Deception Pass State Park
May 2014 A monthly newsletter from the desk of the park manager to this park's friends and neighbors
The Pride of Lions Benefits Park Dozens of local Lions roamed the forests and day use areas of Deception Pass on April 19 for Earth Day . Once again, the many Lions Clubs from around Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands gathered together to give a day of service to the park. They were joined by a local scout troop as well. Led by Dennis Bullock, zone chair of the Lions, the group had several projects lined up and prepared ahead of time by Ranger John Whittet so the volunteers could jump into the work when they arrived. With coffee and donuts to get them jump-started at 9 a.m., they then signed up for one of six projects: • Scraping and painting a restroom at West Beach • Rebuilding a trail bridge near campsite 30 • Resetting and solidifying trail fence posts along the North Beach trail • Removing log castles and forts at West Beach • Removing the dirt from around the hundreds of bumper blocks at the West Beach parking lot • Picking up litter throughout half of the park The bridge repairs took the most preparation, as hardware, new stringers and tread boards had to be secured ahead of time. Workers quickly put their combined skills and experience to use as they got into the mud and muck to remove the old foundation stringers for the bridge, install new stringers, and then add the tread boards. The final result is magnificent. Down to bare earth, or Cleaning the parking mud, as the rotten stringers lot bumper blocks took are removed.
Before and after appearances of the trail footbridge perseverance in scraping each block of accumulated sand and vegetation and hauling it away. The parking lot looks almost brand new again now! They scraped the restroom and painted most of the insides; a family had fun removing the driftwood forts at the beach; several volunteers made sure the fence along the North Beach trail is secure again. So much took place it was hard to keep track of everything going on, but the teamwork was amazing. Park Ranger Shook was our hands-on coordinator for the day, assisted by Jessy Osterloh. When lunch time came, the Lions had a hot dog and hamburger Eric Brooks and his family spread worthy of any assist in cleaning the parkgrand picnic day, in spite of the slightly in- ing lot block by block clement weather. Together, the Lions and Scouts contributed over 330 hours of work in just one morning. We are so grateful that the Lions take pride in our park and make it a much better place for our visitors.