By Bob Spiwak
It’s Monday, the last gasp of August, overcast and drizzly with occasional real rain, something badly needed. Fires are still burning, so hopefully this weather will persist, and while not enough to knock down the current fires, we are hoping the moisture will be adequate to eliminate any new blazes.
With Washington Pass opening yesterday, the honeymoon of little traffic on Highway 20 has already come to an end. After a week or so of virtually no traffic other than local coming down the road, the familiar sound of motorcycles going in both directions was heard again, the days of a casual 35 to 40 mph lookie-loo drive to Mazama or Winthrop are over. This is a welcome thing for the merchants of the upper valley. Hopefully, the fall colors will bring needed revenue.
The fall season may be accelerated this year, if the cows are any barometer. There were several comments at SLIME this morning of cattle meandering along and across Goat Creek Road, coming down from the high country. One person estimated this to be the earliest loose bovine incursion he remembered. Another observer noted a group of a dozen or so grazing or meandering down the road.
While many salute the Washington State Department of Transportation’s (WSDOT) opening of the North Cascades Highway due to the abatement of the slides and fires, I think the main impetus was WSDOT’s realization that the Great Mazama Labor Day Car Count occurs a week from today. We did a preliminary check of the traffic during the regular time period of 9 – 10 a.m. a few days ago and came up with 12 vehicles westbound and five going east. There were no motor homes, but we did see three trailers with construction equipment in tow.
Former resident Jack Holden sent a most comprehensive report of the situation at his place in the lowlands of the Okanogan Highlands. Holden is the creator of the International Stop Continental Drift Society and tends to march to his own drummer. “Evacuate? Never!” he stated in an email to us, and provided half-a-dozen pictures of the inferno as it approached his property. The fire destroyed a small outbuilding used as a guest house, but he and a neighbor saved most everything else of consequence.
One thing he credits is about 15 hoses strung out around the property. The fire did get on the lawn, but he had mowed it and what apparently burned was the dry stuff on the ground that was easily extinguished with hoses.
On the other side of the mountains, our part-time neighbor Gary Westerman, a Snohomish County fireman, noted the winds that sprang up, gusting to 60 mph and toppling trees, shutting off power and causing other discomfitures in his area. Paraphrasing him, he stated that his station received more calls in a day than any he could remember. This after 20-some years with the department.
Another part-timer here lives on Whidbey Island, which was also blasted by winds that knocked down a substantial tree that came to rest 20 yards from his home on the island. West Boesel was not among the areas afflicted by the giant windstorms, yet 10 miles and 4,000 feet above us at the Goat Peak lookout, Lightning Bill reported being buffeted by the heaviest winds he had ever encountered on top of the mountain.
The tragedy of the three men who died in the Twisp River Fire eclipses the losses of homes and property in and beyond the Methow Valley, but all have suffered. Our regrets and condolences go out to all those affected by the fires and accompanying weather. There were lessons to be learned from this summer and hopefully they are at an end.
