Horseshoe Timber Sale

***Update!*** Early in 2013 Bark learned that the Forest Service has decided to halt planning on the Horseshoe Timber Sale! The project was in pre-scoping, the earliest possible stage in the planning of a timber sale, yet regardless Bark groundtruthers had already visited nearly all of the project area in record time. The entire Horseshoe Timber Sale was planned in critical habitat for threatened salmon, which created serious barriers to the Forest Service’s ability to move this project forward. We are proud to report that Horseshoe was cancelled more quickly than any other Mt. Hood timber sale in Bark’s 14 year history! Thanks to our supporters and allies who made phone calls and wrote letters to the Forest Service, and visited the project area.

The Horseshoe Timber Sale is the latest evidence of a timber program that is out of control in Mt. Hood National Forest. The Horseshoe Timber Sale is planned for the Zigzag district, an area that has not had an active timber program in over 15 years and which is home to some of Mt. Hood’s most popular recreation sites and successful watershed restoration work. In 1998 the then-Forest Supervisor put a moratorium on logging in this district due to massive public opposition, including a 1996 protest against the Enola Hill Timber Sale that the Oregonian reported as the largest anti-logging rally in years. The Horseshoe Timber Sale would bring the timber planning that has wreaked havoc on the Clackamas River Ranger District into a recovering landscape to log 120 year old trees in critical habitat for threatened steelhead. In addition to the ecological and policy implications of this sale, is the clear effort by the Forest Service to prioritize its timber program over the vital recreation management and restoration work happening in the Zigzag District. Find pictures of the Horseshoe Timber Sale at our Flickr page.