Olympic National Park officials this afternoon closed access to the Hoh and Queets river valleys as a safety precaution, said chief ranger Kevin Hendricks. In addition, crews doing spotted owl surveys were called out of the backcountry because of avalanche danger.

This afternoon's forecast calls for rainfall totals by Wednesday night to be 6 to 10 inches on the coast and up to 20 inches on the west facing slopes of the Olympic Mountains.

“(That’s) so we can remove the public from areas that might be blocked by rising rivers and fallen trees,” Hendricks said of the closures.

John Preston, a ranger based at the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center, left work earlier than normal this afternoon.

“The pond next to the visitor center was coming up. I was watching the stream flow gauge all day,” Preston said. “It was a good time to get out of there.”

The U.S. Geological Survey streamflow gauge on the Hoh at U.S. 101 showed flows were steadily rising this afternoon, reaching 4,230 cubic feet per second at 3:15 p.m. Flows were as low as 1,670 cfs Sunday afternoon.

Preston said the storm is a dual threat. Not only is a lot of rain forecast to fall, it also will melt the snow that has fallen in the last month.

“The snowpack has reached saturation. It can’t absorb any more heat energy from the rain, so the rain is starting to melt the snow,” he said.

“They’re calling for 12 inches of rain. That would be a major flood event if that happens. So far, they’ve been spot on,” Preston said.

A foot of rain would be comparable to the December 2007 storm that caused flooding in Chehalis and shut down Interstate 5.

“It’s going to be wild and wooly in the Hoh the next few days,” Preston said.

Mount Rainier National Park officials are keeping an eye on the rainfall gauge and roadside trees.

I just spoke to Randy King, assistant park superintendent, and he said the park is expected to receive three inches of rain in the coming days. He said staffers will be monitoring streams and key roads to watch for flooding.

King said Mount Rainier should fare better than Olympic National Park, where the forecast is calling for 20 inches of rain.

Both parks have been working to recover from severe flood damage done in the last two years.

Because of the threat of avalanches, King said the road from Longmire to Paradise will be closed Wednesday.

The status of the road from the Nisqually entrance to Longmire will be decided in the morning. Snow-laden trees and branches have been falling on the road, King said. The road was closed Monday because 40 trees had fallen across the road. At least one car was struck by a falling branch.

The National Park Service this morning announced it has issued a Record of Decision to implement Alternative B, the preferred alternative, for the Mountain Lakes Fishery Management Plan/ Environmental Impact Statement for North Cascade National Park.

This action will eliminate high densities of reproducing fish populations from select lakes and allow low densities of reproducing fish populations to remain in others, said a park news release. Non-reproducing fish will be stocked in certain lakes provided impacts to biological resources can be minimized. Lakes that are currently fishless will remain fishless. Up to 42 lakes may be stocked or otherwise remain fishable.

Click here for the plan, EIS, Record of Decision, Frequently Asked Questions, fact sheets, research papers, and an administrative history. Select “Mountain Lakes Fishery Management Plan/EIS.”

Here is the rest of the news release:

The implementation of the preferred alternative, which would allow continued stocking of non-reproducing fish in 42 select lakes, will require authorization from Congress that fish stocking is appropriate within the park complex. Such authorization is needed because the 2006 National Park Service Management Policies prohibit stocking in naturally fishless lakes to preserve and protect naturally fishless aquatic ecosystems.

If the National Park Service does not have authorization by July 1, it will implement Alternative D, the environmentally preferred alternative, which will work to restore native ecosystems through the cessation of stocking mountain lakes and the removal of reproducing fish populations from mountain lakes where it is feasible to do so. Until July 1, the National Park Service will continue long-term ecological monitoring and test gill net fish removal methods at select mountain lakes while continuing cooperative fisheries management with the state of Washington.

The Mountain Lakes Fishery Management Plan is based on more than 10 years of research regarding the ecological impacts of fish stocking within the North Cascades ecosystem and was developed via unprecedented collaboration between the National Park Service and the state of Washington. It will substantially improve existing ecological conditions while continuing to provide sport-fishing opportunities in reservoirs, rivers and streams, and select mountain lakes within each of the three units of North Cascades National Park Service Complex (North Cascades National Park, Ross Lake National Recreation Area, and Lake Chelan National Recreation Area).

