mansion rooftops, pine needles and ferns sift street runoff into streams.
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