Asotin and 4-O wildlife areas to get upgrades

The answer to the old rhetorical questions is “yes, bears do indeed ‘poop’ in the woods,” but if not given an alternative, bear hunters do, too.

Ditto for hikers, horse riders, mountain bikers and bird watchers.

For visitors of the popular Asotin Creek Wildlife Area, there are no alternatives. But that is changing. This summer, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife will install five vault toilets at key points throughout the 36,500-acre area southwest of Clarkston.

Bob Dice, manager of the Blue Mountains Wildlife Areas, which include Asotin Creek, said toilets will be installed at the confluence of the North and South forks of Asotin Creek near a public shooting range there; at the North Fork Trailhead; near the mouth of Sourdough Gulch along the Lick Creek Road; at Cabin Gulch, which is also along Lick Creek Road; and one along the Smoothing Iron Road.

The toilet at Sourdough Gulch will accompany a project to mitigate a fish passage barrier on Lick Creek. The department will replace a pair of culverts with a bridge. Spoils from that project will be used to create a parking area and pad for the toilet.

A grant from the U.S. Forest Service will pay for the fish passage project and another grant from the Washington Recreation and Conservation Office will pay for prefabricated concrete toilets.

Dice said the toilets will be similar to one the agency installed in January on its recently acquired Wheeler property near Boggan’s Oasis along the Grande Ronde River, and of the type commonly seen at trailheads, parks and campgrounds. A shade shelter, picnic table and some landscaping will be added to the Wheeler property that also serves as a boat launch.

4-O Ranch rehab

This winter, salvage logging on the Grouse Flats Unit of the 4-0 portion of the Chief Joseph Wildlife Area removed about 500 log trucks of timber that was burned in the Cougar Creek Fire.

The area and other places damaged by the 2024 fire will be replanted this summer. Dice said the agency will use about 85,000 seedlings that are endemic to the area. Before the fire, a forester for the agency collected seeds from pine cones on the nearby Mountain View parcel of the 4-O. They were used to grow the seedlings that will be planted across about 560 acres.

“We are really thrilled about that,” Dice said of the opportunity to use locally sourced seedlings.

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com.