parallel universe newsletter spring 2010

8/9/2019 Parallel Universe Newsletter Spring 2010

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We at the Graydon Re-serve, ever optimistic, havebecome infected with theeuphoria that bubbles upin spring. Everything ispossible.

Don will build a littleteahouse at RosebudMeadow. Jonelle will cre-ate her field guide to theplants and flowers of thereserve. We will host theForest Bacchanal of Sound,

Video and Installation Art.We will discover a realisticroute to the Dark Tower.

When the bubbles burst,well turn to our practicallist: clean the septic tankfilter, repair the footbridgehit by a falling alder, seal-coat the asphalt driveway.

By the time the snowscome, we hope to lookback on spring and sum-mer 2010 with the samesatisfaction that we remem-ber 2009. Last years longhot summer brought wel-come changes. The newinterior of Cantina delRioin primal red, green,blue and yellowfairlydemands that you come infor a beer. The serpentine,all 110 feet of it, became a

sculptural reality in EmilysPark. We now have a goodswimming hole right off thefirepit, thanks to the ever-changing course of theriver. Penny Lane got itsown street sign, straight outof Liverpool, and in thewoods, walkers now en-counter a sign that lookssuspiciously official: WildSky WildernessGraydonReserve. (See pages 6 and7 for photos.)

Upward bound

PLEASE SEE PAGE 10

Spring fever

GRAYDON RESERVE INDEX, WASHINGTON SPRING 2010

Time marches on, and so does Index

Even in seemingly timeless Index,Washington, time moves on and thingsdochange. Heres a look at some of the

ways Index is trying to move ahead . . . .a few goals for the future.

The star rating with each story givesan idea of how things are progressing.

DONT HOLD YOUR BREATH HOPE BEATS ETERNAL THINGS ARE LOOKING UP GREAT NEWS PRAISE THE LORD!

RE-OPEN THE BUSH HOUSE

The Bush House sits along Index Avenue,

bedraggled and forlorn like an abandoned

cat. To say the hotel has seen better days is a

wild understatement. But those days of wine

and roses may yet return.

The Bush House opened its doors in Index

well over a century ago. But a few years ago

the strain of operating a ramshackle hotel in

a tiny out-of-the-way village apparently led to

its closure.

Now for the good news: a group has come

up with a plan that may well save the place.

The idea would be to create a mixed venture

that includes a profit-making restaurant and

a nonprofit component to provide a meeting

place and lodging.Among those involved in the effort: owner

Loyal Nordstrom, restaurateur Jimmy Tar-

anto, the Corson family of the Outdoor Ad-

venture Center in Index, historian LouiseLindgren and a couple of major investors.

Stay tuned for good news.

REBUILD INDEX-GALENA ROAD

Question: How many county workers does it

take to rebuild half a mile of highway?

Answer: None, if the jobs never started.

That sometimes seems like the situation

on rebuilding a section of Index-Galena Road,

washed out in the record-breaking floods of

November 2006.

Since then the road has been closed about5 miles east of Index, ending convenient

highway access to state campgrounds and the

vast recreational treasures of the upper

North Fork Skykomish River. The river con-

tinues to flow down the old roadbed.

In 2007, Snohomish County officials met

with area residents to discuss possibilities

for repairing and rebuilding the road. The

year 2008 brought a route feasibility study.

In 2009 the county met again with residents

to explain the studys fourteen possible solu-

tions. This year will bring a design report

DOWN, BUT NOT OUT


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SPRING 2010

s ven pages in the October issue of Climbing maga-zine document the spectacular history of the IndexUpper and Lower Town Walls. If you measure acrag by rock quality and the influen-

tial climbers who perfected their

technique there, the article says,

its clear Index holds a very spe-

cial place in the granite pantheon.

Then comes the bad news: Index

demands a penchant for self-

flagellation. Desperate locals have

been known to wrist-seal their

raincoats with duct tape while solo-aid climbing

in the near-constant drizzle.

Trendy Index the next Waikiki? Apparently eventhe people of Hawaii need to get away once in

a while. Windsurf board designer Stevie B. andhis ladyYoshiko fell in love with Index during athree-day visit last July. And it was also Hawaii

weather a month later when Jim and Stephanieand daughter Sonya were here from Maui.

Roofs are up on two new houses along Avenue A. With its steeproof, dormers and modest window sizes, the two-story dwelling

for Amy and Dean Johnson and daughters Addy, Emily andIsla should blend beautifully with the historic old homes of In-dex. Farther east on the road, the tall house of Frank and Re-becca Cook is coming together nicely. And passersby havenothing but smiles for Rebeccas flowering rock garden out by

the road. . . . Emily Johnsonfound the perfect place to

celebrate her 5th birthday:Emilys Park. In the parknamed in memory of my

mom, a dozen or more littlekids ran around like crazy

under the watchful eyes of

at least that many parents,

on a hot and happy Aug. 1.

