After one meeting in Port Ludlow in January and another in Chimacum in April, the Puget Sound to Pacific (PS2P) Collaborative returned to the Finnriver Farm and Cidery on Thursday, May 16, to discuss how to connect both statewide and nationwide non-motorized trail systems through currently ambiguous “green blobs” in Chimacum and other areas of Jefferson County.

Although she couldn’t stay for the whole meeting, Jefferson County District 2 Commissioner Heidi Eisenhour attested to her own use of the Larry Scott and Olympic Discovery trails.

Eisenhour also echoed Merrily Mount, who serves as the Peninsula Trails Coalition’s vice president for Jefferson County, after Mount reiterated her position that the Puget Sound to Pacific trail corridor — a combination of the Olympic Discovery and Sound-to-Olympics trails in Jefferson, Kitsap and Clallam counties — should connect through Chimacum (and preferably through Chimacum Ridge, in Mount’s opinion).

Eisenhour concluded her remarks by raising the question of how best to connect that trail system to the Hood Canal Bridge. That was also asked by Steve Durrant, project director of the PS2P Collaborative, as Durrant warned that efforts would be needed to avert the likely default solution of aligning stretches of the trail with highways.

In addition to sacrificing the trails’ scenic appeal and safe degree of removal from busy motor vehicle traffic, Durrant noted that aligning those portions of trail with the highways would also limit their connections to residential communities.

Durrant had led the preparation of a $16.13 million U.S. Department of Transportation RAISE (Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity) grant, for which they were selected last summer, and prepared a $250,000 study of alternative alignments to complete the Olympic Discovery Trail’s gaps between Four Corners and Discovery Bay.

Without specifically outlined alignments, Durrant recommended that residential community “centers of gravity,” such as Port Ludlow and Chimacum, should be proposed as alternatives to aligning the trails with the highways, as the PS2P Collaborative seeks to fill 100 miles of gaps in the trails system, and to connect the communities in Jefferson, Kitsap and Clallam counties to the Washington state trail network.

With a deadline of 2032 for the PS2P Collaborative to spend all of their allotted $16.13 million on this work, Durrant and Mount agreed with Peninsula Trails Coalition President Jeff Bohman that such alternatives need to be advocated early and often during the decision-making processes of the collaborative’s 14 jurisdictional partners — among them three counties, six cities, three Native American tribes, a port authority and a state-level agency — on the 34 projects intended to fill those trail gaps.

Ryen Helzer, community forest manager for the Jefferson Land Trust, recounted how his agency has attempted to acquire Chimacum Ridge property for the past 13 years, and is continuing to consider what would need to be done to open that forested property to public access, through advisory groups devoted to enhancing its social, economic and environmental benefits.

“We’re always looking for more opportunities to engage with the community,” Helzer said.

To that end, Mount announced that the local impromptu trails coalition, whose May 16 meeting also drew attendees from groups including the Jefferson Public Utility District and the county’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, would continue to meet monthly at Finnriver, with further details available from Mount herself at Mount3m@yahoo.com.