My Time Machine

A lot can be said about a man and his truck, especially a fisherman. Clean, dirty? Well kept, or dented and rusted like an old piece of farm equipment? Well, don’t judge a book by its cover, right?

Peer inside and you might just find something else in there that has some soul. It’s like discovering Nina Simone or Miles Davis while shopping at the mall. It’s shocking and slaps you in the face when it happens. A cold-hearted flush of the toilet while in the shower. Immediately, you realize your misjudgment and mistake. You see, any fisherman worth his salt will have a few stories to tell of his travels and adventures over the years and, just like his old truck, so too will his visor.

Recently, I sold my old Ford F-150 with just over 287,000 miles on it. As I was sitting there in the dealership’s sales office trying to not absorb the essence of sales dripping on my knee…I kept slipping in and out of the conversation reflecting on travels, adventures and days on rivers far and wide with that ol’ truck. It was like a real life scene out of Leave It To Beaver. Black and White movie clips playing in my mind of days gone by. I bought that truck when gas was somewhere around $1.20 a gallon. I had a tape deck back then for god’s sake. I thought nothing of driving to Missoula for a weekend. Fishing the Yakima after getting off work on a weeknight during the long days of summer. Secret locations in Central Idaho with 3 tons of gear loaded in and racking up an impressive 6-8 mpg while driving 13 hours straight, each way. No problem.

All of a sudden, as I saw my old friend disappearing from the lot, I realized I had forgotten something. Something important. A few some-things in fact. Flies and lots of them. I had 18 years worth of memories in the way of flies on my visor and they were driving off into the sunset right before my eyes. Now, I never ran track in my day but after this hurdling performance I sure fooled a few people. Somewhere between Mad Max and Prefontaine I was I tell you. It wasn’t pretty but it was effective. I had to be. You see….a lot was on the line (….pun intended). My unwritten deer-haired, marabou memoirs if you will.

• On that visor was my first steelhead on the fly. A wild 8 pound hen from the Deschutes on a Purple Peril. That cold, rainy Tom Wait’s of a November day provided many great memories…..chubby belly dancers, a Praying Mantis and learning the pride of just how loud music could be played in a truck.
• My first fly caught coho. A wild 15 pound, sea-liced buck from the Hoh on a cone headed Popsicle on New Years Eve. Who needs Dick Clark and champagne when you have Jack Daniels and a National Park right?
• My first 20” rainbow…..A gorgeous early March bow on a Yellow Stimulator on a split cane rod in 1987. Met Tim Irish as well as Red and Marlene Blankenship that day. Boy, did that ever change my life. I was hooked!
• My first beach caught salmon and first fish I caught on one of my own patterns I tied…….a nice 6 pound Humpy on a Clouser. The fish gods were kind that day and rewarded me 4 times.
• My first Westslope Cutthroat…..a red slashed beauty of 14” from Kelly Creek on a Para-Hopper. That day I also discovered Lucinda Williams and Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. I still can remember the billowing dust cloud in my rearview mirror and the icy cold beers as my old beast plowed down the road chasing the fading sunlight like it was time itself. Little did I know at the time, I was.

All in all there were well over 50 flies up there and I could tell you what each and everyone was from. Even though I still can’t remember to get the garbage and recycle out by 7:30 am on Monday mornings, I can still tell you what each day was like, who I was with, where we were at, what we drank, listened to and likely what we cooked for dinner that night. Friends, Presidents and Glaciers have come and gone since that first day I decided to stick a hook in that faded gray fabric. The trips might be decades old now in my brain but there, on that visor…..they were still real. Just as they were the day I put them up there.

So, as I sit here writing this while looking at a pile of flies I hastily removed from my old visor, I realize how thankful I am for the movement of barbless hooks or a few might not have made it out alive. I am also not sure what I am going to do with all these hackled memories now. They are shamelessly sitting in a paper bag that my “salesman” gave me. Maybe they will end up on a wall or stuck in a hat. After sticking my first fly in my new virgin visor though I realize that they all deserve better. So, I raise my glass and toast to you my old friend. 287,000 miles is a lot of road. It’s a lot of counties and states. It’s a heckuva lot of fish but most importantly…it’s a lot of great memories that I am truly, very thankful for. Now, let’s go fishing…..this new visor looks pretty empty.

