Okanogan National Forest

About Okanogan National Forest

The northern state of Washington includes the Okanogan National Forest, the largest national forest in the USA, and Lake Washington. The highest peak is North Gardner Mountain at 8974 feet, with many other peaks above 7000 feet. This climate is characterized by a combination of warm, dry summers and cold, wet and snowy winters. In winter, night temperatures below zero are not uncommon, but the days are often sunny and the vegetation of the forest varies from year to year.

Okanogan National Forest owes its origins to a proclamation of Washington's Birthday Reserves signed by President Grover Cleveland on February 22, 1897. Mark Deleon, the proclamation created 13 forest areas with 21 million acres in the western state. The proclamation preceded the Organic Act of 1897, which provided for the management and protection of reserves. Presidents were only allowed to set aside public reserves for a maximum of three years, from the date of their creation until the end of his term.

For a short time, the Washington Forest Reserve was stationed in Everett and then in Tacoma, but then jurisdiction was reinstated for individual designated forests. Okanogan National Forest is located on the same land area as Chelan and Entiat National Forests in Washington State. It spans both sides of the Cascade Mountains and includes the current eastern part of the former Columbia River Gorge and part of Lake Washington. In the late 1990s, as Chelan National Forest continued to occupy Chellan Lake and the Entiat Divide, it was renamed Oklahoma - Okansogan, based on its original name of the Washington Birthday Reserve.

At the time of the separation of the two forests, each ranger district had ranger districts, and Chelan had the Okanogan National Forest Ranger District and Oklahoma - Okansogan Forest Reserve. In the late 1990s, however, the forests of Okan Logan and Chelan were reunited and formed the Che Laners National Forest.

The office is located in the Okanogan National Forest Ranger District Building on the west side of Che Laners Trail in Chelan County.

When the supervisory board moved into the new federal building of the Okanogan Post Office in the 1940s, the Ranger District was located on the east side of the post office building. Chelan National Forest was a heavily divided administrative unit with three ranger districts: Entiat, Wenatchee and Winthrop. At the same time, the Entiat Ranger District joined the Wenatchede National Forest, and the Che Laners District was assigned to it due to losses, including the forest now known as the Oklahoma City National Wildlife Refuge, and a number of other areas of interest.

To avoid confusion, the Okanogan Ranger District was deliberately renamed Chelan National Forest and Wenatchede National Forest, and later Entiat National Park.

In 1982, the Conconully District was merged into the Methow Valley Ranger District, which in turn merged with the Cascades National Forest and the Chelan - Wenatchee National Forests. In 1998, the Winthrop and Twisp Ranger districts merged and were renamed Methows Valley Rangers District.

The Washington Wilderness Act of 1984 designated Lake Chelans Sawtooth Wilderness as part of the Okanogan and Wenatchede National Forests, both now part of the Oklahoma National Park Service (NPS) and Washington State Parks (WSP).

Its headquarters are in Wenatchee, Washington, and its headquarters are in Okanogan County, Oklahoma, with offices in Oklahoma City and Fort Worth, Texas.

From Okanogan, US Highway 97 will take you 25 miles north through the forest, and from there you will be in the subdivision near the Okansogan Valley Office headquarters in Okangan, Washington.