The Washington State Hiking Podcast

Hiking in Washington after December's major flooding

• Jennie Thwing Flaming and Craig Romano • Episode 97

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 Welcome to the Washington State Hiking Podcast. I'm your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming, 

and I'm your co-host Craig Romano.

Craig and I are happy to have you here. We provide practical and timely seasonal hiking advice for hikers, trail runners, and potential hikers and trail runners of all skill and ability levels that is helpful, accurate, fun, and inclusive.



Alright, Craig. Well, um, we have had some pretty epic flooding. Oh, tell me about it. Jennie. I, I live in Skagit County. Yeah. I, I'm right above the river. I can, you know, I can see the river, uh, flood, the, the flood bank. Uh, I'm safe. Uh, but I, and I, yeah, I can see what's happening out there. 

Yeah, I'm glad. I am really glad that you are safe.

I know the Mount Vernon community has really, not only Mount Vernon, but many places have been impacted, including there and listeners. We are gonna do, what we're gonna do today is make our best effort to give you the best information we can about how. This flooding has impacted hiking in Washington, but a couple disclaimers about that.

Number one, we are recording this episode a couple weeks before it's airing, so things could change. Also, things could change even if we were recording it the day before or the day of, right? So this is a dynamic situation. We are gonna share some resources for staying up to date, some specific things that we know about, but it is super important to check, um, DOT's app and or website about road closures.

And a another plug for Washington Trails Association Trip reports. People share their trails that are impacted, roads that are impacted, and if you were out hiking and you encounter. Storm damage, please report it in a trail report, um, for other people and land managers read that as well. So in the winter or anytime having this information is really important.

So we're gonna do our best today to share you what we know, what share with you, what we know about the current situation. But this is not a substitute for looking up the most recent. Information using those resources. 

Yeah, and that's all good points, Jennie? I think the main thing we're, we're not specifically talking about the flooding per se, because that's in the past now, so that you know, certain roads that were underwater most, you know, a lot of those are gonna be backed normal.

What we're pretty much gonna be talking about the aftermath. Of the floods that we're gonna be living with for a long time. Yes. I, I've lived, I've lived here in the Northwestern for 36 years. Uh, Jennie even longer. Uh, I've lived through, uh, several big flooding events. 1990 was a bad year. Um. And this is one, this is probably going to, um, shape up as one of the worst, uh, matter of fact here where I live in sca, the river did, uh, hit a record level.

Uh, it beat the 1990 level. Yeah. And the main reason that we didn't have the destruction in Mount Vernon that we did in 1990 is because we have this new flood wall that was built a few years ago. Thank God for that. It was amazing. I've been living in town. They came up with that, uh, it was controversy. I think we've seen now through two big floods in nine, uh, four years ago as well, that this thing was definitely worth, worth the investment for sure.

Um, and I think a lot of other communities are gonna be assessing too, as these a hundred year floods are happening every five, 10 years now. Right. Um, that we're gonna start. Assessing. So what, initially after the flight, again, this is devastating. Um, a lot of the backcountry, it's gonna be a while to get in, but I'm getting reports, vi reliable reports coming in, you know, boots on the ground, people out in these places, uh, of some of the, of the devastation to, to hiking, um, yeah, to our hiking haunts.

Uh, and this is just, I think it's the tip of the iceberg, which is really scary. What does that mean in the long run? It means, um. It's gonna affect your planning. Uh, if there's certain areas. If you're thinking that this is the year you were gonna hike to Im Image Lake in in Glacier Peak Wilderness, a lot of hit forget about it.

Um, unless you're planning on a very, very difficult approach, uh, there's gonna be a lot of those. So, uh, you're gonna wanna be flexible with your plans this year. And some of those trails that weren't effect effecting roads, they're gonna be even more crowded, um, is what it comes down to. So what are some of the biggies?

That that, that I can confirm that have happened so far. North Fork of the Skykomish Road, which just reopened two years ago after being closed for so 

discouraging so 

long has been washed out again. I think it hasn't been washed out as badly, uh, as the original. But here's the thing, again, we're dealing with, uh, a federal government right now.

I, I'm actually quite. Surprise, Jennie, maybe you're too, that when, uh, governor Ferguson declared the state of emergency, the, the, the federal government actually met it, uh, right away. 'cause it, yeah, they played games with North Carolina and other areas. Um, so it's going to depend on a lot of, you know, the rebuilding process is going to be.

It's gonna take time, it's gonna be very, very expensive. Yeah. And of course it's going to, uh, there's gonna be a priority. The North fork of the sky comish road is not gonna be a priority when chunks of Highway two washed out. Exactly. Uh, so that's the other thing too. And, and this, and, and the highway two is a priority, but know this, that even if.