There’s an English inventor by the name of John Kay, who just two years after what would be the middle of his life (1704-64) invented a machine that revolutionized the process of weaving by reducing the human labor required, while at the same time improving the quality of the materials being produced.

What in fact he invented was called the “flying shuttle” because of the action that a mechanized arm traveled between two points, freeing the loom operator hands to complete other tasks, tasks the prior methodology required that two human operators were needed to properly seat and shape the garment being constructed.

At this point, as a courtesy to you, the reader, I will quickly advise you that the brief history of the flying shuttle was by no means any knowledge I had previous to sitting down just a moment ago and began putting words to paper typing on a computer keyboard.  This knowledge, you see didn’t come by experience, it was situational.  Something prompted this.

If you’ve been reading the last few posts (don’t worry, there’s a machine that also tells me if you’re not) I’ve left off at the tail end of a week-long trip on the Missouri River, outside of Craig, MT.  We camped at Mountain Palace.  There was a Greatful Dead reference.  Remember?  And yes, it has been a while since then, with a number of great days on the water, with family, with friends.  A great trip to the Smith River in MT courtesy of a friend’s permit that ended waking on the last morning on the river in a snowstorm.  Days of high, off-color water that are making me already think of September, of shorter and cooler days, and lower flows.  The river’s been up and down, and that starts to drive the thought of better days.  Sometimes I’m impatient, but something prompted this.  It’s situational.

Here’s an essay I came across after a little research into this post – yes, I’ve been taking the time to properly research for this post, as it ends the series – for any hope of this ever becoming acclaimed, it must have a beginning and the eventual end, correct?  The situation, as it seems, is the not the J word, but the S word – the shuttle, but you’ll have to have patience with me because the shuttle is just the metaphor.

The shuttle is one of those things that just has to be done.  Whether you take care of it prior, or afterwords, it’s done, and when among friends, with a certain course and courtesy.  It’s just expected that each of us has got one leg of the journey, and out of courtesy I’m going to defer; I’m going to look upstream before I pull my anchor and race to get that left bank before you do.  Because it’s common courtesy to do that.  If you’re already headed there, I’m going to assume you were even if you weren’t, because that’s what I would do.  It sounds like, “Hey man, I’m good with running the first shuttle so you can fish all the way to dark.”  There’s two sides, though – is this a “victim or the crime” situation?

If I offer my preference first, then you have every indication of what my intentions are, and you can choose to act accordingly.  John Kay’s machine was viewed as a threat, so the textile workers destroyed his invention out of fear for their situation.  Kay died poor but memorialized for his advances by the factories who copied his device, which according to history also spurred other inventions that increased demand for woven products.  Today, what isn’t natural is recreated by synthetic, and it’s often better and cheaper.

What started out as a rough-draft, of highly conceptual nature, and loosely defined meaning, took shape after a few days in high-water, hot days, and of getting back to the true meaning of passing knowledge along.  So that when the ugliness of competition and jealousy rear their nasty head, it’s already expected and while it’s your nature, I’m still going to defer.  It’s the perfect crime – I’ll watch you commit it, listen to your defense, and let you judge yourself.  Sentencing to be determined.

References

The internet and you. 

Those long twisty roads, creating the lyrics of the journey with our stories, the chapters are the long miles whose characters speak in rhythm with the dull thumps of the blacktop where it’s sealed from the thrusting and shaking of the earth.  Their pasts split, like the fork in the road you don’t take because you want to know where the knife is, damn the fork.  Under it all, wheels turning and oil burning.

Then it arrived, spoken by a wise man years ago – “Never show a man upside down wearing pants, unless you’re selling pockets with zippers.”

