Washington’s Wild Sky Wilderness grows with transfer of 15 properties
July 25, 2025-
About an hour east of Seattle, the Wild Sky Wilderness spans over 100,000 acres of roaring streams and high peaks. In addition to the ecological importance of it’s temperate rainforests, salmon spawning grounds and alpine habitat, the Wild Sky Wilderness provides close-to-home recreation opportunities for Seattle’s 4 million residents.
The Trust recently completed the transfer of a package of 15 properties totaling 655 acres to public ownership. Located in and near the Silver Creek drainage, we acquired these properties between 2019 and 2024, and have diligently been working with our agency partners to transfer them since. Because the properties are concentrated in one area, we were able to bundle them together into one package, and navigate the transfer process more efficiently. We are working to replicate this strategy in other wilderness areas as well.
Of properties, 540 acres will become designated wilderness and enjoy the strongest protections available for public lands in the US. The other 115 acres will be added to the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest with the possibility of becoming designated wilderness in the future, thanks to the provisions of the 2008 Wild Sky Wilderness Act which created the wilderness area.
This transfer represents a major milestone in our work in the North Cascades ecosystem, and years of hard work by our lands staff and partners. With it we have helped to consolidate protection in the patchwork of ownership through this part of the wilderness area. But the threat still remains: about 1/4 of Washington’s remaining wilderness inholdings are in the Wild Sky Wilderness, and another 1/2 are in the adjacent Henry M Jackson Wilderness. Thanks to donors like you, we will continue working with willing landowners to acquire and protect these remaining vulnerable lands.