You know, once it opens, and it may have by the time we're talking now, but it's probably gonna be the one lane with a, with a, with a light that, that stopped. Yeah. That's gonna, again, you think the traffic's bad now in the summer. Now what's gonna happen when you're held up in through lights and like, that's gonna affect where you're gonna wanna go hiking.

Yeah. Um, you know, so places like Leavenworth we're just, we're we're just hit, just hit hard with this. And of course now they're gonna get hit hard economically 

Yes. On a 

lot of these issues. So there's so many factors going on. So the North Fork. Is washed out. So to get back into Blanca Lake, and again, we have no idea what the upper parts of this looks like right now, it could be even more damaged, but let's assume if it's not, we still don't know if we can get in from the Beckler over.

So this, you know. All these, there's a lot of roads that have traditionally have washed out. Um, chances are they probably happened again. The other big one, uh, where I live is there, this, this Seattle River road, um, again, that, that goes back and forth. It's been washed out many times. 

Yeah. 

But, uh, this one, it washed out at four and a half miles.

Uh, it could be, there could be five more washouts all the way up. It's a long road, right? We, we don't know yet. 

Yep. 

Um, so that's going to, uh, affect right now the, uh, the access into the Glacier Peak wilderness from the West is, is practically non-existent. 

Yeah. 

Um, it's an amazing area. We lost so much access to this area in the late nineties through flooding when we lost the white Chuck Road.

Yep. 

Uh, and I say so again, this is not good. And if we don't have the funding. To get these roads open, we have huge, and then what happens too, we're not getting into these areas. We can't maintain these trails. So if there's washouts on the trails, the disuse, it just puts us even farther behind. Yeah, and we've been here before.

And, uh, I'm afraid we're, we're, we're going to another, uh, process like this. Another thing that that's been extremely devastating is seeing the reports that are coming into Stehekin. I know, uh, and, and I remember I've talked about this in the past, saying Steen's, one of those places you absolutely have to get to, 

yeah.

Steen what happened? They had some terrible fires there last year, and what the worst, worst case scenario when you have is after fires flooding. Yes. Because now you no longer have. Retention from the forest. The entire sides of mountains come down. 

Yes. 

So this community is, is, is just devastated right now.

The washouts in this area, uh, again, the, the road to Holden, they, they had to evacuate. Holden, same thing to get into this. Again, it's all glacier peak, uh, wilderness access. How is this gonna affect Pacific Crest through hikers another, you know, area? It's, it's not gonna be a spot. You're gonna be able to get supplies and who knows, again, on those interior areas, what's gonna be washed out.

You're on a long trail and you get to a place with a dangerous cro and the bridge is no longer there. Um, this is the kind of stuff you have to prepare. And I remember in the early nineties having this, I remember hiking the Lewis River. Down in Southern Washington, um, after major play and coming upon one of the, the largest landslides I've ever seen.

I mean, old growth trees topple there. You, you can't get around these things. I mean, there's just. In this area, you know, in this instance it wasn't, I wasn't too far into the backcountry. It says, oh, my hike's cut short. But imagine, you know, your days into the backcountry on a, an extended hike. I mean, there's, there's gonna be some serious, uh, ramifications in planning.

Uh, yeah. Here. So these are things, uh, our major roads. Four 10 was another one. Uh, on the way to Crystal Mountain. Good chunk of that washed out. So if you're heading up to Rainier. And, you know, I don't know how much this is gonna be fast tracked. I mean, these are state highways, so obviously they're, they're important.

Uh, but even then, um, you've gotta do environmental assessments by the rivers, uh, right. This area. And even if you fast track some of the environmental assessments, if you look at some of these areas, it's just not safe just to build to where it is because the river took out a huge chunk of, of, of your embankment and everything.

You're gonna have to. Force align, realignment and everything on, on some of these. So, um, this is what you, you, you're, you're gonna have to, um, take into consideration and it's very, very frustrating. I get it. Because you, you wanna plan, plan your hike. So normally I tell people I always have a backup plan.

I'm gonna say, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna want, uh, several backup plans now. 

I agree. So, 

yeah. Yeah, 

I think that's really good advice and thank you, Craig, for digging into that in so much detail. Um. That is really valuable for all of us, I think. To One other thing that you said, but I just wanted to reiterate, make sure people didn't catch it, is this flooding happened in December and there are so many places that no one can really get to, to evaluate, um, in the winter.

And so, like you talked about, you know, places where it's washed out at mile four, but there could be additional washouts. No one has seen yet because you can't get to them. And sure, you could fly over them in a helicopter or a drone, but like this is a major disaster. And those resources are right now being used for more crucial things than figuring out how many washouts there are on a particular road on a trail.