We’d just fished the pocket water of the Grande Ronde, the slow deep pools with just the right sized boulders underneath, but not boulders in the sense of the round – the sharp edges of volcanic basalt wearing dull, and will eventually get there, but not in my lifetime.  This is a nice return to the river for me, having floated it a few years past thorough the Wild & Scenic stretch between Minam and Troy, Oregon.  To be told that we floated, camped, rollicked on the sandy beaches playing Barts, danced, and generally lived it up a year or so ago through some of the densest rattlesnake and scorpion country afterwords was unsettling but sent a jolt of adrenaline up my spine, just the same.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the words of Robert Allen Zimmerman..

“Let me drink from the waters where the mountain streams flood
Let me smell of wildflowers flow free through my blood
Let me sleep in your meadows with the green grassy leaves
Let me walk down the highway with my brother in peace.
Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground.”

Mortar & Pestle

I suppose we were there to catch fish of mythical proportions and legacy, but mostly it’s one of those trips were expectations were low despite our best intentions.  To be honest, these fish have traveled further than the ones where I live, and they are probably more trouty in behavior as a result of it.  A recent discussion about steelhead behavior, mostly centered around the “players” or the most aggressive fish a in a pool.  A corollary discussion about the behavior of resident trout and perhaps that the longer that sea-run fish hold in freshwater, their behaviors become more instinctual.  Warmth in a mother’s arms, the natal preference.  And honestly, I don’t fish to compete.  Never have.  Too much of that these days, and the human behavior it drives is counter productive.  Someone replied that if you don’t want to harm wild fish, that we should only fish the systems without wild fish in them.  Isn’t that convenient?  I don’t agree with the most popular and effective way to catch steelhead, because I think it’s the easy way out.  If we’re really going to be serious about sustainable fisheries, then we have to take hatchery fish out of the wild environment to even out the equation.  If the thrill of catching a concrete run fish is just the thrill, then why not build giant concrete pools with only hatchery fish in them, and just let ‘em at it.  Put them far, far away from wild systems, charge by the fish, pound, length – whatever the people say brings value from the experience to them.  I’m not elitist, but a realist.  The continued stocking of hatchery fish in wild fish environments is just bad (insert your favorite term here, like “science” or “ethics” or “human behavior”) and drives a wedge between anglers and the general public who just doesn’t understand the difference.

The quote then began to make sense to me.  The very essence of a pocket is easy access to things that are important enough to be close, but not so important that you have to lock them away.  A pocket with zippers is nothing but a bag.  Wild rivers and their inhabitants should be important enough that we don’t have to put zippers on them.  It’s our way of protecting something we don’t want to lose, when in fact it changes the very essence of what it was to begin with.  You lock up the future of a wild system when you put hatchery fish in it – in essence, a zipper seals it’s fate.

There’s a term used in flyfishing, in describing flowing water features – “pocket water” is water that when the conditions dictate, the smart angler looks there to find fish.  Most often, that’s low and slow water being the dominant features, and fish will seek out the “pockets” of water where higher concentrations of oxygen, and food, should be present.  And, the ability to poke that nose out and grab a few calories with little risk or energy spent just makes sense, to a fish.  Pretty simple.

The more I look at the picture I posted above, the more meaning I find in it.  I stepped out of the boat a few hundred yards above the water I eventually swung a fly through, walking down the cobbled bank.  I sat on a log in the middle of the riverbed, low now and needing rain, and just listened.

Giraffes in the wild.

It’s just a rock, just like the steel beams in the picture above are not giraffes.  But it symbolized something bigger and more real.  A call to nurture the river and its fish for what they are, not to turn it and the fish into something else.  It looks more like a growing egg, protected by something long enough that will eventually fade away.  I just snapped a picture of it, but my initial thought was that it would look great in my collection of other symbolic items – but then the realization is that by possessing it wouldn’t change what it was, only where it was.  So I left it be.

