User:Tmaraki/The Enchantments/Evyn08 Peer Review

Hi!! Overall super strong article! you added a ton of great information, especially to the intro section, and the addition of your conservation section really transformed the article. plus, I love the enchantments! That whole region is definitely a great destination for courageous hikers!

So I changed up some of the wording here and there just how I saw fit, but nothing huge, so feel free to keep it how you had it haha. One grammatical error I saw a couple times was a comma before a person's name like "Renowned mountaineering climber, Fred Beckey was..."; I might be wrong but I don't think you need it for that sentence structure. otherwise, I just tried to improve the flow as best I could and added a couple more commas where I thought necessary (I'm also a fan of the Oxford comma so I added that in when needed haha)! I made my changes in bold so you can keep track!

But seriously, super great work! I can tell you're an awesome writer and have really added some great substance to this article! Awesome job specifically on tone, by the way; you really nailed an information yet interesting voice and out together a perfect Wikipedia page!

-- evyn08

The Enchantments is a region consisting of upper and lower basins, meadows and glacier lakes surrounded by the peaks of Stuart Range in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area of Washington state's Cascade Mountain Range. Located about 15 miles (24km) southwest of Leavenworth, Washington in the United States, The Enchantments is regarded as one of the most spectacular locations in the Cascade Range. Nestled in the 4-million acre Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, The Enchantments live at an elevation of 4,500 feet (1,372 m) with the highest peak, Dragontail Peak, stretching 8,840 feet (2,694 m). The vast peaks and gorgeous views make this a prime area for many local and visiting climbers, backpackers, and mountaineers of the Pacific Northwes t. Renowned mountaineering climber Fred Beckey was the first to summit one of the many peaks in the region, naming the cluster of isolating spear-like mountains Cashmere Crags.

Historically, Native Americans including the __ tribes (research which tribes), once populated the Enchantments area and traveled the region long before it was ever discovered by Western civilization. By the early 1900s, logging and mining had consumed much of the land. The region was named by European American topographer A.H. Sylvester, who worked for the US Geological Survey in the Snoqualmie Ranger District from 1897 to 1907. During his time as Wenatchee Forest district supervisor from 1908 to 1931, Sylvester had discovered the unmapped and unexplored area by chance. In a letter, he had described the land admirably, writing, "It was an enchanting scene. I named the group Enchantment Lakes." Later, Bill and Peg Stark would visit The Enchantments and name the many landmarks with mystical and spiritual type names, including Nada Lake, Gnome Tarn, High Priest, and Lost World Plateau.

Conservation efforts for public wilderness lands were strongly impacted by The Wilderness Society founded in 1935. Their efforts, along with many other organizations, helped pass the Wilderness Act of 1964 into federal legislation. The new law established a National Wilderness Preservation System to preserve and protect certain lands, leaving them "unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness, and so as to provide for the protection of these areas, the preservation of their wilderness character." Due to the population increase in Western Washington across the 20th century, the Alpine Lakes had seen a spike in disruptive visitation, resulting in negative and even permanent impacts to the fragile ecosystems of The Enchantments region. The sensitive ecosystems of The Enchantments, that can survive such great elevations and intense weather patterns, rely on minimal nutrients to survive. With the popular peaks attracting an influx of foot traffic, destruction of landscape became a serious issue. Although the Wilderness Act had set certain precautions to protect the land, studies and data conducted by the Alpine Lakes Protection Society (ALPS) illustrated a destructive overuse of the Alpine Lakes region. In an effort to regulate the number of backpackers on The Enchantment trails without further disrupting ecosystems and to maintain compliance with the Wilderness Act, ALPS proposed an overnight permit system. In 2019, the system was approved and implemented by the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest (OWNF).

Conservation
The Alpine Lakes Wilderness consists of a wide variety of plants and trees, such as Douglass fir, western red cedar, noble fir, vine maple, and alder, as a result of differentiations in precipitation and elevation. The high, rocky alpine and subalpine meadows at great elevations make the ecosystems highly sensitive to the natural elements for survival and nutrition.(this sentence was a little weird. I know what you're trying to say but maybe think about rewording it a bit? try maybe: At such a great elevation, the rocky alpine and subalpine meadows of the Enchantments have highly sensitive ecosystems that struggle to support the natural elements needed for survival and nutrition.) Concerns to preserve and protect the vegetation and habitats of the area have grown rapidly in recent years. With over 100,000 visitors annually as of 2019, the heavy foot traffic has outgrown the terms of the 1964 Wilderness Act which protects U.S. Wilderness areas, "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain". Vegetation at high elevation levels are particularly vulnerable to foot traffic due to their short growing season, sparsity, and low resilience to changes in environment, such as global warming. Unsuccessful maintenance of the Enchantments area has also failed to address impacts such as "degradation and loss of meadow, riparian damage, tree damage, presence of dog and human waste, widening and braiding of trails and compaction of sites and soils." In 2016, the ALPS proposed a permit-system that would regulate the number of hikers allowed to stay overnight in the region, in order to prevent further landscape destruction, and in October 2018, after much data collection, the OWNF approved the permit system effective in 2019.

The Alpine Lakes Protection Society (ALPS) is one of the biggest advocates for conserving the natural elements and features of the lakes that exist within and around The Enchantments. In the early 1900s, when logging and mining had taken over much of the back country, the ALPS was formed as a need to protect the region became apparent. Founded in 1968, it has promoted congressional legislation relating to the Cascade Mountains region and protecting the area from any actions that would disparage the "wilderness quality" of the Alpine Lakes region. In 1976, Congress designated 362,789 acres to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

In 2016, Chelan County and the Washington State Department of Ecology had proposed plans to enlarge dams and other water-related projects within the Enchanted Lakes region, known as the Icicle Strategy. The purpose of the plan was to improve stream flows and water availability into the Icicle Creek Subbasin. The plan would expand the dam on Eightmile Lake and on Upper and Lower Snow Lakes, which could not only cause flooding in the lakes, but also the surrounding area. In 2018 the plan was formally adopted. Although there were concerns relating to the habitats and recreation of the areas within The Enchantments, the plan was reviewed by the State of Washington's Department of Ecology, which had thoroughly weighed the positive impacts against concerns; the habitat protection, fish passage, fish screening and water conservation efficiencies.