Democracy inaction:Whether shy, reclusive, lazy or just toobusy to be bothered, six of the seven candidates for public of-

fice in the Index area declined to place their photos or writeups

in the election guide mailed last fall to all voters. Cheers to

Mayor Bruce Albert, the only candidate to take this opportunityto communicate with citizens.

Whaddya know!Ive finally found a place that gets as muchrain as Index. Its my brothers area, where he has averaged

122 inches a year over the past 21 years. I putthe two areas nose-to-nose for the past five

years and heres what I found. 2005: Index 88inches; Brother Dans place 142 inches.2006: Index 113, Dan 103. 2007: Index 102,Dan 95. 2008: Index 99, Dan, 93. 2009:Index 100, Dan 102. But with rainfall totals,

the climatic similarity ends, since brother Dan

lives in upcountry Maui.

Monday July 27, 2009, ushered in an oddity for Index: a weekof hundred-degree or near-hundred-degree days. . . . On

Tuesday, Stevie B. and Yoshikoarrived from Oahu. (Is it al-

ways this hot here?) . . . . On Wednesday, the Witzels left forShanghai. Not to escape the heatto start their new teaching

jobs. . . . On Thursday, it was swimming in the river with Carlaand Michael from Shoreline and David and Paige and daughterLucyfrom Tennessee. (Is it al-ways this hot here?) . . . . On

Friday, more of the same. . . .

On Saturday, half the crowd at

the Index Arts Festival wasdown under the bridge, playing

in the river. . . . On Sunday, I

piloted an inflatable kayak several

miles down the Skykomish, from just above the reserve to

below Boulder Drop. Boulder Drop? Uh, I walked around it. And

for this, my first time whitewater kayaking, I was closely guarded

bySteve, Doug and Tim, river pros all.The Upper Avenue A Community Assn. is so loosely organizedthat even its members have never heard of it. There are no dues,

and no meetings. No officers either. Just a

group of good people who happen to live

along Avenue A, east of the Index town limit.

Charter members of the association, whether

they know it or not, are Jacque, Evelynn,Frank and Rebecca, Micky, Norbert andKevin, Edie and Warren and Lisa, Don andJonelle, Heather and Doug and Miles, Jimand Erynn, and Steve.New in the hood: Doug Guillot is the happy new owner of theriverside log cabin next to the reserve, built many years ago byDoug McKnight and his mom and dad. The cabin is now theweekend home of Doug and Heather andtheir ever-enthusiastic son Miles, age 5, thelucky boy who will have a brother come July.

. . . StorycatcherLisa Stowe

is collecting real-life stories of Index, its people, history,

places. Contact Lisa at the Town Hall, where

she works Mondays and Tuesdays as town

clerk-treasurer, or at [email protected].

Signs of spring 2010: Index schoolteachersCarol Mangiola and Rachel Ford herd a crowd of sub-5th-graders on a visit to Emilys Park. . . . The beaver pond at the

eastern Index town limit comes to life, only this year with a river

otter. . . . Eight rafts loaded with whitewater en-

thusiasts bounce past Emilys Park on a sunny

Sunday afternoon.

Zippy,dippy, exuberant and lively: thats theIndex Times, the tiny seat-of-the-pants, good-spirited rag that now appears weekly on the

counter at the general store. Anthony Vega getstop billing as Senior Founding Editor. (PO Box

56, Index WA 98256; indextimes.wordpress.com) . . . .

Favorite weekly feature in the Index Times: Day

in the Life of Louie and Brian, pithy remarksfrom two of the towns independent souls. Sam-

ples: Hang loose, stay cool, admit nothing.

If you fall down in the woods, does anyone

hear you? I aint gonna change for nobody.

[DON]

Emily Johnsonat age 5 Emily Graydonat age 18

JIM

BROTHER DAN

HEATHER & DOUG

MILES

ANTHONY


3/12


4/12

SPRING 2010

When it comes to forest gossip, dead

trees (or snags) are among the

chattiest of sources. I was wan-

dering the upper part of the forested area

that Don calls Muir Woods when I spotted the

Twin Towers, a couple of hoary old reddish

brown snags as thick as garbage cans and

about 20 feet tall. A trail led to the twins, so I

walked over to give them a closer look.They have the cubed and clinkery look of a

pair of old soldiers long dead but too ornery to

lie down and admit it. These Douglas fir trees

were probably dead long before the loggers

came through here 80 or 90 years ago, or they

would have been harvested too. Like nearly

all the local snags and old stumps, they have

charcoal on them, probably from the forest

fire of 1939.

