WA’s outdoors legacy waits for a bill stalled in Congress

On a hike to Snow Lake a few years back, Michael DeCramer watched a fellow hiker accidentally kick a rock loose that hit someone farther down the trail. The near miss could have proved a lot worse — the hiker walked away unscathed — but it drove home for DeCramer, the policy and planning manager for Washington Trails Association, just how degraded and overused the popular hiking trail near Snoqualmie Pass had become.

That risk decreased in 2022, when the Forest Service rebuilt sections of the Snow Lake Trail by adding staircases, shoring up switchbacks and widening bottlenecks.

Rebuilding trails costs money that the Forest Service often lacks for tackling so-called deferred maintenance. But for the past five years, money has been practically growing on trees for the perpetually cash-stra