So, yeah, exactly. We had a couple levees break and, and again, and I should mention, I saw the footage, uh, from the levies that were broke, that broke along the, um, the Green River in, in Kent and tequila and, and again. That's gonna affect your trail, because that's part of the Green River Trail. That's, that's a very, very popular urban trail.

The big chunks of it are washed out now. Yeah. So expect even in your urban, your urban trails where you are gonna go on a nice long bike ride or run or hike on, on a very nice, uh, popular trail. Yeah. There's gonna be closures on there. Uh, and for a long time, again, because you're gonna have to rebuild levees and, and, uh, and putting that trail on top of the levee is gonna be one of the, you know, not high priority.

High priority is making sure that. Tequila and Kent don't get flooded again. Yeah. Uh, same thing in Auburn Pacific. Um, a lot of these levees, um, you know, several of these levees have trails too, so you're, yeah, you're gonna have damage in your urban trail areas. Uh, also if, if, if, if an urban area is flooded, assume.

Too. And the other thing too, uh, even looking at some initial reports like the Middle Fork, and we're gonna do an episode on the Middle Fork, so we might have more information on this. Yeah, 

I'm excited about that one. That's, 

that's coming up. So people were really concerned about some of the bridges and everything in there.

And I saw initial photos that some of the bridges were still intact. That's the good news. But there was a lot of undermining, uh, of the gravel. Yeah. Near. And so state might get out there at some point and realize this is not safe. Um, yeah. And close it in a, in a, in a, in a worst case scenario. The bridge collapses and everything.

In a best case scenario, if they, if they close that bridge, if we could still be allowed to bike or walk across it so it's not totally 

Yeah. 

At loss. They just don't want heavy vehicles on it. 

Right. But you don't know, 

like the Carbon River Road, um Right. Is not, you know, we're not in that situation. Yeah.

The Fairfax Bridge. Yeah. 

Yeah. And for what I understand, and again, I hope I'm not pretty. Looking at all my sources, from what I understand it, I'm not hearing stuff coming in from Rainier like I did, you know, in past events that were very, very devastating. Uh, I think 2003 was a really bad year. Uh, yeah, it's another 2007 I think too.

Yeah. That did some serious destruction there. But we do know for sure, um, here in the North Cascades, uh, major, major. Impact on, on our trails and access, uh, on our roads. Um, so yeah, it's going to, it's going to, it's going to change a lot of hiking patterns from what I believe too. I think the Olympics, I think, um, might not have been hit as hard.

I think a lot of, a lot of, uh, the rain was more, more collecting over here. Again, I might be, might be, uh, off the bat, but I'm, I'm getting my reports, uh, from Hood Canal, that area more in the rain shadow. I'm not hearing anything. Uh, but we had some devastating fires in there just recently too. So there could again be these landslides, uh, that we haven't access yet, we don't know about.

So, so this is all things that you're gonna have to, uh, guidebooks aren't gonna have the info and a lot of your, your trail sources that you go WTA, because it requires people getting in there. Uh, we're not gonna have that up to date information, and you may be the first person into that area. Um, this time to come upon, you know, a, a major landslide, three miles up on a trail.

Yeah. And realize that's the end of that hike. So, um, 

yeah. And you know, another thing I was thinking about too, Craig, is like storm damage. About a year ago from the bomb cyclone, that was in November of 2024. Mm-hmm. Um. There was some major damage, like there was something like 170 trees down in wall.

That's crazy. Wallace Falls State Park on the trail. So there were things that were closed that reopened fairly quickly, and I think that's gonna be different this time because that was primarily a wind event. Right, and flooding just has so many additional hazards, like you were saying about things being damaged, that's not being, yeah, undermining obvious.

And again, 

to put things in perspective, last year the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, North Carolina got hit really hard with hurricanes devastation, trial. And still well over a year into this, there's still areas that, you know, haven't been open and repaired. I mean. There's a lot, and this is an area with a lot more access to get into still how difficult when you've got entire, you know, landslides and bridges and valleys where every bridge was wiped out in the road.

Yeah. Um, is we're gonna be looking at the same, the same thing. Uh, so it's, it is gonna be how much federal funding we get and we know the Forest Service is in, uh, not in a good position right now. We, we, we do have a governor that that tends to. To, um, be on her side on this. He was instrumental in getting the whole, uh, the whole river.

He was road open. That was long. But again, he can only work with so much and, and, uh, I don't know how many, how many, how much, how much funding's gonna be released. And again, that priority's gonna be on highway two. It's gonna be on Highway four 10. 

