Olympic Highway to Restrict Camping
Land Commissioner C.V. Savidge plans to mandate designated camping zones to protect state timber from fire risks along the new scenic highway.
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Before the new Olympic Highway is completed and tourists can be invited to go around the scenic loop, Land Commissioner C. V. Savidge will carefully select the spots where visitors are to be permitted to camp, build fires for cooking and enjoy an outing. The new highway does not pass through the heart of the big timber belt that is owned by the state, but it skirts the edges of state holdings and runs through other timber for a part of the distance. Between the Hoh and Queets rivers much of the mileage overlooks the Pacific Ocean. There always is danger of fires during the summer outing season and Land Commissioner Savidge will insist visitors be barred from camping and starting fires in all unsafe places. The designation of official camp grounds is the best safeguard, he says. Private timber owners have equipped camps along the highway west of Lake Crescent and visitors are held to a rigid observance of camping rules.
“There always is danger of fires during the summer outing season and Land Commissioner Savidge will insist visitors be barred from camping and starting fires in all unsafe places.”
The tension between public recreation and forest protection remains a constant theme in Washington state park management. Today's reservation systems for popular coastal and Olympic Peninsula campsites are the modern evolution of Commissioner Savidge's early efforts to regulate tourism on fragile landscapes.
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