If you’ve ever wondered how the KLF honors directed bequests, look no further than the Norm Winn Grants as an example. Norm served on KLF’s Board of Directors for many years. He left a significant bequest to KLF to provide grants that promote conservation beyond the Salish Sea region. This year, one of our Norm Winn Grant recipients is the Alpine Lakes Foundation (ALF). In keeping with KLF’s grant requirements, the Alpine Lakes Foundation is applying the funding to further protection of this special place.
The KLF’s Norm Winn Memorial Conservation Grant to the Alpine Lakes Foundation accomplished significant trail restoration work in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. The project is on track and despite last December’s severe storms, even more trail restoration may be accomplished this summer than originally anticipated. The Hatchery Creek trail nine miles east of Leavenworth, Wash., is a once-popular trail that was badly damaged by a fire over a decade ago and has deteriorated since to the point of being soon-to-be-impassable. But a different future for this trail and the dispersed recreation opportunities it can provide is coming thanks to upcoming Washington Trails Association (WTA) work using KLF’s Norm Winn Grant funds, ALF’s dollar-for-dollar match, and some additional funds that ALF is raising. In addition, ALF has learned that the U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) coordination with WTA on the project will include substantial connected trail work in the area. Some of this work is needed due to damage resulting from the December 2025 storms (which among other things made the three-mile road to the trailhead impassable for vehicles).
A USFS trail crew performed work along the access road and the trail in June, and will be packing in bear boxes and/or other gear for later WTA and USFS use. A WTA crew is working on the Hatchery Creek trail from July 8th to 15th. A WTA volunteer crew will follow up from July 17th to 21st. The WTA’s crew will be back on the trail July 22nd to 29th to push the work further.
The Hatchery Creek trail project will be highlighted on social media during July, coinciding with the July 12th, 2026, 50th anniversary of the creation of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. ALF will follow up with WTA and the USFS over the summer and provide additional reports on the project.
ALF’s work under the Norm Winn Grant illustrates how KLF bequests and your donations sustain the wild spaces we love and enjoy today and, with this important work, tomorrow and beyond.
-Linda Anderson-Carnahan, Secretary