Some concentrated bug tunneling activity

was still evident in the east twin, in a zone

that was once far beneath the surface of the

wood. By all the evidence

the curved andstratified nature of the frass (the excrement

of wood-eaters), the meandering tunnels, the

flattened cross-section of the tunnel, and the

large size of the bigger onesit looked like

this tree had once raised hundreds of golden

buprestid beetles.

Almond-shaped and slightly wrinkled, the

adult buprestids are an iridescent metallic-

green, with copper borders on the wing cov-

ers. In a tree, however, the larvae are just

white grubs with swollen shoulders and tiny

headsthe so-called flat-headed wood borers.

Trapped in lumber cut from infested trees,

golden buprestids have been documented

emerging 50 years later.

I ARRIVED AT THE Twin Towers from

the Saw Springs area on the eastern edge of

the Graydon Reserve. Saw Springs is where

the water of Ribbon Creek goes, although

throughout the dry season the water runs

subsurface from Alder Meadow to there. A

few turns up-trail from the springs area, the

path jogs around Teddys Mustache, a big old

stump with traces of charcoal in its creased

sides, then continues a bit before leveling out

For theinsects ofthe forest,dead trees

are just alunchroom

A WALK IN THE WOODS

By BOB HUBBARD

When hes not out in the

woods building trails or sur-veying plants and bugs, natu-ralist Bob Hubbard keeps busyas an Index town councilman,Index Historical Society host,and planner for the HeybrookRidge county park. He wouldrather walk than ride.

next to a swollen-bottomed cedar tree with a

head-high cat-face scar at its base on the

uphill side.

When the fire of 1939 burned through

here, the heat wasnt enough to kill many

trees. But shallow-rooted, thin-barked spe-

cies like cedars often had parts of their bark

and cambium killed where the flames

wrapped around the backside (downwindside) of the tree. The trees, like this one, sur-

vived, but the heat-killed areas dried out and

the bark became brittle and fell off. Fungal

diseases got into the exposed wood.

Here, a colony of Pacific dampwood ter-

mites (theyre our only Northwest species)

lived for a while, riddling the heartwood with

their tunnels. Theyre gone now. Frass fills

the tunnels, distinguishing these as the work

of termites, not carpenter ants, who keep

their tunnels clean.

FROM HERE I WANDERED over to the

Twin Towers, then up to Alder Meadows,past a pretty collection of moss- and plant-

covered logs cantilevered over each other in a

pleasing way. At the meadow I found a long

log with a nurse tree at its far end and sat

myself down, my back to the nurse tree and

feet splayed along the log, facing uphill. Be-

neath my log, Ribbon Creek splashed down

the steep slope.

I looked at the decayed trunk of a dead

BUGS

SIX-LEGGED forest citizens include this bandedalder borer and the golden buprestids above.


5/12

SPRING 2010 5

maple next to the log and saw more bug tun-

nels in the gray, rotting wood. Some were

termite tunnels, and there was also a tunnel

that was probably from a round-headed wood

borer, specifically a banded alder borer. This

insectan inch and a half or more long, with

antennae even longer than thatsports

bands of black and white all down its anten-

nae and wing covers.

Some insect guidebooks describe the

banded alder borer as one of the most beauti-

ful of the forest insects. Personally I like

golden buprestids better, though both beetles

are like living gems: the alder borer a fine

onyx, the buprestid a fire opal.

WALKING DOWN Penny Lane I paused

on the corner below Alder Meadow to admire

a light-colored cedar snag about 30 or 40 feet

tall with the classic root flares and deep in-

foldings around its base that helps you iden-

tify old decayed cedar stumps from the

rounder, redder, less flared Douglas firs. Ared huckleberry bush grows out of the top of

the snag.

Farther down I exited left onto a path that

leads back toward the Twin Towers. A few

feet off the lane, the path swings close to a

Douglas fir that broke about 15 feet up the

trunk and fell to earth just a couple years

ago. The trunk is two feet in diameter at the

base, with a wide scar up one side and a de-

cay column of rotten wood in the center a foot

in diameter. This tree may have been another

victim of the 1939 fire. On the trunk, fine

light-colored dust lies atop flakes of bark like

snow on a windowsill, beneath holes the di-

ameter of cocktail straws. The holes do not

enter the decayed wood; they enter the bark

beside the exposed scar. These are the holes

of ambrosia beetles, who dispose of their bor-

ing dust out the tunnel mouth. The dust here

is from the striped ambrosia beetle.

