Outdoors notes: Staircase road closed, shellfish harvest shut down

The Olympian • Published November 01, 2008

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• ROAD TO STAIRCASE CLOSED: The road to Olympic National Park's Staircase area is now closed for the winter.

Forest Service Road 24, which follows the shoreline of Lake Cushman — and is the only access road to Staircase — is closed because of the danger of rock and mudslides.

The U.S. Forest Service will open the road in the spring when the danger of slides eases — and rocks, mud and other debris is cleared from the road.

For updated road conditions throughout the Olympic National Forest, check www.fs.fed.us/r6/olympic/conditions.

• SHELLFISH HARVEST CANCELLED: The coastline of Olympic National Park is closed to all shellfish gathering because tests have found Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning toxins in shellfish meat.

Olympic National Park's coastline was scheduled to open for harvest of hardshell clams, mussels, gooseneck barnacles, Dungeness crab and red rock crab. Razor clam digging at Kalaloch already was closed until spring 2009 to allow the many small clams to grow larger.

On Sept. 30, toxin levels within the park were five times the human health threshold established by the Washington Department of Health. Samples from Second Beach on Oct. 21 also were above the human health threshold.

This closure applies only to the Olympic National Park coastline. PSP levels along the southern Washington coastline have been lower than within the park.

Olympian news services