by Hanne Beener
- Pursue land protection opportunities allowing connectivity to public lands on upper Burch Mountain.
- Facilitate development of a formal public-access point in this area.
These two bullet points are the recommendations in the Land Trust’s 2022-2026 Public Access Plan, for the ‘North District of the Wenatchee Urban Area’. The desires behind these goals existed as dreams for many years in the Land Trust community before they found a formal home in our Public Access Plan.
How I love it when a plan gives clear directives to be achieved. I love it even more when we take big strides in fulfilling directives. And I’m here now, beaming, to report that we have a tangible and viable path for fulfilling the two bullet points above.
The Land Trust has been communicating with the Ohme Family for years, looking for ways to conserve a significant swath of open space above Ohme Gardens. Now, in partnership with the City of Wenatchee, we are poised to formally protect 134 acres of undeveloped land, known as the Lookout Natural Area. The name ‘Lookout’ emerged from a suggestion from members of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and captures the history and soul of a place with sweeping views of the confluence of the Wenatchee and Columbia Rivers, the high Cascades, and the Waterville Plateau.
The property is draped over an arm of Burch Mountain and, at its highest elevation, connects to over 168,000 acres of public land. At its low end, it connects to Wenatchee’s Urban Growth Area. Its habitat is a corridor of connectivity allowing wildlife to move from the river valleys to the high point of Burch Mountain and into the Swakane Wildlife Area. The property has a dramatic variety of cliffs, aspects, slopes, and swales. In brief, this natural area provides irreplaceable habitat, helping maintain diverse ecosystems that benefit diverse flora and fauna… and, therefore, people as well.
Lookout Natural Area builds on the legacy of the Wenatchee Foothills, a series of protected open space and trails that exists largely due to the long-standing and successful partnership between the City of Wenatchee and the Chelan-Douglas Land Trust. To my way of thinking, protecting the Lookout property adds another gemstone to the necklace of open spaces around our region’s population center in the Wenatchee Valley. This would be the first foothills gem situated north of the Wenatchee River and would provide backyard natural lands adjacent to the rapidly growing Sunnyslope neighborhoods.
The project goes beyond simply protecting the land. It includes a commitment to develop a formal trailhead and a non-motorized, multi-use trail system. To protect mule deer winter range, the City, Land Trust, and WA Department of Fish and Wildlife agree that the property will have the same seasonal closure as many of our foothills properties. Beyond the direct value of public access, Lookout Natural Area will provide other important public benefits, such as preserving part of an increasingly impacted viewshed for many homes around the valley and providing a buffer space for responders to manage inevitable wildfires threatening homes along the edge of the city and in the Urban Growth Area.
To accomplish all this, the Land Trust is working through the early stages of a capital campaign aimed at raising $2.5M of private, philanthropic funding, which will be pooled with state grants secured by the City of Wenatchee. All told, we must raise $4.3M over the next year to protect the property, develop a suitable trailhead, design the trail system, and devote funds to the on-going, long-term stewardship of the property.
The good news is that, through support from leading donors and local businesses, such as Cascade Autocenter, we have already secured nearly half ($1.2M) of the needed private funding. We are excited to build on this momentum and will be asking the entire community to join us in fulfilling this rare and exciting opportunity over the coming year. Whether you can help by donating to the campaign financially, or by contributing to meetings related to appropriate public access, trailhead design, trail design, and wildlife protection, we need community involvement. I welcome you to join us.
For those of us wishing to keep the Wenatchee Valley a place that is vital and livable – a place where nature and people thrive together – helping us preserve the Lookout Natural Area will protect a jewel. It’s a jewel like the Loop Trail, Saddle Rock, or Castle Rock, that the community will cherish long into the future.
Details. To find out more about the Lookout Natural Area and the Lookout Campaign, https://www.cdlandtrust.org/support-us/lookout-natural-area
Hanne Beener has worked in various capacities for the Land Trust over the past decade. She is now the organization’s Executive Director.
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