Yeah. 

It's not gonna be on the ssat. So I think at the very best case scenario, it's going to be years.

Before these are open, and again, the initial, I saw the initial lands, uh, washout to trench on the Sato. You can't even, you can't even walk around that right now. So once we can get a temporary bridge in there, some, assuming that there aren't any more washouts there, yeah, maybe you'll be able to do, you know, the, the 15 mile mountain bike to get in there to the trail.

But we don't know what else is up there. So some of these are gonna be, are, are, are really gonna be off, off limits for, for a while. Yeah. You know, 

and I think, you know. Listeners, this is why this is one reason we have this podcast, right? This is, this is real humans with real information, right? So we are gonna keep bringing you ideas and episodes that for places that aren't closed, and as you've probably.

Already realized if you've listened to us for a while, there's so many places to hike in Washington that aren't crowded and aren't washed out. And so if your favorite trail or, or one that was on your dream hike list is not accessible for a while, um, just know that there are alternatives and I, I am thinking about trails.

Like I, I, I really love the northwest corner of Mount Rainier and National Park. The idea that access to that area is unlikely to ever come back. Reasonable access, of course, you can hike around the Wonderland, but I mean, being able to do a day hike, Tomach Lake or the mother mountain loop, or even just the, along the Carbon River to the waterfalls in the winter.

It's crushing when you lose access to something like that. So 

It is, and, and you know, and again, I've and Jennie, same thing. We've been hiking for a long time. I mean, I was fortunate to soak in the Kennedy Hot Springs in, in, in 1999. Yeah. I never got 

to do that. It's 

gone. It's done. And it's crushing. 'cause it's an experience.

It's never coming back. And, and yeah. And I used to drive up to, uh, carbon River. In the car camp. There was one of my favorite car camps because I can go there late the season. It was never crowded. Yeah. Um, it's not gonna happen anymore. It's never coming back. Same thing. I took my wife, our very first backpacking trip was the DOI ops.

We drove up, we, we went up to the Anderson Glacier, another great place. Yeah. So things and yeah, we, this is the new norm now, uh, with, you know. With, with this tough weather. This is happening everywhere I go. I, I was just in the southeast again, seeing hiking areas where the, where the devastation of, of these hurricanes every other year.

Same thing I was in Oklahoma, I was hiking a place where the, where these awful tornadoes have done all this destruction. This is just part of the, the process. I mean, yeah, we've always had fires in Trinidad again, but it seems like the intensity, uh, and the duration of these things is increasing. And if it's not, then I just don't think you're paying attention.

Yeah, yeah. Or you're just politically blinded. Um, so you have to do that. So this goes back to two. Two of our just previous episodes to think about. So one we had about resolutions that this is probably the year, uh, to start thinking about other places to check out. Um, maybe it's three, go to the Olympic coast.

Uh, yeah. If you've never been so looking at places that perhaps weren't effective. And then the other thing, if you really care about these places, which we, which we know you do, this is the year that you did, Hey, I'm gonna volunteer. Yeah. You know, for trail work, I'm gonna give a little extra money to these organizations to get things going.

Uh, 'cause it's gonna take, you know, a collective, um, movement here of all of us to, to, to, you know, try to restore reasonable, you know, access back to, to a lot of these places. Some of these places we may never get back again as we knew them. Uh, but we will be get some of them. 

Yeah. Some of 

them back. So, um, but it's gonna take time.

Yeah. 

And money and, and, and, and, uh. Uh, people power. 

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, thanks Greg for Yeah. Bringing all this great info. 

It's such a bummer of it. I know. It's, I know, but it's important. 

It's better to know and have real information. I think that's better than just showing up somewhere and finding the road is closed.

And, and I'll tell you the other thing that's really a bummer if we have any of our listeners out there who are in other parts of the country who are planning that trip to the Northwest. 'cause I know it's the same thing when I planned a trip to somewhere else and I'm so psyched to get there. And also I the trail and I realize the trail, I can't get there now 'cause.

Washed over that is, we live here. And so there's hopefully that chance that we have a couple more years. But if you were planning the trip of your lifetime, oh man, that is a drag. Yeah. So, so I know perhaps some of you out there have, have had that experience when you've gone elsewhere and there's gonna be people certainly that have been planning that trip to the North Cascades or what have you, and there's always that fire flood that's gonna, or the long, the, the Pacific Crest trail through hikers.

We don't know what, uh, what a lot of the trail looks like right now, those crossing. Yeah. So, no. 

Yeah. Cool. Alright, well, thanks Craig.



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Jennie Thwing Flaming

Host
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Craig Romano

Co-host