Your Stories

Connecting Students to Conservation Through Restoration Ecology 

6/9/2026

Valley Academy 9th- and 10th-grade students recently completed nine months of hands-on learning through a partnership with the Chelan-Douglas Land Trust at Lower Sleepy Hollow. As part of the school's Restoration Ecology course, students visited the property monthly to explore ecosystem science, restoration ecology, watershed processes, and natural resource stewardship in a real-world setting.

Forty for Forty: Fifty for Fifty
by Andy Dappen

1/24/2026

Forty for Forty: Lookout Natural Area 
by Hanne Beener

1/21/2025

●  Pursue land protection opportunities allowing connectivity to public lands on upper Burch Mountain.
●  Facilitate development of a formal public-access point in this area. 

Forty for Forty: Stemilt Wintertime Non-Motorized Area
by Andy Dappen

12/27/2025

Forty for Forty: Saving Nason Ridge
by Rob Shurtleff

12/20/2025

Patience – many of the Chelan-Douglas Land Trust’s (CDLT) accomplishments are fruits of this virtue. Nason Ridge, forming the forested southeastern slopes above Lake Wenatchee, exemplifies how patience resulted in a big conservation win for the region.

Forty for Forty: Burch Mountain in Winter
by Andy Dappen

12/6/2025

Historically, driving up the gravel portion of the Burch Mountain Road near Wenatchee was a journey entirely through undeveloped lands. Over the past decade, the lower two miles of the road has witnessed the signs of growth common throughout the West – large homes sprouting on multi-acre parcels of land. It’s a process of fragmentation disrupting the movement of wildlife and complicating how municipalities provide services (like fire protection) to such homeowners.

Forty for Forty: December Trails and Winter Closures
by Andy Dappen

Forty for Forty: Dreary (and Muddy) November
by Andy Dappen

November. It’s rightly called a ‘shoulder season’ as our normally sunny weather turns it back on us, delivering the cold shoulder of gray skies, drizzle, and short days. After the warmth of summer but before the arrival of winter snow, it’s a time of gloom and doom.

Forty for Forty: A Foothills Wildfire Walk 
by Andy Dappen

For over a month, our regional air has been clouded with smoke from surrounding wildfires. With fire now in the regional mindset, it’s an opportune time to emphasize that a major benefit of the undeveloped foothills properties that the Land Trust and its partners have protected along the southern and western flanks of Wenatchee give the entire community a beneficial, though not invincible, wildfire buffer.

Forty for Forty: The One-Two Divide
by Andy Dappen

When someone mentions hiking the One-Two Divide, my eyes turn rosy — I count it among my favorite walks in the foothills.  The same mention makes my wife’s eyes turn red — she finds it an unpleasant affair.