Fifty Years Ago at Mt. Pilchuck

In his “Seems Like Yesterday” column for January 17, 2014, Everett’s Herald writer Jack O’Donnell said that fifty years earlier, Mount Pilchuck Ski area reported eight inches of new snow and the area had a total of 76 inches. The temperature at 8 a.m. was 29 degrees with snow falling both on top and at the lodge.

Today, hundreds of hikers each summer weekend make the 5.4 mile round trip to the restored fire lookout on top of mile-high Mt. Pilchuck. Despite dangers, some of them also make the climb in the winter. Most have no idea they’ve left their vehicles in the parking lot of what was one of the most beautiful low-level ski-areas ever built. The trail up the mountain takes them through mature forests and meadows. Above the tree line, it sends them scrambling over gigantic granite boulders. It’s some of the most spectacular scenery anywhere in the northwest.

I grew up with Mount Pilchuck in my front yard. From the window we could watch the clouds wrap the mountain on a stormy day. On a clear summer evening the lookout’s light seemed like a star caught on the peak.

Mt. Pilchuck from our front yard

 Sometimes, a group of friends got together for an all-day hike up the mountain. The trailhead began at the Stillaguamish River then, but in 1951 the state parks commission gave permission to the Mt. Pilchuck Ski Club to develop a ski area. Nothing much happened until 1956, when The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission got a special permit from the U.S. Forest Service to develop and maintain a ski area at Cedar Flats. The access road from the river to the flats cut off several miles of hiking for summer visitors.
   
At first the ski club had just one rope tow. The ski area struggled with lack of snow some years; too much snow in other years. Several owners tried their hand at operating the park. In 1958, a new owner took over and built a day lodge at the parking lot. Lift passes were a dollar or two dollars a day. Mt. Pilchuck State Park became a legal entity that year, with a land exchange agreement between the Forest Service and the State Parks and Recreation Commission. But the exchange never happened, leading to later difficulties for the operators.

By the winter of 1962-63, skiing cost $3.50 per day. The park had three rope tows. During the next season, ‘63-64, the main chairlift arrived just in time for a snowfall 52 feet deep at the top and 14.5 feet at the lodge. For three weeks the area was buried and closed, until the snow could be shoveled out of the way. The new chair from Riblet Tramway Company had loading stations both at the bottom and the middle of the chair.

Loading Platform and Riblet Chair Lift

Another “Seems Like Yesterday” item from Jack O’Donnell’s column for April 12, 2014 stated: “50 years ago (1964) Mt. Pilchuck Ski Resort was staging a costume and obstacle race April 12. The competition was open to anyone between the ages of seven and 17. The first-place winner would receive a season’s pass for the Pilchuck chair lift.”

After this came two years of hill grooming work on the gentler slopes below the lodge and parking lot. Although the trees have grown back, outlines of this area are still visible. Another chair was installed there, with lighting for night skiing.

By 1970-71, new owners had added a new lodge, bierstube (German-style pub) and equipment rental facilities. Even though my family never tried downhill skiing, it was still an adventure to drive up the snowy mountain to see what was going on at the park. We took our four-year old with us one time. Fascinated, he watched the double chair swinging up the steep slope above us with passengers dangling ski-clad feet. He later begged to go back to see “that big swing set on Mt. Pilchuck.”

The Riblet chair lift from the ski rental building

The excitement of those bygone days of skiing Mt. Pilchuck’s main chair can be better comprehended by viewing this modern You Tube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThzIES6yCAw  ( whitehorsephotograph.)

In 1980,  low-snow seasons plus difficulties in getting operating permit renewals permanently closed the Mt. Pilchuck ski area. The lift equipment went to the ski area at Crystal Mountain. The main lodge was vandalized and eventually torn down. The smaller ski rental building was trucked down the mountain by a private buyer and twenty years later became a vacation lodge beside the Stillaguamish River. The personnel scattered to different operations. But Mt. Pilchuck State Park itself remains a peaceful and beautiful get-away.


For more information, visit http://www.mountpilchuck.com/lodgehistory2.htm or search for the Alpenglow Ski Mountaineering History Project.

The upper ski area under construction

Can You Help Kako?