It’s been an interesting week – the end of a guiding season is on the near horizon, and it feels like it’s been staying lighter later on the river – as if the Earth is leaning to keep it’s feet in the warm sun as long as possible.  6 pm the other night, the caddis started jumping around like the dog does when your keys jangle in the door.  Pepper, our black lab, hasn’t had that kind of energy for quite some time now, and after a bout of cancer this January, and the common issues 15 year old labs face, we had to make the painful but obvious decision to ease her pain.  A dog’s dharma – it’s sense of calling or duties if you’re subscribing to the Hindu thought – was really evident the last few months.  She wanted to please, even though it was very tough to do so.  It’s easy to anthropomorphize (sp?) for dogs, because I tend to think of canines as family, more so than other pets.  Maggie’s been acting up lately too, so I observe her actions as frustration and not knowing where Pepper is, and being scared if she’ll come back or not.  How do you explain that to a dog anyways…

Pepper's final rest.

I’ve met a few of you in person over the last week or so – floating down the Yakima River just past the confluence of the Teanaway, you called my name and it struck me by surprise – guess I’m recognizable but it feels strange to hear it on the water, passing by.  Thanks for reading my blog – hoping you’ll leave a comment about your day as well, it looked like you were with family, your dog(s), and fly fishing.  A perfect way to spend the day.  Pepper liked to float the river with us, and on her last trip to the Clark Fork in MT, I first started to see that these trips would soon end.  I’m thinking of spreading her ashes on the water, and we took a plaster mold of her foot print.  We also did this with our first dog, Sage (just cause it felt funny running after her yelling “Orvis get back here!”  If I mix their ashes in the one thing that brought us all together, the river and fly fishing, my wish is that every return visit will result in a shared memory – but there I go anthropomorphizing.

Steelhead have also been on my mind, lately.  I’ve got a trip planned to the Grande Ronde with the Orvis Endorsed Guide, Mac Huff, in November.  I’ve floated the GR before, although from Minam to Troy in the warmth of July.  This is lower and later, but Mac’s been posting some great photos lately and it looks like it’ll finally happen.

Wishful thinking.

Speaking of issues – this dog must have real issues.  Assuming the owners are the kind of people that get up before they’ve even been to sleep, listen to Norweigan Death Metal on the way to the river, and in general refer to themselves as “Steelheaders” they’ve created quite a monster, here.  A dog that goes by the name of fish that doesn’t even really exist.  Or at least it’s headed that way.  Pacific Coast fish contracting Atlantic Fish diseases via Chile and who knows else where.  Become aware of the issues associated with fish farming, and you’d wish you hadn’t – at least when I’m thinking like a wild fish, that’s what I lament.

If you look around, you’ll find an interview with Robert Hunter, who after watching “The Hounds Of The Baskervilles” with Jerry Garcia, wrote the lyrics to “Dire Wolf” which, and very simply condensed, speaks of the eventuality of Death. “When I awoke, the Dire Wolf.  Six hundred pounds of sin, was grinnin at my window.  All I said was “Come On In.”

Anyways, it’s been a while since I’ve sat down and had a chance to collect my thoughts.  Fall fishing has been really good, and the river’s ready for a winter sleep.  I think of the turning colors as a big, extended yawn and pulling on the blanket, getting ready for a good nap.  Thanks for reading, and if I react strangely the next time you see me on the river, it’s not you – it’s the idea that being recognized is humbling and scary at the same time.

Fall

The very nature of river discussions casually amble somewhere between the specific and the absolutely pointless.  In such cases, it’s not always an option to break the glass and pull the fire alarm.  Nor is it advisable to yell “Fire” in a crowded movie theater – the sort of chalk test that we’ve come to use everyday to explain our actions.  As we stand here beneath the widening chalk board, the exit door to the room lies far away to the right, past that frustratingly simple triangle, the olive green trash can tucked under the graying aluminum ringed desk.  There’s a quietly painful feeling that an increasingly growing number of us suppose that if the answer is wrong, then we’d just erase the question and without pause put the right one it’s place – problem solved.

