Mountain Loop Highway Phone to Be Removed, Raising Safety Worries
Mountain Loop Highway Phone to Be Removed, Raising Safety Worries
The Verlot pay phone has been used to call 911 25 times in the last two years.
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The pay phone at the Verlot Ranger Station on the Mountain Loop Highway, the access point to remote Cascades trails (including the popular Big Four Ice Caves), is one of the area’s only lifelines when someone needs to call 911. But Frontier Communications plans to remove the phone, raising worries that it will be much harder to report backcountry emergencies in the area, which lacks reliable cell phone service. Travelers have used the Verlot phone to call 911 25 times since December 2015.
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