Longview Timber has decided to sell substantial portions of their land.

by Dave Neir on June 22, 2012

Want a little elbow room? There are almost 25,000 acres up for sale. Check out the property in our area up for auction July 18th. Auction Catalog

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

leif June 25, 2012 at 9:22 am: It looks like Nason Ridge is for sale again. I suppose that means that the Nason Ridge trail may cease to exist, depending on who buys the land. Does anyone know if there any efforts by land trusts or something similar to acquire the land?
I’ll be honest – I selfishly just don’t want the ski trail to go away. Maybe if a developer bought the land the ski trail would be retained, but it seems like we run a big risk of losing that spectacular trail with the sale of the land.
FWIW, I found this posting on LWInfo from 2008 when it looks like Longview Timber last attempted to sell this land (I assume they were unsuccessful since they are now trying again, although at half the asking price of the last go-round):
http://www.lakewenatcheeinfo.com/2008/nason-ridge-for-sale/
Eric Prestbo June 25, 2012 at 3:00 pm: Longview Fibre did a really nice job in about 2004 of selective logging and fuel reduction on the S. Nason Ridge property that includes the trail and view-shed from the LW State Park beach looking south. Longview Fibre was a good partner to keep the trail open and generated decent jobs in the LW community at one time. It is unfortunate to lose the logging industry, in my opinion. Things change and now Longview Fibre is owned by Brookfield (www.brookfield.com) and the timberlands are held by a new entity, called Longview Timber LLC (http://www.longviewtimber.com/).
Longview Timber has marketed the Nason Ridge property as a place to develop a 4-season resort, as they did last time. It will probably sell at the greatly reduced asking price, but who knows. Since much of the land was burned, the only current short term return would be an aggressive harvest of the land viewed from the south of the State Park, that includes the trail enjoyed by many. It is a real risk, since there are significant amounts of big Ponderosa and Cedar species that were left behind on the last harvest.
Many of us in the LW community are relative newcomers due to “development”, so it would be somewhat hypocritical, at least for me, to advocate that it not be developed or harvested. On the other hand, an ideal outcome would be a working forest that includes some development and continued selective harvesting (and firewise management). A private owner, land trust mechanism might work.
I encourage someone with means and connections to step up.