The National Park Service’s preferred alternative would, if stocking is authorized by Congress, result in adaptive management of the 91 natural mountain lakes within the park complex with a history of fish stocking and up to 42 of these lakes will remain fishable. The management action will eliminate high densities of reproducing fish populations from lakes using several methods including gill netting and habitat modification (in smaller lakes) and application of the piscicide antimycin (in larger lakes), and also allow continued stocking of select lakes with trout species incapable of reproducing due to habitat and life history constraints (i.e. species considered functionally sterile). The impact analysis indicates that continued stocking (at low densities with non-reproducing fish) will have negligible to minor impacts to aquatic life.

Here is a follow up to the story I posted yesterday about the world record non-typical American elk taken in Utah last fall. The story comes from Brett Prettyman of The Salt Lake Tribune. He posted the story yesterday.

Click here to see a video of the elk, taken by guide Doyle Moss.

Here is Brett’s story.

It's official.

A behemoth male elk dubbed the "Spider bull," taken by a hunter on
Monroe Mountain in central Utah last fall, carried the largest antler
rack ever recorded by the Boone and Crockett (B&C) Club and has been
recognized as the new world record for a nontypical American elk.

The antlers did more than land at the top of the record books - they
also proved to be points of contention among hunters.

The final measurements -- 478 5/8 -- shattered the existing record of
465 2/8 taken from a bull found frozen in a lake in British Columbia
in 1994. The points based on a combination of measurements from the
antlers.

Doyle Moss, head guide for Utah-based MossBack Guides and Outfitters,
led hunter Dennis Austad of Ammon, Idaho, to the bull.

"We all knew he was a special bull, but the reality of just how big
he was really set in when we walked up to him," Moss said.

A quick measurement by Moss in the field turned up a gross score of
more than 500 points. And that's when the controversy started.

Online hunting forums buzzed with rumors that the bull had escaped
from an elk farming ranch or a hunting preserve. Columnists from
national hunting magazines joined the fray and criticized the program
that allowed Austad to bid and win a $150,000 elk conservation permit
to hunt anywhere in the state for several months.

Money from the permit program funds conservation projects around the
state. More than $17 million has been raised by the program in the
last 12 years, $2.9 million of it in 2008.

But investigations by the state of Utah and B&C confirmed the animal
was wild, was taken on public land, and was killed legally, which
qualified it for the record.

"We are confident it was not a farmed elk," said Terry Menlove,
director of the animal industry division of the Utah Department of
Agriculture. "We keep an inventory and there were no missing animals
and it had none of the required markings for an elk on a farm."

Moss can understand why some people figure the bull must have escaped
from a breeding facility. He first heard about the bull when friend
e-mailed him some pictures.

"Even I questioned how he could be so big," Moss said. "There had
never been a bull killed on that mountain that scored 400 inches. It
was kind of shocking."

Moss says anybody who spent time trying to find the bull during
hunting season will confirm it was born in the wild.

"After seeing him disappear like he did during the hunts it is easy
to see how he could have survived the last couple of years," Moss
said. "He was very nocturnal. We would see him the last few minutes
of light before dark and at first light, but that was it."

Jim Karpowitz, director of the DWR, uses that point to counter the
argument that only a hunter with the means to pay $150,000 for a
permit and guide fees could take such a trophy.

"All the other permitted hunters - archery, rifle and most of the
muzzleloaders - had a crack at that bull," Karpowitz said. "A lot of
other people knew it was there and they all looked for it."

Austad hunted with MossBack guides for 12 days in early September
before leaving due to other obligations. He managed one shot at the
"Spider bull" during that time. A Mossback guide spotted the bull,
alive and well, on Sept. 28, two days before Austad was scheduled to
return. Early on Sept. 30, Austad dropped the bull with one shot from
a rifle he designed himself.

Karpowitz was impressed with the bull, but said it has never been the
agency's goal to produce a world record.

"Our objective is to maintain healthy population of elk and provide a
diversity of hunting opportunities," he said. "It's exciting that we
produced the largest elk ever known in the wild and an indication of
the high quality elk program we have in Utah."

The threat of avalanches has led Mount Rainier National Park officials to close the road from Longmire to Paradise.

The current forecast calls for heavy rain and the freezing level rising to 7,000 feet, creating extreme avalanche conditions today, said a park news release. With the threat of slides, park officials have opted to close the road.

The road to Longmire, however, reopened earlier this morning after it was closed Monday. The release said the road was closed Monday due to the danger from numerous falling trees. Since conditions stabilized, park officials reopened the road at 7:30 p.m.