Ambrosia beetles (Trypodendron lineatum)are not your average forest insects. Trypoden-

drons mate for life. They hand-raise their

babies in special tree-trunk nurseries, bring-

ing them pieces of fungus to eat and carrying

away their wastes for disposal. They often

raise successive broods in the same tree. They

are farmers, bringing the spores of their food

with them in special pouches and planting

them on the walls of their tunnel farms,

where the fungus soon turns the walls black

and fills the spaces with edible pieces of fun-

gus and spores. Sometimes the fungus grows

so vigorously in the tunnels that the beetles

perish, smothered in their own food.

The tunnel farms are such producers of

food that other small animals sneak in to

share in the resource. Nematode worms grow

and reproduce in the wet films of water that

cover everything in the tunnels; bacteria and

yeasts do, too. Mites hitchhike into the tun-

nels on the bodies of the beetles, then go off to

hunt nematodes or to eat yeasts and bacteria.

TREES WITH heart-rot columns, like the

termite-nest cedar and the ambrosia beetle

Doug fir, offer bug-eating wildlife, such as

birds, a sort of twofer: they can dine on cater-pillars and sawfly larvae that have fed on the

trees living foliage, and they can also chow

down on buprestid beetles, termites and wood

borers that have fed on the trees dead wood.

On my way out from the ambrosia beetle

tree I passed by three other snags: one bigleaf

maple and two red alders. All three showed

termite sign, and they had a lot of other tun-

nels in them. I wondered: out of all the frass-

filled, abandoned bug tunnels Id seen this

day, how many insects had been produced?

How much would they weigh in aggregate?

How many birds, mammals and other wildlife

have fed on them, and thus, indirectly, on the

trees? How many pounds of bugs are pro-

duced per acre per year by Muir Woods?

When a tree feeds a bird, does it make a

sound like an insect?

THE FIRE-SCARRED Douglas fir snag at right,one of the Twin Towers, once served as nurseryfor hundreds of golden buprestid beetles.

Due to unacceptable sani-tary conditions at the Sports-man Campground, a citizensmilitia has installed Linksyswireless web cams. When and

if the motion detectors capturethe perps in action, the move-ment will be streamed andposted on the communityFacebook. (Index Times)

The Snohomish CountySheriff's helicopter was used torescue two men July 4 (2009).The two, described as in their20s, were climbing MountIndex when one of them felland injured a shin. (Sky ValleyChronicle)

Bonnie Vater found an in-jured bald eagle along thebanks of the Skykomish River.The injuries were so severe theeagle had to be euthanized.(Index Times)

The man who died afterfalling from a log was identi-fied as Vladimir Dmytriv, 50,of Des Moines, Washington.Dmytriv was crossing SilverCreek when he fell. (EverettHerald)

Alex Gibb and Peter Gottwill compete in the Nov. 3general election for a four-year term in Position 3 on theIndex Town Council. Neithercandidate responded to inter-view requests. Hello, youvereached this number and noones here, went the messageat the number Gott providedto the Snohomish County

Auditors Office. We will notreturn your call, so pleasedont leave a message at thebeep. Calls were not returnedat Gibbs number, either.(Everett Herald) [Gott won.]

September 26: The river isfull of spawning salmon.They're everywherethousands of them. The chan-terelles are out. I had a mush-room omelette this morning.Tonight it's a mushroom bur-ger and tomorrow I'll makesoup with the rest.(www.skyko.org)

The rap sheet


6/12

The sun is shining,the river sparkles,the mountains call.Life is lived in theout-of-doors,and its light from4:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

JONELLE discovers one of the joys of backroad travel. Above,a new sign direct from London greets walkers on Penny Lane.

FUN-SEEKERS(clockwise from left):

Bill approaches the crux

on the climb to the hut.

Yoshiko cools off in the

river off Emilys Park.

Dana gets in the mood

for the opening party at

Cantina Del Rio. Paul

takes in the view of Mount

Index from the hut.


7/12

EASY LIVIN(Clockwise from left):

Fourth of July fireworks at

Emilys Park. A swallowtail

butterfly visits the Sweet Wil-

liam. Dana and Jordan pose

while Doug paddles past.

Rebecca tries some salmon-

berries. Emily opens another

birthday present. Carolyn

presents one of her fresh

blackberry pies. A curious

deer peeks into the bathroom. BILL HAS FUN picking in the wild apple t

DON AND STEVE set off on the first direcascent from Baring Hut to the Dark Towe

FIVE HARDY DUDES fixed the footbridge after building the Serpentine (at left, covered inmaple leaves). Left to right, they are Paul, Jim, Don, Brad, Jordan. Also on the Serpentinecrew were Jonelle, Dana, Lisa, Anya, Sarah, Emily, Rich, and Jennifer.