Kako Retreat Center from the cross on the mountain

This e-mail from my friend Jeanne Penz Rodkey arrived yesterday. Although Jeanne now lives in California, her parents were missionaries in a number of Alaskan villages and she grew up among  children like Rose. She still cares deeply for them. Her father Dave Penz married Vera after Jeanne's mother died. Together Dave and Vera established Kako Retreat Center to serve the people of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Jeanne gave me permission to share from her letter in hopes that more people will come to care about Alaska's isolated and needy Native peoples.


Rose's soft voice came across the telephone last night. She's 11 and she's telling me about her week at Kako.

"I had fun. I  went rappelling. I rock climbed too!
We sang songs. We went on the mountain to the cross."

Rose spoke so softly that several times I had to ask her to tell me again. Despite the low, quiet tones, it was obvious that she had had a wonderful time!

photo from: kakoretreatcenter.org

"I was with Erica." (the cabin leader) and she named off her cabin mates. "One night we sat in a circle and we got to know each other. Our cabin got to go first to the snack shack because we cleaned our cabin!"

"We had popcorn"
"I made a name tag"

Photo from: kakoretreatcenter.org

Photo from: kakoretreatcenter.org

"I ate spaghetti"

"We learned that Jesus died for our sins..."

"Kako is tiny, Hooper (her village) is big!  I got used to Kako. I want to go again next year!"

Rose lives near the Arctic Ocean on the treeless tundra, where the weather is cold and windy. Kako has trees and a mountain, and people who are loving and caring.

Learning about Jesus within the context of fun in a safe beautiful place is the best gift you can give a child!                                                                      

Hooper Bay, Rose's village - a 3 hour round trip flight from Kako -  is a very large village... a small town actually, with 1700 people. This village is known for its high suicide rate. Rose's older brother was part of the police force in her village, but due to the high number of suicides that have occurred in the past year, he quit that job. He couldn't handle dealing with the suicides over and over.

Would you be willing to help fund a week of camp?
Kako has just begun week three of six weeks of summer camp.
Next week will be the critical teen week... critical because Alaskan teens have the highest rates for suicide in the nation, and sexual abuse and violence is extremely high in the native villages. Off the charts high! I've included links to data on these subjects at the end of the email in case you have an interest in reading more about it.

Please consider helping Kako Retreat Center be a fun and safe place for Alaskan children and teens to come, where they can learn more about Jesus and meet adults that love and care for them in Jesus' name! Where they can find hope for living!

Kako has a critical need for giving because the summer barge is arriving early next week with the fuel needed to operate Kako all summer. The fuel must be paid on arrival and is $40,000! Gulp! Yes, forty thousand dollars! In the past, the barge company allowed payments over time, but they now insist on payment upfront for their sales! However, buying fuel from the barge is the cheapest and most cost effective way to purchase diesel and av-gas.

Imagine if you had to buy fuel this way! Enough to run the electricity in your home, and for every vehicle that requires fuel. And realize that when you are located 80 air miles from the nearest place to buy fuel (no roads!), it is critical to have your own supply so you don't get stuck at home without fuel. 

See pictures of Kako Retreat Center and the map showing its strategic location
in the Yukon Kuskoskwim Delta at: kakoretreatcenter.org

If you would like to help Kako Retreat Center, that would be wonderful!

Your gift is tax deductible.

Mail your gift to:
Kako Retreat Center
Box 29
Russian Mission, AK 99657

Trusting God to provide for Kako so it can continue to provide God's light to the people of the delta.

~ Jeanne

Facts and figures on suicide and sexual abuse in the native culture of Alaska:

quote from http://www.sprc.org/grantees/association-village-council-presidents
(I added the bold font to show you that Rose's village is in this list):

"...Alaska Native Villages of Alakanuk, Chevak, Hooper Bay and Scammon Bay. The villages are among the poorest in America, almost 100% Alaska Native and have the highest suicide rate in the country."

Suicide Statistics for Alaska — 2010
Suicides spike again in Y-K Delta villages
Devastating impact of domestic abuse revealed in database ...
Alaska’s alarming rape epidemic - Salon.com

********
More about Kako in past Sun Breaks posts for July, August, and September 2013!

Oso Strong—God's Love Endures

Waiting for the pilot car. Oso mudslide visible in the distance. Undamaged home in trees at right.

