Cascading to the Sea
Before recounting the latest happenings, a note on "Expresso". The witty wag Dean has asked what that is, a western spelling of espresso? My dictionary shows it to be a variant spelling. It is not the preferred spelling, but given that Meriwether Lewis had 23 ways of spelling mosquito, I will not apologize. Speaking of that beverage, I no longer see espresso signs on all sorts of establishments, as in Montana, but there is an espresso hut on every corner and another one in the middle of the block.
From Kettle Falls, Route 20 went west through more of the Colville National Forest, over Sherman Pass. I stopped to take a picture of a couple lumber trucks that had pulled into a turnout in the midst of the forest road. The drivers told me that, at the logging site, there was a machine that automatically cut the tree trunks into 16 foot lengths and stripped the branches. It was then easy to pick up the pile of logs and put them on the trucks. At the sawmill, another machine can strip the bark and cut the log into boards in two seconds! Those two big truck loads would be cut up in about two minutes. The amount of lumber consumed in this country is hard to fathom. The drivers said it is because 4000 square feet isn't enough any more -- everyone wants a 10,000 square foot house.
Further along the road I stopped at Camp Growden. This had been a camp for the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC was a New Deal program that put 300,000 young men to work, mostly on conservation and infrastructure projects in the national forests. The gate to the camp said "Little America", because there were men from all over the US. That gate is all that is left of the camp now, but interpretative signs provide pictures and a letter home from one of the camp members, lauding the bountiful food at the camp.
The town of Republic had a fun Old West character and information about its mining glory days. After Wauconda, the road dropped out of the pine forest into private land, some farmed, some rangeland. The pines on the hills thinned and then completely gave way to sagebrush and dry prairie grass until dropping into the Okanogan Valley. The sky had been hazy with fire smoke all day, but in Tonasket there was an umbrella of thick yellow smoke. It gave the light at 4 pm the quality of sunset luminescence. Tonasket didn't look particularly old west, but a sign in the gas station market harkened back to another time: "Spitting on sidewalks prohibited. Penalty $5 to $100. Dept. of Health".
Route 20 joined Route 97 in going south through the Okanogan Valley and its apple orchards, then split off again at the town of Okanogan to start up through the Cascades. The smoke grew thicker and, after Loup Loup Pass, columns of smoke from a spot in the mountains revealed the location of the fire. I stopped for a pleasant night at the Winthrop Inn, with dinner a tasty sirloin at The Virginian (Owen Wister, author of The Virginian, lived in Winthrop). As I went into a market to stock up on diet Coke, a group of workers all wearing the same dirty khaki pants and blue t-shirts went in also. I realized they must be firefighters. When I was shoulder to shoulder with them, I saw their t-shirts said "Zuni Hotshots". They are a renown firefighting team from Zuni Pueblo in my native state of New Mexico. Turns out that the North Cascades Smokejumper Base is near Winthrop (as well as a major fire at the moment).
In the morning, the air smelled like a campfire and there was a light dusting of ash on my car. The smoke was much thicker than the previous evening. Between that and a forecast of cloudy, I fussed bout whether to backtrack and go to Leavenworth, a Bavarian theme town, or continue and hope to see something of the Northern Cascades. I finally chose the latter. It was the right choice. Soon after passing through the cute western theme town of Winthrop, the smoke was greatly diminished, and the only clouds all afternoon were the fluffy cumulus that decorate the blue western skies.
The Cascades are right up there with Glacier National Park in splendor and grandeur. However, unlike the lakes in Glacier, the lakes I saw -- Ross and Diablo -- are not natural, but made by dams on the Skagit River. The first dam was built in 1924 and cheap hydropower has been providing Seattle's electricity since. Ross Lake was a deep blue set in the green pines far below the outlook. In the far distance, you could see Desolation Peak, where Jack Kerouac, icon of the 60's counterculture, spent a summer as a fire watcher. I guess it's been clear for some time that Baby Boomers have been running things. Clinton and W are both boomers; the Beatles and Led Zeppelin are standard background music in restaurants. But nothing brought it as home to me as reading the official U.S. Park Service sign discussing and quoting Kerouac and other Beat Generation authors in terms of esteem. Somehow I don't see Park bureaucrats from my parents' generation sanctioning such a sign (although Kerouac actually was born the same year as my parents). Behind Desolation Peak, you could see the Hozomeen Peaks, which are right against the Canadian border.