If you’ve spent any time with me on the river, there’s a couple of things I’ve found myself repeating, not for better or worse, but simply an observation about fly fishing – if you fish the water you’ve missed, you’ll miss the water you should fish.  Or,  sometimes I’ll drop the brilliance of  “Remember to forget” – that your muscles will eventually stop being fooled by your mind, and it will all stop making sense start making sense.

I recently overheard a small group of fly fisherman chatting over the last hours spent on the water – what worked, the weather, etc.  “Yes, the water is high and fast right now but it’s supposed to be” lingers like camp fire smoke blended into that hoodie you didn’t wash after the last overnighter but will probably get in the laundry tomorrow.  Look past the leaning cottonwoods who just might be doing so to listen more closely to the day’s report.  As a quick side note, when the water does go back down, it will be very good for walking the edges after the water’s gone down, collecting shop flies and hand-tied wonders – you should limit on foam dries and bead headed nymphs very quickly.

You and the tree’s both heard the quip that sounded something very similar to ‘Starve Steve McQueen” and it sticks (pun intended) out the most – a concept taught somewhere by someone at sometime in someplace, that by uttering that phrase while watching a large fish that has immediately closed that gap of two feet from behind that rock and is immediately at your fly will somehow result in critical mass, or as Merriam Webster defines as “ of sufficient size to sustain a chain reaction.”

Simply, it takes a lot of time and energy to think about what you should do when a fish takes your fly, and in that time gap of time, it’s already realized that it’s not real, and turned it’s head.  Set The Hook.  If in the course of your pursuits you’ve found yourself thinking about what to think when the fish takes your fly, why not just Set The Hook?  People have a tendency to get in their own way, and they can’t unplug plug in to the river and the rhythm and Set The Hook.  This fine pursuit of the trout requires one to get out of their own way, discover and connect rather than be censorious, and Set The Hook.

Having now reached critical mass upon the idea, let me mention mending.  How much time do you have?

Among the many theories that attempt to describe how Man engages with himself, nature, and society, Theory Z is the result of decades of observation, tweaking of other theories, and the study of situational leadership.  The most apt characterization of how Theory Z applies to the current day is as follows – “Interaction is man’s social unit of importance.”

Given the smile on this fellow’s face, I’d say Theory Z is right on.  The importance of interaction with nature can never be underestimated or taken for granted.  Before we had Theory Z, the study of human behavior was deeply rooted in motivation, and what satisfied man.  Maslow, in his work, posited that in order to reach self-actualization, there were basic needs that must be met first – safety, food, shelter, etc.

As time progressed, and individuals in the workplace became more known as “resources” than “personnel” and we moved away from a militaristic model of managing people; the importance of roles, working together, and collaboration became the norm, not the exception.

I often get clients whose workdays and challenges are mirrored in the situations we find on the water – problem solving, communication, the wise use of resources, and working together.  As we float down the river, the water and the workplace are dissected; look downstream, not up – if you fish the water you missed, you’ll miss the water you should fish is one of my little river gems.

In a previous life, these theories and the study of human behavior kept me confined in a little cubicle, with a ill-tempered and inpatient boss, whose own challenges with human behavior motivated me to follow Maslow’s advice, and to self-realization.

I submit as my thesis into the study of human behavior, my interpretation of Theory Z.

Days on the river, nights around the fire, mornings in the canyons, life lived as it should be.

I took the new puppy out for a walk this afternoon, at the usual time, and for the usual reasons.  Maggie is a puppy full and full; can’t stop eating, pulling on the leash, biting the rug, and the occasional slip up when I happen not to be looking.  It’s the kind of thing I’ve come to expect, like having an infant in the house again.  I’ll sit down to something really important, like change the channel on Pandora from Ripple Radio to Reflection, which I’ve so named for songs I enjoy.  And as I sat down at 6:37 PM tonight, a song by that band with the prism on the album cover begins; the acoustic guitar opening of Wish You Were Here is like the sweetest kiss from this little puppy of mine.  So I start reflecting on a issue that’s been arcing across the ridges and valleys of my mind for a while now, it’s colors not so bright and cheery any longer; and I open an industry magazine from today’s mailbox reflecting on the state of the fly fishing industry.

