A river now flows through it
I only had a portion of Saturday morning to take photos so I stayed closer to home and visited Index-Galena Road outside the town of Index. This particular road has been closed since the fall of 2006 when a major storm event re-routed a portion of the North Fork Skykomish River to flow down a half mile of the existing road. I’ve seen plenty of photos of the damage but this would be my first visit.
On my way to where the road closure is located, I passed by Bitter Creek which had a real nice series of cascades just above the bridge that spans it.
The damage to the road begins just beyond the closure signs and barricade. This is where the new channel angles back to the river and has created a 4 foot high waterfall.
Beyond this point, varying portions of the road still exist and are surrounded by two smaller channels on either side of the road’s center. I was hoping to reach the upstream starting point of all this damage but deeper water (I was only wearing 16″ boots) and time restrictions forced me to turn around. It’s always amazing to see how nature responds to what we do..
