540 Acres Added to Wild Sky Wilderness!

Another win for wild lands! Our friends at The Wilderness Land Trust have just finalized a major land transfer—655 acres of forestland are now in public hands. Of that, 540 acres have been officially added to Washington’s Wild Sky Wilderness, granting the strongest protections available for these incredible landscapes. The remaining 115 acres join the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, with potential for future Wilderness designation.

Photo: The Wild Sky Wilderness, USFS

History of the Wild Sky Wilderness
Over the course of a decade, Washington Wild led a coalition of 745 local elected officials—including Congressional champions Senator Murray and Representative Larsen—businesses, conservation organizations, outdoor recreation groups, and other stakeholders to see the Wild Sky Wilderness become a reality in 2008.

Protecting over 106,000 acres of old and mature-growth forest, the Wild Sky Wilderness provides pristine habitat for endangered and other sensitive species, including the northern spotted owl, marbled murrelet, bald eagle, mountain goat, pine marten, pileated woodpecker, cougar, wolverine, lynx, and grizzly bear. These forested headwaters also support watershed health downstream and spawning grounds for salmon and steelhead.

Connecting Critical Habitat

Within the approximately 111.7 million acres of Wilderness across the U.S., pockets of private land that date back over 100 years land still exist. Referred to as “in-holdings” these often include mining claims, old hunting camps, and railway land grants that were grandfathered into the Wilderness areas because they existed before federal protections.

This is where The Wilderness Land Trust comes in…

Founded over three decades ago with the purpose of being a third party to assist in land transfers, The Trust looks for these properties with owners willing to sell to add to the local Wilderness, and then offers fair market value for their land. The process to then transfer the land to the U.S. Forest Service can stretch on for years, so the The Trust holds the plot until the full transfer process goes through—that way landowners can be compensated.

Trust recently completed the transfer of a package of 15 properties totaling 655 acres to public ownership. Among that, 540 acres will become designated Wilderness as part of Wild Sky while the remaining 115 acres will be added to the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest with the possibility of becoming designated Wilderness in the future.

This most recent transfer is the second completed in Wild Sky in recent years. In 2023 The Trust transferred 345 acres near Silvertip Peak, accessible to hikers via Monte Cristo, an old mining boom town off the Mountain Loop Highway.