ANDY, on a visit from Berlin,shows he is at least as tough

as his old dad. Above, a rare

find near the Swirl: we think

its a seriously poisonous

fly agaric mushroom.


8/12

SPRING 2010

BERLIN, Germany Often the grand

scheme logic of a new and foreign place is

unavailable, elusive, or overwhelming. Most

days it is like that for me in Berlin. The

sculpt and flow of a place, its reasoning, is

something that seeps into you over time; that

is how it was built and that is how an out-sider must come to know it: slowly. In the

mean time, here in Berlin, I find myself

drawn to the pedestrian details and the more

emphatic gestures that the city lets slide.

Since arriving here I have been fascinated

by the citys road construction projects. Not

sprawling feats of overpass engineering, but

simple, small-scale road repairs and sidewalk

building. They are distinctly unlike what we

are used to in the States, and present an in-

teresting counterpoint to an American think-

ing about city infrastructure, time, and topog-

raphy.

The difference in a nutshell is this: major

street paving here is asphalt, but all side-

walks, curbs, alleys and smaller byways are

still paved with stone. Light in color and

flecked with quartz like a rough granite, the

uncemented stones sit in a tight bed of sand,

packed in a meandering grid with thousands

of others of equal size and shape. This is

everywhere, not just in the tourist centers or

historic districts; its just how its done. The

stones are set solidly but can be unsettled by

hand (I have tried) and carried away. Curbs

are built from long rectangular blocks, hun-

dreds of kilos in weight, which are set end-to-

end the length of the block.

When you look closely at a street here, youlook directly onto the bare materials that give

it structure by virtue of their simple place-

ment and mass. Its an ancient and profound

technology that suggests, literally, the bed-

rock of the citys civilization.

Road works in progress are the real jewel

to me, in reading Berlin. For months at a

time, the street will be in a tumult of over-

lapping demolition and reconstruction, but

throughout this process the materials of

building sit in constant heaps like miniature

mountains or displaced earthwork sculptures:

stones cut into cubes in three or four sizes,

from ring box to hat box; sand in absurd

quantities; flat paving stones for the bike

lanes stacked into totems. In New York, no

one would think to leave these mounds on the

street without 24-hour supervision, they are

so clearly useful and valuable. But here, it is

as if the mound itself were the finished work;

they go untouched and largely ignored. In a

city that has seen so much building in the

The road works of BerlinSET IN STONE

By ANDY GRAYDON

SHANGHAI, China PaulWitzel reports: Shanghai isunder construction. I read thatthe government is spendingdouble what it spent on theOlympics to prepare for thisyears World Expo. A newsubway line just opened andothers are being expanded.Shanghai is always open forbusiness. Construction contin-ues 24/7 (union rates do notapply). Its breathtaking to seeglobalization up close.

Paul Witzel and his wife, Lisa(above), teach at the Shang-hai Community InternationalSchool. They and daughtersAnya and Sarah will be inIndex for the Fourth of July tovisit Lisas mom, Jonelle.

THE SMALLER byways of Berlin are still paved in stone, hand-set in sand.

last fifteen years, and so

much rubble in the past

fifty, these intrusions

are perhaps a special

category of invisible.The flow of yin and

yang in the cycle of

demolition and con-

struction are especially

clear here. In a city in

the States the old sur-

faces are torn out and

discarded to allow new

building. Here, they are

dismantled and put

From China, the Middle East,Europe and Mexico, our correspondentsreport back to Index, Washington


9/12

SPRING 2010 9

back into a pile to be reused on the site, or

carted to a new location. There is no new

without the old. They are constantly handling

and sifting the past here, in a simple crystal-

ized form; the present is built from it. And

must be rebuilt again and again, up close

with a hand pick, from stones that have seen

past lives in other parts of the city in other

ages.For our two-year-old son Graham, who is

often my companion on morning bike trips,

these construction sites bear no weight of the

past but are a sheer delight. He squeals with

excitement after every dump truck, crane,

and pile of dirt, calling out their names in a

hazy combination of English and German.

For him the building sites are pure energy,

expansion, and kinetic pleasure, and he cant

get enough.

Andy Graydon, a sound and

video artist, lives in Berlin withhis wife, Henriette Huldisch, anart curator, and their son, Gra-

ham. Andy often escapes thebig city to visit his dad in Index.

MULEG, Baja California, Mexico Gary Bott of Index hands a bag of clothingto the wife of the fisherman Cristobal, near the house that Gary keeps in Muleg.Gary drove down from Index with a truck and trailer loaded with clothes, beddingand food from the people of Index for victims of last summers Hurricane Jimena.