Diablo Lake was an amazing green-turquoise color, which is due to glacial silt that flows into the lake with the summer melt (the silt is created by rocks grinding against each other under the weight of the glacial snow and ice). There was a large overlook with a number of informative signs high above the lake, and then the road dropped to the level of the lake and followed the Skagit River toward the sea. I went into the North Cascades Visitor Center, which has a huge relief map of the Park and many drawers of rock samples -- a geologist's treasure trove. There is a boardwalk out to a view of the impressive Pickett Range. The walk is lined with signs, each describing a bird; a cardboard picture of the bird was perched in a nearby tree. I had a lot of difficulty spotting the stationary cardboard birds -- no wonder I can't see the real ones. (In my defense, it was a dense, dark forest.)
The night was in Marblemount at the Buffalo Run Inn, in a historic roadhouse building (it and the Winthrop Inn were recommended by my bicyclist friend, Rick), and dinner was buffalo chili at the Buffalo Run Restaurant. Speaking of bicyclists, I saw lots of them the entire width of the Cascades, some in teams, some individually, all intrepidly pressing up the daunting grades.
The next day started overcast, but as I headed out at about 10:30, the clouds had begun to break, and soon there was lots of sunshine to show off the Skagit Valley. At this point, the road was relatively level, and there were farms along the valley floor. Then the ruralness gave way to the town of Sedro-Woolley, and I've not seen undeveloped land since. I passed under I-5 and out to Anacortes and, Pow!, I had made it to the West Coast. From Anacortes I dropped south through Widbey Island. Around Sedro-Woolley, I had driven back under cloud cover, so the views of Puget Sound from Whidbey were of gray water, but were still very beautiful. I picked up most yummy bing cherries, strawberries and blueberries at one of the roadside stands. By the Mukilteo Ferry, the sun was back out, and so it was a lovely ride across the blue Sound to the mainland.
Shunning I-5, I followed boulevards lined with strip malls, car dealerships, big box businesses, and the ever-present espresso huts to Edmonds. My parents, sister and her family, and Cousins Jack and Becky are enjoying a few days in a very nice rental house here, a couple blocks above the Sound. So, it will be a few days until anther blog entry. 'Till then, wishing you fair winds in your sail. --Ann
From Kettle Falls, Route 20 went west through more of the Colville National Forest, over Sherman Pass. I stopped to take a picture of a couple lumber trucks that had pulled into a turnout in the midst of the forest road. The drivers told me that, at the logging site, there was a machine that automatically cut the tree trunks into 16 foot lengths and stripped the branches. It was then easy to pick up the pile of logs and put them on the trucks. At the sawmill, another machine can strip the bark and cut the log into boards in two seconds! Those two big truck loads would be cut up in about two minutes. The amount of lumber consumed in this country is hard to fathom. The drivers said it is because 4000 square feet isn't enough any more -- everyone wants a 10,000 square foot house.
Further along the road I stopped at Camp Growden. This had been a camp for the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC was a New Deal program that put 300,000 young men to work, mostly on conservation and infrastructure projects in the national forests. The gate to the camp said "Little America", because there were men from all over the US. That gate is all that is left of the camp now, but interpretative signs provide pictures and a letter home from one of the camp members, lauding the bountiful food at the camp.
The town of Republic had a fun Old West character and information about its mining glory days. After Wauconda, the road dropped out of the pine forest into private land, some farmed, some rangeland. The pines on the hills thinned and then completely gave way to sagebrush and dry prairie grass until dropping into the Okanogan Valley. The sky had been hazy with fire smoke all day, but in Tonasket there was an umbrella of thick yellow smoke. It gave the light at 4 pm the quality of sunset luminescence. Tonasket didn't look particularly old west, but a sign in the gas station market harkened back to another time: "Spitting on sidewalks prohibited. Penalty $5 to $100. Dept. of Health".