South edge of the slide. Temporary road followed power line beyond.

Broken trees, broken hillside, broken hearts at Oso.

The Steelhead Haven neighborhood after the slide

Surreal...what else could one call it?

A piece of corrugated drain pipe protruding skyward from heaped gravel on our right; a broken board, the shredded bole of a tree...all the same gray. Such an expanse of dullness, stretching across the once green and lovely valley to where a hill called Hazel had broken open like some monstrous overripe fruit.

A mile of Washington State Highway 530, buried since the hill’s collapse on March 23, 2014, opened again to single-lane traffic on Sunday, May 31. Survivors, volunteers, friends and neighbors solemnly walked the route with Governor Jay Inslee. Only a few days earlier, big shovels were still clearing rubble. Volunteers searched as they dug for families‘ keepsakes and for the remains of people still missing.

On Monday, we followed a pilot car leading log trucks, commercial vehicles, locals, and tourists through the slide area. After a short line of westbound traffic had passed, our line slowly moved uphill, through familiar country. This area between Oso and Darrington has always been one of our favorite drives. On the hill to our right sat a modest home with a fringe of trees to the east...and nothing but gray rubble beyond.

We drove in overwhelmed silence. A mile to the left, the raw interior of the mountain exposed layers of gravel and other sediments laid down during the glacial age. The rest of the mountain, supersaturated by weeks of heavy rain, had turned to mud and slurry in the blink of an eye. It rolled and roared with the sound of a freight train across the forests and the Steelhead Haven neighborhood. It smashed homes and swept away the rubble, burying the Stillaguamish River, backing it up to flood homes spared by the wicked mixture of rock, mud, and broken trees.  It covered vehicles and people on the very roadway on which we now drove. Its energy finally ran out on the opposite hillside.

My mind couldn’t encompass the expanse of gray ruin, focusing instead on two spots of color...a blue plastic container, a red jug. A lone fir stood near the road, still green: the Oso Memorial Tree. On it someone had fastened a sign with the date and time of the slide: 10:45 AM, 3/23/14, lovingly crafted from a board found in the wreckage. On the far side a couple of homes stood in a sea of dirt that might have been left by the backed-up river. Then we were back in Washington’s green jungle of brush and trees. Where we glimpsed the river above the slide, it looked its normal color, not gray with the mud it picks up as it chews its way through the slide.

As traffic sped up, I realized my mind was playing the song we sang at church the day before: “The love of God is greater far, than tongue or pen can ever tell; it goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell….When hoary time shall pass away, and earthly thrones and kingdoms fall, when men who here refuse to pray on rocks and hills and mountains call, God’s love so sure, shall still endure, all measureless and strong, redeeming grace to Adam’s race—the saints’ and angels’ song.”

Hell had visited the Steelhead Haven neighborhood, but God’s love was there, too. It was in the love of friends and neighbors who refused to obey orders to stay away and put their own lives in danger to rescue the few still living and to keep on looking for the missing. It was there in the love of hundreds of volunteers who found ways to help, and in the generous sharing of people all over the country who gave to assist those who’d lost everything.

 “Oso Strong” became the slogan that encouraged and drew people together. I’m proud of neighbors near and far who worked together to help shoulder the burdens of those most affected. I’m proud to be a citizen of a country whose strength lies in people like this.

The Memorial Tree, photographed in passing

Flaggers at the eastern edge of the work zone

This home narrowly escaped destruction.

Cloudbursts and Climate Changes

    This spring we’ve heard of terrible floods on the Florida panhandle, terrifying tornados in the Midwest, fierce and way too early wildfires in Alaska, California, and Arizona. But we Pacific Northwesterners count ourselves fortunate to live where we live. We seldom have natural disasters to worry about.

    Or do we? We have summer wildfires. We have a vague awareness that the volcanoes looming on our horizons aren’t really extinct. Now and then, the earth shrugs its shoulders and an earthquake reminds us that a “big one” lurks on a known or unknown fault line. Signs along our coastline point out tsunami escape routes to use if the ocean should overrun its bounds. And when it rains a lot, we can have landslides.
 
