Blanchard Mountain
Blanchard Mountain is the southernmost tip of the Chuckanuts near Bellingham. The Chuckanuts are the only place where the Cascade Mountains meet the sea.
Where the Cascades touch the sea
Today a collaborative agreement
protects 1,600 acres of mature forests and popular recreation trails at
the heart of Blanchard Mountain. Recognizing that the loss of working
forest lands harms conservation and recreation, the Blanchard
Strategies Group Agreement also promotes increased public forest
ownership to ensure that working forest lands are part of the solution to the threat of sprawl.
Blanchard Mountain, south of Bellingham in Washington State, is the southernmost outpost of the Chuckanut Range, the only place along the coast where the Cascades connect to salt water. It is the ultimate of green belts: a beloved and well-used place for recreation, respite, and wildness that separates two increasingly populated counties, Skagit and Whatcom. An estimated 35,000 people visit Blanchard's trails each year, riding horse, hiking, bird watching, and hang gliding.
Blanchard Mountain is one of many valuable state trust lands, public forests managed by the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR). While many of us think of trust lands as benefiting schools, they were established for a number of different beneficiaries, among them the counties. Any revenues from Blanchard Mountain logging, over and above management costs, goes to Skagit County. The DNR had planned to log over the entire mountain, and many of us disagreed.
In 2006, the DNR convened a group of diverse interests, including Conservation Northwest and Friends of Blanchard Mountain, and charged them with together creating a forest management plan for Blanchard's forests that could satisfy the needs of all with interests at stake. The collaborative agreement and a successful plan for these cherished lands resulted.