By MATT GRAYDON

WINDOW ON JORDAN

The taxis of Amman

AMMAN, Jordan

The best way tosee this city is by taxi. For every group

of cars that passes by, there are guaran-

teed to be least two or three dusty

South Korean econoboxes painted incon-

sistent shades of yellow. Occasionally a

sparkling new Chevrolet or even a Mer-

cedes will roll pastavoid these at all

costs. Stepping inside one instantly

identifies you as a tourist (in other

words, a sucker).

Your best bet is to grab the grimiest,

grungiest cab aroundpreferably one

with tinny Koranic recitations blastingfrom a tape deck. Seatbelts are usually

used only when passing by police check-

points; otherwise, they hang by the

open window, collecting the days ex-

haust fumes, and cigarette ash. Every

morning, stepping into a cab wearing a

fresh button-down, I have to weigh my

desire for a clean shirt against my will

to live. After the first near-collision of

the day (usually during the no-look

merge back into traffic), the seatbelt

invariably wins.

Unless youre swashbuckling throughthe desert with the Bedouin, life in Jor-

dan can be on the slow side. Cynical

diplomats refer to the country as the

Hashemite Kingdom of Boredom. So, to

keep things lively, Ammanites like to

drive defensively. Or offensively, as

the case may be. Its common practice to

simply force ones way into a crowded

intersection, or to reverse on the free-

way if youve missed your exit. The po-

lice in their sparkling new Audi sedans

may yell at you on their loudspeakers,

but theyre unlikely to go beyond that.Thankfully the traffic is usually slow

enough to keep a drive entertaining

rather than terrifying. An average trip

in Amman will see a good chunk of time

spent idling in traffic. This is a good

opportunity to really see the demo-

graphic makeup of the city. Glance at

the license plates of the cars stacked up

around you. The majority will be Jorda-

nian, but the rest will be from a hodge-

podge of surrounding countries, some

near and some far. Saudi Arabia, on

Jordans southern border, is always well

represented, usually on the back of a

mammoth Range Rover or Land

Cruiser. The same goes for the flashy

emirate of Dubai and its island cousin

Qatar.

Every so often a fresh license plate

will crop up from neighboring Iraq, a

subtle reminder of Jordans unique posi-

tion in this complex and often troubled

part of the world. Youll also see visitors

from Jordans other restless neighbors,

Israel-Palestine and Syria.

Sitting in traffic surrounded by men

and women from all over the region,

some in sharp business suits and some

wearing crisp white dishdashas or sleek

black abayas, the concept of Amman

begins to make sense. The city stead-fastly remains a neutral ground, a calm

core floating in a tumultuous sea.

Matt Graydon works inAmman, Jordan, for theIraq mission of the Inter-

national Organization forMigration, which aids

displaced families. He isno stranger to Index,

where an uncle lives atthe end of Avenue A.


10/12

SPRING 20100

prepared for the county council. Then thestate and the feds get into the act. An esti-

mate on a starting time for the job is 2012 or

2013. (Look for ribbon-cutting on November

6, 2016, tenth anniversary of the flood.)

SHUSH THE TRAIN

I got a rude introduction to the local trains

when I lived on Index Avenue for several

months, a short distance from the tracks.

Every night I was blasted awake by a whistle

whenever the train went rattling through

town. What a relief when I moved into mynew house at the east end of Avenue A, out of

reach of most of the noise.

From his home on the other end of Avenue

A just a few houses from the tracks, Bill

Cross gets a daily ration of railroad racket.

He took a stab at finding a way to stop the

whistles when he was a town councilman in

2000, but the effort went nowhere.

Since then the federal government has set

up a procedure for declaring quiet zones. If an

area meets certain safety requirements for

signals at crossings, the whistles are silenced.

You can check out the details from theFederal Railroad Administrations website at

www.fra.dot.gov/pages/1318.shtml.

David Meier, who lives next to the railroad

crossing, says he has pretty much gotten

used to the trains. However, he adds, in a

parallel universe there would be no trains.

RE-OPEN FOREST ROAD 62

Hikers and climbers will again have access

to the Mount Persis trailhead beginning in

mid-July. Thats when a one-year emergency

closure of Forest Road 62 expires.Mountaineers have used the publicly man-

aged road for decades to reach the trailhead,

for the summit trek that crosses a section of

Longview Fibre property before entering For-

est Service land.

The Forest Service approved the closure

after Longview Fibre complained of dumping,

vandalism and illegal shooting along the road

that runs through the companys timberland.

Longview hoped to extend the closure, but

Peter Forbes, the acting Skykomish District

Ranger, says the company would have to go

through a full process of public and environ-

mental reviews.

The emergency closure expires July 16.

