Oso Two Years After the Slide

While still alarming to see the side of a mountain that slipped into the river and across a major highway, signs of life are returning to the area.

A gate keeps the public away from the slide area, but

a small parking lot at the site allows people to stop and see the slide area, pay their respects, take pictures, and walk through the trees that have been planted to commemorate the lives of the people who were lost in the slide.

A memorial plaque tells the story of the slide.

Eastern Snohomish County Motorcycle Ride and Oso Update

As we get to the middle of September, we are grateful for every day we can still go for a motorcycle ride in the sunshine and return home in time for a swim in the lake.  Today we left Granite Falls around 10:30 a.m.  The temperature had already gotten to 70 degrees as we traveled Jordan Road toward Arlington.  We met about 200 motorcycles coming into Granite as we headed out.

I love barns and mountains and bodies of water - so this ride through Arlington, Oso, Darrington, Rockport, Lyman, Hamilton, Sedro Woolley, Clear Lake, Big Lake, Lake McMurray, and Bryant is one of my favorites.

We still had to follow a pilot car on a single lane through the slide area just beyond Oso, but they are making good progress on repairing Hwy 530, and we were on the main highway instead of the powerline road. 

Debris from the cars and structures destroyed by the slide has been removed.  The landscape has forever changed though.  Instead of undulating hills and valleys down to the river, it is pretty flat. 

It's interesting to look at the strata in the hillside that collapsed.  Sand levels are clearly visible in several places, which probably contributed to the instability of the hillside.

Just before Darrington, we had stunning views of the glaciers on Whitehorse Mountain.

Where the Sauk and Suattle Rivers come together, we could see the different colors of the water where the glacier water from the Suattle joins the bluer water of the Sauk.

We stopped in Sedro Woolley for a late lunch and then headed home on Highway 9, where we watched waterskiers on Big Lake and fishermen on Lake McMurray.  Yes, it's still summer in the Pacific Northwest!

Biking in Snohomish and Skagit County

The real sun worshippers live in the Pacific Northwest.  When the sun comes out in the spring, everyone heads outside!  There is no excuse for burning daylight sleeping in or working inside.

So when we woke up to full sun and a promise from the weather forecasters for a day where the temperature got to 80 degrees, Ron got the bike out and we headed out on an explore.

We intended to go out Jordan Rd to Arlington and then on to Darrington via Oso as we had heard the road was open.  However, Jordan Road was closed for a bridge replacement, so we ended up on Engebretsen Rd, following the South Fork of the Stillaguamish River,

through the old growth forest,

 onto Highway 530 toward Oso and Darrington.

I love barns, so this road is great for looking at a variety of barns. 

 

The slide at Oso has made us much more aware of slopes and slides, and frankly, all of the hillsides look fragile.

About a mile east of Oso, we came to a traffic stop, where a flagger had traffic stopped and a security person came up to us.  "Can we get through to Darrington?" Ron asked.

"Yes, but traffic going east goes on the half hours and coming west leaves the other side on the hour." 

He also mentioned that the bypass is a gravel power line road with a 16% grade.  It was 10:42 a.m. when we got there, so we would have to wait 45 minutes for the pilot car.  We decided that trip was better left for another day and turned around and went back to Arlington.

Highway 9 North has its own traffic issues.  We still used the one lane bridge just north of Bryant, but we could see the new bridge, which will take out several 90 degree turns is nearing completion.

We headed west on Hwy 534 to Conway, where we had lunch at the Conway Pub, one of our favorite outdoor eateries.

 We came back through Silvana,

 where the barns butt right up to the road,

and the slopes look just as dangerous as the ones out toward Oso.