Nearly 30 years ago, three young cyclists came up with an idea to create a non-motorized trail crossing the width of the Olympic Peninsula from the Puget Sound to the Pacific Ocean.

Teams of people have been patching together this 130-mile multimodal trail piece by piece. In 2017, SCJ worked with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe to ready a section of trail located near Blyn, Wash, allowing trail riders to enjoy a more scenic route and avoid riding on the highway.

SCJ designed the preliminary plans, wetland mitigation plan, construction plans, and landscaping plan. Foundational to many of those plans were a biological assessment and wetland delineation conducted by SCJ. The firm also gained the needed permitting approvals from multiple agencies, as well as led construction management and inspection.

For the Tribe, improving the wetland and buffer conditions along the trail system, and protecting the wetlands from long-term trail use impacts, was key to the project. The design team incorporated multiple elements to minimize environmental impacts including oversized culverts for surface water flows, boardwalks through wetlands areas, and a pedestrian bridge over a creek.