Steve Tift of Longview Fibre says the com-

pany will reopen the gate and basically hope

for the best. If problems recur he may ask for

another closure. Forbes and Tift ask visitors

to report problems they see along the road to:

Skykomish Ranger Station 360-677-2414Longview Fibre 360-770-1199County Sheriff 425-388-3393

Road 62 heads south from US 2 two miles

west of the turnoff to Index. The Persis trail-

head (unmarked) is 5 miles from US 2 (stay

left at both of the two principal Ys).

A very rough, informal trail gains 2700

feet in about 3 miles, traveling through forest

and meadowland to a broad summit with

views out toward an infinity of mountains

and down to the town of Index. With good

binoculars you can watch folks coming and

going from the Index General Store.

CHEER THE COFFEEHOUSE

Its the towns good fortune that the

Corson family bought the closed Index Tav-

ern a few years ago and turned it into the

Outdoor Adventure Center. The latest good

news is that they have opened a coffeeshop in

the building the first and only one in our

tiny village.

For the moment its more like an indoor

espresso stand. Good coffee, muffins and soft

drinks, no food service. But what a setting.The building is on the river next to the Index

bridge. Inside, tables sit on the beautifully

refinished wood floor of the old tavern, next

to a long, handsome bar backed by a river-

rock wall. Its roomy and inviting, a perfect

meeting place for the community. Wi-fi too.

The coffeeshop is open 8-4 every day.

BUY THE CLIMBING WALL

It looks like Washington rock climbers are

on target to raise enough money to buy the

lower Index Town Wall from a private owner.The Washington Climbers Coalition is trying

to find $300,000 to buy the world-famous

rock climbing wall and surrounding crags.

The coalition says more than half the goal

has been reached. If all goes well, the prop-

erty will eventually be given to Forks of the

Sky State Park, which already owns the

neighboring upper Town Wall.

Planners hope to name the new climbing

park for Stimson Bullitt, a widely admired

broadcast executive and urban developer who

was an avid rock climber well into his 80s.

FROM PAGE ONE

Index meanderstoward the future

THE INDEXclimbing parkmay be named for StimsonBullitt, here at age 83.

CliffLeightphotointheSeattleTimes

KATHY CORSONserves upthe goodness at the Out-door Adventure coffeeshop.

skyvalleychronicle.com

THESUMMITof Mount Persiswill see more visitors whenRoad 62 reopens in July.

GOODTRY, but this Jeepswamped on Index-GalenaRoad on Feb. 25 of this year.

GeoHikeronnwhikers.net


11/12

SPRING 2010 11

The glow is off the hike to the Hey-

brook Lookout now that trees havegrown higher than the lookout itself,stealing the view. And in any case thelookout on top of its five-story tower islocked to visitors.

But wait! Theres now a way to as-cend the Heybrook Ridge trail and stillfind a commanding view of Mount In-dex and the Skykomish River Valley.

To take this adventurous little hike,begin at the trailhead for the HeybrookLookout, on the north side of U.S. 2,1.8 miles east of the turnoff to Index.(Get a Forest Service parking permit at

the Index General Store or on the wayto the trailhead at the Espresso Chaleton US 2. $5 daily, $30 annual.)

Ascend the well-used track throughrich forest, sounds of the highway dyingaway as you tramp upward. Stay on thetrail for about three-quarters of a mile,gaining 600 feet elevation from thetrailhead.

At this point the trail makes a sharp-right switchback to avoid a low cliffyband. Walk another hundred yards,keeping an eagle eye on the left for theroad sign that tells you its time to

leave the trail: a triangle of three 3-foot-long logs lying on the ground.

(Alternate takeoff point from the

main trail in case someone moves thetriangle logs: again, about 100 yardsup the trail from the switchback turn,find a flat rock that intrudes into the

trail. The rock is about 4 feet in diame-ter and a foot and a half high, with thecorner in the trail pointing directly northinto the woods.)

Now it gets fun. Set your compass todue north (you did bring your compassdidnt you?) and march assuredly intothe forest for a few minutes and up thenearby hill until you hit a wide, flatbench below a ridge. Turn left andwalk northwest for 5 minutes or so untilyou come out into the open at a clear-cut swath under power lines.

Continue along the edge of the

clearcut for a couple more minutes untithe terrain rises up on your left. Scram-ble up a steep little 20-foot-high knolland re-enter the forest on a hillside,now traveling southwest. From here itsjust a mild bash to the top of the hilland a few steps down to the viewpoint,for a total elevation gain from the carof less than 800 feet.

Youll know the viewpoint when yousee it. The forest opens up, cushionymoss covers the ground, and beforeyou in rich blues and greens lie forests,waterfalls, peaks and river. Modest-size

pine trees adorn the site. The terracedrock is perfect for lunching and nap-ping. Be kind to the fragile moss.

