Taylor operates a backhoe and his crew loads broken limbs onto a trailer.
It’s been nine years since Lake Wilderness Golf Course Superintendent Jeff Taylor has seen so much storm damage.
Back then, a windstorm took out 54 trees. This year, Taylor and his crew of four are dealing with fewer lost trees but more fallen branches and limbs. In neighborhoods and parks around Maple Valley work crews and resident volunteers are still out with chainsaws and other equipment, gathering up the fallout from the snow, ice and wind storms Jan. 19 through 21.
Storms may have destroyed as many as 20 trees on one hillside near the 15th hole of the golf course.
It’s just a mess.
Eric Tharaldson carries his son, Carter, 3, as he walks next to storm debris on the Cedar to Green River Trail near Lake Wilderness.
King County also began collecting storm debris for free from residents last weekend at its transfer stations in Enumclaw and North Bend as well as Russell Road Park in Kent. The county will offer this again this weekend, Feb. 4 and 5. Click HERE for more information.
The Parks and Recreation Department has posted warning signs near trails -- like this one leading to the lodge -- that are still covered in debris.
The city of Maple Valley also lists numerous options for disposing of wood debris on its web site HERE.
“It’s just a mess,” Taylor says of the 18-hole golf course. He and his crew were gathering their 40th load of tree limbs today using a borrowed backhoe and trailer. He guessed it would be a couple weeks before the course is completely cleaned up, but the course was cleared enough to reopen over the weekend.
“When people ask if it’s bad, I say, ‘Only where the trees are.’ And we’ve only got about 10,000 trees,” he says with a smile.
Eric and Alison Tharaldson were walking the Green to Cedar River Trail along Lake Wilderness with two babies in a double stroller and their 3-year-old son. The sides of the trail were stacked with broken or cut limbs and branches, but the trail itself posed little problem for them today.
Branches litter the lawn around Lake Wilderness Lodge, with a view of limbs that have fallen into the lake.
“They’ve got it cleaned up really well,” Eric Tharaldson says.
Though the main trail has been cleared, many of the side trails in Lake Wilderness Park remain covered with debris, with signs posted warning visitors that branches could still fall from trees.
