Happy meetings on the Huff 'n' Puff Trail

Kirk Ericson | Apr 20, 20230

Gordon Weeks count

The Shelton Rotary Club got an early jump on Earth Day activities with a cleanup and community event Saturday at the City of Shelton's Huff 'n' Puff Trail across the street from Shelton High School on Shelton Springs Road. Abe Gardner cleans the student memorial at the trailhead.

I ran into Journal reporter Gordon Weeks last Saturday on one of the segments of the Huff 'n' Puff Trail, that 1.8-mile-long collection of loops that meander through a stand of slender firs on several acres across the road from Shelton High School. A drawing of the trail on a handout I was given last weekend makes the loops look like a lopsided, five-lobed shamrock.

The trail, owned by the City of Shelton, is covered in wood chips, and it's flat. The rise in elevation can't be more than a foot - it might be one of the least huffy-and-puffy trails you'll experience. It's also rare to be in a stand of trees in Western Washington with so little English ivy. You can also find trillium there, Western Washington's shyest flower.

Gordon and I walked and talked amid the filtered glow of the late-morning spring sun before coming across a man with a big file and a young fella carrying a white bucket filled with a few cans of spray paint in earth-tone shades. The man was filing graffiti off a stump - the spray paint in the bucket was designed to cover any remnants of the graffiti.

"What's the graffiti say?" I asked the youngster while the man continued his filing.

"Nasty things," the youngster said.

"Like what?" I asked.

"Just nasty things," he replied.

He didn't want to repeat the nasty things. Good for him.

We went our opposite ways, but Gordon and I soon ran into the two again (that's common among this network of trails - it's easy to accidentally retrace your steps). This time the man was filing off numbers and a picture of a mushroom that had been spray-painted high on the trunk of a tree.

"Amanita muscaria," the man said.

Someone had graffitied images of a specific mushroom onto a handful of trees. I kind of admired the graffitist's commitment to native ecology.

I asked the man his name. "Rick Hoss," he said.

Oh - the same attorney who drew up a will for Mrs. Ericson and myself a couple of years ago. The three of us talked over the phone because we were still deep in the plague at the time, so we've never met face to face.

"So far so good," I told him about the will.

He laughed and we parted ways again.

Gordon and I and Rick Hoss and the young fellow and many more were all there that Saturday morning because of an effort by the Rotary Club of Shelton to encourage better treatment of the trail and its walkers and runners. Longtime users have reported an increase in the past year in mistreatment of the park and its users - scattered trash, defaced trees and encounters that have made at least one person limit her use of the park to Saturdays while accompanied by someone else.

Shelton Rotary member Kristin French told me about two instances when she was harassed on the trail, and it didn't sound like an overreaction. Those two experiences are likely extra hard for her because she ran on that trail when she was a kid.

In an email, French said she's spoke with at least 30 community members and "the nearly unanimous feedback I received was that long-time committed users of the Huff 'n' Puff Trail have very recently either limited their use or stopped using the trail altogether due to safety concerns - many of which seem to relate to groups of school-age individuals/behavior/interactions; particularly during the time period shortly before school starts, midday break, and right after school ends for the day."

When confronted with such violations of the social compact, it's tempting to fall back on emotionally satisfying expressions that include the word "tough," as in "getting tough" or "you gotta be tough with these people."

But Shelton Rotary is taking a smarter path because it's a path that stands a better chance of playing out well in the long run: Encourage more people who will respect the place to use the place. It's a tactic. You outnumber those who will cause the trail harm and you provide examples of the kind of behavior the trail and trees deserve.

"We have to figure out healthy ways to use it by having a presence here," French told me last Saturday. "We are looking to make more people feel welcome here."

Shelton Rotary has completed the city's Adopt-A-Park application, French said, "so now has formally adopted the Huff 'n' Puff with plans to continue ongoing efforts to support trail use and maintenance."

Shelton's Parks and Recreation department, along with Shelton Rotary, is promoting "community use windows" for the trail, French said. Those will be various times on various days when walkers and joggers "can enjoy the company of others on the trail," she wrote. The YMCA is also getting involved.

Stop by the trail at 3600 N. Shelton Springs Road.

This stress the Huff 'n' Puff Trail is experiencing now should not be dismissed as merely another example of how everything's just going to hell and there's nothing we can do about it. It doesn't have to be so. Tranquil outdoor sites like Huff 'n' Puff are especially valuable because it fosters serendipitous encounters among friends and acquaintances.

All we need to do is step in and step up.