Route 20 joined Route 97 in going south through the Okanogan Valley and its apple orchards, then split off again at the town of Okanogan to start up through the Cascades. The smoke grew thicker and, after Loup Loup Pass, columns of smoke from a spot in the mountains revealed the location of the fire. I stopped for a pleasant night at the Winthrop Inn, with dinner a tasty sirloin at The Virginian (Owen Wister, author of The Virginian, lived in Winthrop). As I went into a market to stock up on diet Coke, a group of workers all wearing the same dirty khaki pants and blue t-shirts went in also. I realized they must be firefighters. When I was shoulder to shoulder with them, I saw their t-shirts said "Zuni Hotshots". They are a renown firefighting team from Zuni Pueblo in my native state of New Mexico. Turns out that the North Cascades Smokejumper Base is near Winthrop (as well as a major fire at the moment).
In the morning, the air smelled like a campfire and there was a light dusting of ash on my car. The smoke was much thicker than the previous evening. Between that and a forecast of cloudy, I fussed bout whether to backtrack and go to Leavenworth, a Bavarian theme town, or continue and hope to see something of the Northern Cascades. I finally chose the latter. It was the right choice. Soon after passing through the cute western theme town of Winthrop, the smoke was greatly diminished, and the only clouds all afternoon were the fluffy cumulus that decorate the blue western skies.
The Cascades are right up there with Glacier National Park in splendor and grandeur. However, unlike the lakes in Glacier, the lakes I saw -- Ross and Diablo -- are not natural, but made by dams on the Skagit River. The first dam was built in 1924 and cheap hydropower has been providing Seattle's electricity since. Ross Lake was a deep blue set in the green pines far below the outlook. In the far distance, you could see Desolation Peak, where Jack Kerouac, icon of the 60's counterculture, spent a summer as a fire watcher. I guess it's been clear for some time that Baby Boomers have been running things. Clinton and W are both boomers; the Beatles and Led Zeppelin are standard background music in restaurants. But nothing brought it as home to me as reading the official U.S. Park Service sign discussing and quoting Kerouac and other Beat Generation authors in terms of esteem. Somehow I don't see Park bureaucrats from my parents' generation sanctioning such a sign (although Kerouac actually was born the same year as my parents). Behind Desolation Peak, you could see the Hozomeen Peaks, which are right against the Canadian border.
Diablo Lake was an amazing green-turquoise color, which is due to glacial silt that flows into the lake with the summer melt (the silt is created by rocks grinding against each other under the weight of the glacial snow and ice). There was a large overlook with a number of informative signs high above the lake, and then the road dropped to the level of the lake and followed the Skagit River toward the sea. I went into the North Cascades Visitor Center, which has a huge relief map of the Park and many drawers of rock samples -- a geologist's treasure trove. There is a boardwalk out to a view of the impressive Pickett Range. The walk is lined with signs, each describing a bird; a cardboard picture of the bird was perched in a nearby tree. I had a lot of difficulty spotting the stationary cardboard birds -- no wonder I can't see the real ones. (In my defense, it was a dense, dark forest.)
The night was in Marblemount at the Buffalo Run Inn, in a historic roadhouse building (it and the Winthrop Inn were recommended by my bicyclist friend, Rick), and dinner was buffalo chili at the Buffalo Run Restaurant. Speaking of bicyclists, I saw lots of them the entire width of the Cascades, some in teams, some individually, all intrepidly pressing up the daunting grades.
The next day started overcast, but as I headed out at about 10:30, the clouds had begun to break, and soon there was lots of sunshine to show off the Skagit Valley. At this point, the road was relatively level, and there were farms along the valley floor. Then the ruralness gave way to the town of Sedro-Woolley, and I've not seen undeveloped land since. I passed under I-5 and out to Anacortes and, Pow!, I had made it to the West Coast. From Anacortes I dropped south through Widbey Island. Around Sedro-Woolley, I had driven back under cloud cover, so the views of Puget Sound from Whidbey were of gray water, but were still very beautiful. I picked up most yummy bing cherries, strawberries and blueberries at one of the roadside stands. By the Mukilteo Ferry, the sun was back out, and so it was a lovely ride across the blue Sound to the mainland.
Shunning I-5, I followed boulevards lined with strip malls, car dealerships, big box businesses, and the ever-present espresso huts to Edmonds. My parents, sister and her family, and Cousins Jack and Becky are enjoying a few days in a very nice rental house here, a couple blocks above the Sound. So, it will be a few days until anther blog entry. 'Till then, wishing you fair winds in your sail. --Ann
posted by Annventurer | 6:58 PM
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