Youre now enjoying the new im-proved Heybrook lookout, courtesy ofthe hard work of Bob Hubbard, whofigured out the route and marked itsstart with the triangle of logs. He alsoflagged the way with blue surveyorstape, but Bob is so determined to notlitter the wilderness that its unlikelyyoull find any of his discreetly placedribbons. No matter, youll find the way.

Bullitt died last year at the age of 89.

Even if you dont climb, its fun to watch

the monkeys at play on the wall. To get there,

just drive over the railroad tracks by the

Bush House and head west out of town on

Reiter Road (Avenue A becomes Reiter Road)

for six-tenths of a mile. Look for a rutted little

hidden-away parking lot on the right. Park,

walk across the tracks, and look up. Yourestaring at the lower Town Wall.

BRING BROADBAND TO INDEX

Town council member Karen Sample has

been looking into the possibilities of high-

speed Internet for Index, without a lot of luck

so far. Meanwhile, townsfolk continue to fall

asleep at their computers while waiting for

Internet sites to load.

One possible solution is to run a Verizon

T1 broadband phone line to an antenna tower

in town and charge users a monthly fee for awireless hookup. But the setup might cost

$10,000 or more and Verizon wont do it, even

though it could recover its money through

subscriber fees. And the town of Index seems

legally constrained from setting up a public

system on its own.

So heres what we have: Verizon couldnt

care less about Index. The company has no

plans to run fiber optic cables for universal

broadband. We cant get it through cable TV

since the town has none. Satellite broadband

is expensive and slow. The charge for a T1

line to an individual house would run hun-dreds of dollars a month.

Im falling asleep at my computer just

thinking about it . . . .

DEVELOP A COUNTY PARK

The Heybrook Ridge county park is moving

toward reality. A full-scale survey of the

property just across the river from Index is

now underway to pin down boundaries before

trail work and other development begins.

Citizen action in 2008 raised enough funds

to buy the 129-acre tract and save it fromlogging. Snohomish County put up half the

money and is taking it on as a county park,

but you and I are still expected to pay for and

carry out much of the work. Friends of Hey-

brook Ridge (heybrookridge.org) is putting up

something like $25,000 for the survey.

Among hopes for the future: trails within

the forested north side of the ridge, a meadow

area on the south side with permanent moun-

tain views, an easement to connect the park

with Index-Galena Road.

[DON]

How to find

the best view on

Heybrook Ridge

THE SHORT cross-country route to thenew Heybrook Ridge viewpoint takesoff from the old trail. Round trip fromthe trailhead is only about 2 miles.

JONELLE SNOOZES away on mossyrock at the new Heybrook viewpoint,Mount Persis in the background.

Mapadaptedfrom

55HikesaroundStevensPass

(TheMountaineersBooks)

GrayMouseGraphics


12/12

GRAYDON RESERVEPO BOX 166

INDEX WA 98256

On the forest floor in

Rosebud Meadow, visitors

to the Reserve encounter a

large spiral of river rockset in a bed of moss. Af-

ter five years the spiral

almost looks like it

grew there, but Im

afraid it wasnt that easy.

Over a period of time, Jonelle and I

collected dozens of round, flat river

rocks, anywhere from an inch to a foot

and a half in diameter. We ended up

with piles of them down at Emilys

Park.

I hired a young man named

Henry to grunt the rocks into a

wheelbarrow, then into my truck

for a ride up Penny Lane, then

again by wheelbarrow to the build-

ing site in the meadow named in

memory of Jonelles mother,

Rosella Kruse. There I dug out a

flat 15-foot-diameter circle and filled it

with a couple inches of gravel topped with an

inch or so of sand. Now for the rocks.

Jonelle was the artist who started the de-

sign, placing tiny rocks that spiraled round

and round from the center, each rock a bit

larger than the last. After eight loops we

ended the design with a row of large rocksthat trailed off into the woods. Then I pre-

cisely dug each rock into the gravel and sand,

setting it level with its neighbors.

We called it a spiral. Our granddaughter

Sarah, at age 5, chose to call it a swirl. So the

Secrets ofthe Swirl

Swirl it became. We filled the spaces

between rocks with red cedar bark

from dead stumps and logs in the

woods. Later we planted moss in thespaces. The Swirl today is set in moss

with an outer ring of red bark. And each

year when the maple leaves fall, I dress up

the Swirl with a necklace of autumn leaves.

[DON]

Startwithafewriverrocks..

..

....thenaddsomemore..

..

....andsomemore....

....thenplantwi

thmoss,andgarn

withacollarofce

darbark.

parallel universe newsletter spring 2010

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