In no uncertain terms, the editor of the magazine sizes up what he sees as the biggest problems right now.  I hear “Running over the same old ground what have you found? The same old fear” floating through the speakers and landing pretty heavy on the subject – and that’s fear.  Fear in the industry is becoming a reflection on the many problems it faces.  That some should benefit rather than others is the pointed-head, spiked tail evil spirit in the room.  Tradition, the “way it is” and so on.  “What about me?” the battle cry comes, louder and louder.

What ‘s driving this fear, and I’ll ask another question – how visible is it to the “never will be an angler” or the person who probably won’t read this blog but has a few friends who might, or has a parent who used to, or who may live near a fly shop and always walks by but never in-person out there?  If you read the same publication I got in the mail today, before you even reached the 10th page, you will have read opinions, statements, and indictments about “why” the problem exists, “what” fear looks like down to the laces of its boots, and even the more other important “W” in the equation – the “Who?” this evil is.  Another timely lyric drops in – “Oh some evil spirit, oh some evil this way comes.  They told me how to fear it now they’re placing it on their tongues” is pretty much right on target.

I had a business teacher in high school whose favorite phrase to say in most every occasion was “Jesus said, the love of money is the root of all evil”  (actually, it was Paul who said it according to the internet but I’ve never quoted the bible).   Evil looks like someone else who wants to try a different idea, who wants to take a different path, who sees an opportunity to solve a problem.  That dank, unlit alley is a long, winding path that courses through us all, accelerated with a heavy push on the gas pedal by other forces – motivation, expectation, tradition, selfishness.  During a discussion today in that dark alley, I shed light on it – “thank you, but that’s what I do, that piece of the pie is mine, so bugger off.”  When we’re on that path of fear, it may be easy to find treasure along the way in someone else’s chest, but should we be afraid of that?  Or should that make us examine it and respond to it.  It’s hard to answer for you, fine reader, but I’ll sum it up from my point of view – if you want a piece of my pie, I don’t fear you, I fear my response.  Will I take note, and change, or will I rely on the past?

And so, I suppose (or, I’m told as I stop reading) that my response should be to look within, only seek relief with those who may seek the same, and forgo all else.  But I can’t help but read a ember hot idea burning through the pages about “the way to keep your pie is to make sure people think it’s yours.”  For you see, fear lives in the margins, and those small margins is what we’re all afraid of.  That ever darkening path of fear is a narrowing slim margin and it’s the most valuable treasure in the industry.  And it’s the  hardest stone along the path to break; for to continue to exist in the margins, it’s not really about supporting the industry, it’s getting your piece of it.  And there’s not a single person in it that isn’t out for it.  Once we all agree that this fear is competition, and that our own response is our own response, we can finally call it what it is.  And once you name fear, it becomes a lot more familiar..that Paul guy was pretty smart after all.

I feel pretty good about my (slim) margins and how I walk down that path right now – how about you?

We all live downstream.  Sitting in your living room, stuck in your cubicle, or walking down the street, there’s a river out there whose pristine headwaters are far above your current altitude.  And there always will be.  Look upstream – what do you see?  Turn and look downstream – anything different?  You’re probably already looking at the water you were looking upstream at.  Most problem’s are like that – as soon as you realize it exists, how very quickly it’s already on you and how you react to it is already being decided by the forces of nature.  What are you going to do?

Last September, I attended an outdoor concert at Marymoor Park, outside of Seattle.  It rained all day and night, and while not a Woodstock-esque level of mud, some of the musicians were there at Woodstock all those years ago.  The band playing that night,Furthur, put down a great set – one theme of water in the songs being played was fitting.  These guys get it – about living downstream.  Mississippi Half Step, Peaceful Valley, So Many Roads.

