Timber Clearing Project Opens Up View of Riffe Lake

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A once popular viewpoint of Riffe Lake alongside U.S. Highway 12 is looking to draw a crowd again now that a mess of scene-obscuring trees has been removed by contractors.

Located just east of the Mossyrock Dam, the long gravel pullout on the southside of the highway comes complete with plenty of parking space and a historical marker. However, for at least the last 10 years, the vista had been blocked by a thick patch of timber that had sprouted up in the decades since the dam was erected.

Contractors from Olympic Resource Management recently completed work to clear 4 acres of that timber along the high north bank of Riffe Lake. The project was spearheaded by the Board of Lewis County Commissioners in order to improve the scenic view and draw more attention to the history of the area.

Work on the project was jump-started by former Lewis County Commissioner Lee Grose and was then taken over by Commissioner Gary Stamper when he was elected to office. All told, Stamper says the project has taken at least six years from start to finish.

“It was a good step. I’ve had many people ask me about it so it’s a real benefit for the community,” said Stamper. “It was a whole team effort.”

Stamper noted that the idea of clearing the viewpoint first gained traction around the same time that U.S. Highway 12 was designated as a scenic byway. He said that the White Pass Scenic Byway organization was helpful in moving the project forward, along with representatives from the Washington Department of Transportation, Olympic Resource Management area manager Joe Koontz and Lewis County Public Works Director Erik Martin.



Stamper added that he plans to continue to work closely with the White Pass Scenic Byway group in order to install updated signage at the revamped viewpoint.

“There’s a historical monument sign there and I had some discussion with them and we're going to kind of spruce that up a little bit. There’s the town of Riffe that you’re looking right down on top of but there’s also the town of Nesika that’s down there too, and I’m not sure if it’s mentioned but we’re going to make sure it gets some recognition,” said Stamper. “It will make a real good historical perspective there of how the lake was formed and of the towns that the dam basically flooded in creating Riffe Lake. It will give a real historical narrative of what the town was about and also the whole valley, and maybe it will make some people curious and get them to do some historical searching on their own.”

Regardless of how things shape up in the future, Stamper said he’s already heard of locals and tourists alike stopping off for a view of some spectacular midwinter sunsets.

“We get a lot of people coming through Lewis County, and that’s a nice place to stop,” he said.

If traveling east on U.S. Highway 12, the viewpoint is located on the left just past the Mossyrock Dam rest area.