  It rained a lot in Marysville last Sunday. A storm cell packed with water, thunder, and lightning sat for two hours over part of the city and let loose the hardest cloudburst that people who’d lived there all their lives could remember. The Everett newspaper, the Herald, called it a “a 100-year event.” Marysville storm sewers are designed to accommodate a 25-year, 24-hour rain totaling 2.75 inches. A 100-year event would be 3.36 inches in 24 hours. On Sunday, May 18, 2014, in the space of two hours, the rainfall officially totaled 3.40 inches.

    My brother lives in one of the neighborhoods that received the deluge. He and his wife listened to rain pound the roof as the street filled up with water. Then they realized that water was pouring in a waterfall the length of the gutter. The newly-installed screens meant to keep leaves and tree needles from clogging the downspouts were blocking the rainwater. Bill grabbed his rain gear and a tall metal ladder, and despite painful arthritis, climbed the ladder, removed a screen, then went inside to change his drenched clothes. By that time, more gutters were overflowing and back he went into the downpour as thunder crashed and lightning streaked across the sky. After two more changes of clothes, he’d diverted water from running into the daylight basement, although it flooded the garage floor. Rainwater stood three to four inches deep in his driveway when the rain finally stopped.

    As a hobby, Bill has kept a rain gauge and recorded daily totals for 25 years. For those two hours, his gauge recorded 4.61 inches of rain; more than the total for any May over the past 25 years except for May of 1988, which had 4.72 inches.

    The National Weather Service says evidence suggests a trend in Western Washington toward higher-intensity, shorter-duration rains in spring and fall. Is this a sign of climate change?

    Perhaps. Anyone who studies geology or history can point to recurring cycles of weather change. Some of those unique events have happened within the lifetimes of some still living, including the big snow of 1914.  More than 30 inches of snow fell in Everett in 36 hours, but nearby areas reported even more. Snohomish had 42 inches and Marysville, 48 inches. That was also the year the Stillaguamish River froze over. Even in the 1940s and 1950s, local winters were much more severe than they are now.

    In prehistoric times, the valleys of the North and South Forks of the Stillaguamish River were blocked by a lobe of the Cordilleran ice sheet. This caused lakes to form in the valleys. They dropped layers of sediments that became today’s unstable soils. It was those unstable soils that led to the recent landslide at Oso.

    We hear a lot about melting glaciers and warming winters, both in our mountains and in Alaska. My friend Jeanne and her brother Jonathan flew to Kako, Alaska from Anchorage earlier in the week. One hour of the three-hour trip by bush plane took them over the Alaska Range. Jeanne said, There are usually “snow capped mountains and glaciers in every direction as far as our eyes can see. This year, however, some of the snow has melted, and even some of the glacier ice has melted due to the warm winter and spring. Jonathan showed me one place that had held a glacier and is now empty, and said, ‘A glacier has been there as long as I can remember, but now it is gone!’”

    Scientists in polar regions are concerned about the melting sea ice.
  
    Spring is coming earlier and snowfall is not as heavy as normal.

    Observation in our area tells us that’s true here, too, although our Midwest and Eastern friends and relatives complain with reason about unusually severe storms and long-lasting winter weather.

    It’s fascinating to pay attention to the small things that are out of the ordinary. Maybe they’re just blips in the natural history of this area, but here are a few things that are different in our little corner of the country:

    Tent caterpillars in February: I found a couple of nests of the wriggling creatures in the arborvitae hedge and disposed of them when it was still winter. I never saw them so early and never saw them eating evergreens.

    Other voracious insects: Warmer winters and earlier springs encourage insect infestations. Something is turning the leaves on our vine maple to lace. Beetles have killed vast acreages of evergreens in Canada’s mountains and now they’re attacking our Cascade evergreens.

    Early blooming flowers: Usually we have armloads of lilacs to take to the cemetery on Memorial Day. This year my lilacs and irises are already through blooming.

    Ocean Acidification: Increased carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels dissolves into the ocean and is killing off sea creatures such as coral, whose skeletons are based on calcium carbonate. In recent years, reproduction of the famed Willapa Bay oysters has been wiped out because of the acidification of ocean water along our coast.
 
    Since our early ancestors migrated from Asia to the Americas, people have adapted to changing conditions. We can adapt, too. I just hope that we humans will soon discard the practices that hurt the earth we share, for the sake of those who will live here after us.
 
Photo courtesy of blog, New Dharma Bums