Since that night spent in the pouring rain dancing with friends, I’ve been thinking about a question asked by one of my clients – “So, are you are writer who fly fishes, or a fly fisher who writes?  I’ll let you decide about the quality, quantity, and meaning in my writing – sometimes jumbled with musical lyrics, other times self-promoting, and still yet other times meaning may have escaped within what I wrote altogether.  I appreciate that you’ve been along for the journey – and as I sit here on the computer with my mind going in many different directions, I find focus in a river, once again.  So many roads, so why this one?  Please read along, and I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions, too.

The Middle Fork Road follows the Snoqualmie River from near its headwaters, still above Snoqualmie Falls, where the Taylor River drains portions of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.  The Pratt, Rainy Creek, Granite Creek, and smaller unnamed gullies and seasonal snowmelt paths, tumbling down the steep mountain flanks.  It’s uncontrolled water up here, still above some of the richest farmland in the Puget Sound.  Flooding here is a real issue; some of my six regular readers live in the paths of these flood-waters.  Native Salmon, Coastal Cutthroat, Westslope Cutthroat, non-native Brook Trout, and Rainbow all exist here.  The Middle Fork of The Snoqualmie is great fly fishing water – I guide on its waters a few times a year.

The fish above the falls, where it’s at its wildest, don’t grow very large due to several factors – water temps and chemical composition, angling pressure, habitat issues, and abuse.  The road and the forest and water around it have been used as a dumping ground in the past; weekend parties, squatters, car campers, and illegal dumpers.  Over the last few years, it’s been a river on the rebound however.  Then along comes a road.

A road already exists – gravel and mud, then potholes and dust depending on the time of the year one uses it.  Either season, it’s a primitive road that matches the destination.  There have been times along that road, trails, and riverbeds that I’ve felt a million miles away, while yet only 34 miles via Interstate 90 from Seattle.

There’s a proposal being floated right now, by the DOT, US Forest Service, and King County (which the MF Snoqualmie flows within) to pave the road from milepost 2.7, extending nearly 10 miles to the Middle Fork Campground.  At 20 feet wide, this road would be wider than the river in some places.  The primary objective is to reduce the impact of natural flooding on the existing roadway, by elevating the road at certain places, and paving along the entirety.  It’s what called a “preferred alternative.”

The money will come from multiple sources; (WFLHD) Western Federal Lands Highway Division, (FHWA) Federal Highway Administration, (USFS) United States Forest Service, and King County.  The preliminary studies already completed pose “no potential for the….action to significantly affect the human environment.”  Of course, a EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) will be required.  Anyone hungry for alphabet soup?

Here’s my thoughts – while paving the road does have some downstream benefits (think reduced sedimentation in the river which affects nesting and rearing habitat both above and below the falls) as well as economic (I heard a number between $20 and $40 million – plus or minus a million if they close the road to all users for up to two years while it’s being paved) (note to self this last paragraph contains way too many parentheses) I think of the impacts of a paved road, leading to wilderness.  I think about not only an increased number of users in an environment, but the types of users.  I used to frequent Elevenmile Canyon outside of Lake George, Colorado for both camping, rock climbing, and fly fishing.  That dirt road was often rutted and dusty, but rarely crowded.  A rough journey at times, sure.  Compact cars or motor homes? Rarely.  It was a good experience – but it didn’t stop a few folks from taking RV’s into the campground below Elevenmile Dam.  The drone of a generator in the early morning didn’t make for a wilderness experience, but given it’s proximity to Colorado Springs and Denver, it was what it was and is.  Wilderness, in this day, may not be the easiest place to get into.  But would we appreciate the same if it was?

I think upon further review, reflecting upon what I value in nature, that wilderness observed and defined must continue to contain “wild” and should not be easy to access.

Jerry and Robert put it well:

From the land of the midnight sun
where the ice blue roses grow
‘long those roads of gold and silver snow
Howlin’ wide or moaning low
So many roads I know
So many roads to ease my soul

If you’d like to learn more about this issue, please visit www.wfl.fhwa.dot.gov/projects/mfsnoqualmie.