By Kimberly Cauvel / The Skagit Valley Herald The state Recreation and Conservation Office has awarded more than $130,000 in grants to help maintain backcountry and snow-park trails in Skagit and Whatcom counties over the next two years. The state Parks and Recreation Commission will receive $109,000 to plow six Sno-Parks and maintain 166 miles of snowmobile…

The Snohomish County Council approved buying nearly 12 miles of the Eastside Rail Corridor on Monday, preserving freight service and also opening the possibility of linking to trail systems in King County. The approval allows the county to use Conservation Futures bond money to buy the property from the Port of Seattle for $5 million. The Port…

The Mount Si and Little Si trailheads and trails will reopen at 8 a.m. Friday, according to the state Department of Natural Resources. Access to the area was closed after a lightplane crashed in the Mount Si Natural Resources Conservation Area  on February 15. All three people in the plane were killed. According to the…

Mount Si hiking trails are closed through the three-day Presidents Day weekend for the investigation of Wednesday’s small plane crash that killed three people. The King County Medical Examiner’s Office says the crash killed Rob Marshall Hill, 30, Seth Dawson, 31, and Elizabeth Redling, 29. Hill was the pilot and a flight instructor at AcuWings, a Renton flying school,…

Bellevue has opened a short trail that allows bicyclists and hikers to avoid busy Factoria Boulevard while traveling between 124th Avenue Southeast and the existing trail on Interstate 90. The one-third-mile-long Factoria Trail, which opened last week, was a $1.4 million project funded with the help of state and federal grants. Not far away, a one-mile, $3…