Welcome to Winter in the Pacific Northwest
The rain is coming down in the Pacific Northwest in sheets, for days, and is unrelenting. The grey skies threaten to send us into hibernation. We sit, inside our warm houses, threatening to sit on the couch until spring. It’s winter here and, well, it’s depressing at times.
House Flooded on the Enumclaw Plateau.
This year is particularly bad as a series of atmospheric rivers, dump rain from the Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound filling our local rivers and streams. Water spills over the banks and floods fields, neighborhoods, and roadways. The news reports on the latest disasters; houses surfing down hillsides; railroad tracks buried in mud; freeways immersed in new lakes. Everywhere traffic is snarled as the deluge cuts down visibility.
Years of water and mud undermine the bridge and create a hazardous roadway before and after the Highway 169 bridge.
But not everything is doom and disaster. Beyond the headlines, nature is altering the landscape in beautiful and powerful ways. I’ve spent time in the Green River Gorge and along its tributaries during these kinds of rain events. The beauty is in the way that water recreates the landscape. Whether it’s the beauty of newly formed waterfalls or the illuminance of a once dry wetland that is now filled to the brim with jade green water
Forested bog becomes a beautiful jade green pond.
In 2008, a flood raised the Middle Green River to 12000 c.f.s. A river and spring that I knew well had transformed before my eyes. Everything that had been familiar was changed. It was stunning in its beauty and terrifying in its strength. It was the wild winter river straining against its constraints. Roaring to be heard.
Flooding at Flaming Geyser State Park. The river was flowing at 12000 c.f.s.
New springs created channels through the rocky glacial topsoil sending water rushing into Icy Creek. Farther upstream, a new stream formed as the groundwater swelled to the surface through a rocky ravine, turning a forested wetland into a lake. Forest along the shoreline was submerged.
At the end of the lake, a channel formed a waterfall as it was passed through a large culvert below the Franklin / Enumclaw Road. The waterfall cascaded over tumbles of stones into a glacial kettle, Bright green watercress glowed beneath the water’s surface, surrounded by giant rain-soaked Maples.
Beyond the kettle, the spring slid underground again and then reemerged where the slope of the hill met the groundwater and erupted in midnight blue through a larger culvert beneath an abandoned grass-covered road. This is where Icy Creek Spring officially emerges from the ground. New side channels devoured the soil and rock of the old road, creating an island out of an old dam and spilling over its gates.
Upper Icy Creek Spring during flood.
Icy Creek pulsed downward over 300 feet to the Green River in a series of waterfalls that carved their way down a steep ravine. Where the ravine met the Gorge, Icy Creek tumbled down a rock-strewn waterfall and carved out forest and rock. It roared around and over the fish hatchery dam. The sound deafening as it joined multiple springs flowing along the adjacent cliff wall.
Lower Icy Creek Spring at the Fish Hatchery.
At the confluence, willows, cedars, vine maple, and Oregon grape were submerged, their roots straining to hold onto their ground. Logs, dislodged by the floodwaters, tumbled past the shoreline forming a new wooden dam just downstream on a submerged gravel bar. A mist hung over the water and the trees were dark with rain.
Confluence of Icy Creek Spring and the Green River.
I often stood witness to the moods of this wild river gorge. On this day, an eerie darkness settled over the riverscape. While the water roared, everything else was silently waiting, for the rains to subside. It is as if the birds, animals, and forest were also hibernating, waiting for the rains to stop, the water to recede, and the sky to clear so life could begin again.
David trying to stay dry at Flaming Geyser.
Adventuring into the Winter Green River Gorge
If you are willing to brave the weather, grab your umbrella and raincoat, then venture out the Green River Gorge or the lower Green-Duwamish River and step into an otherworldly riverscape.
Places to see the incredible wildness of the Green River in the Gorge during flooding, are the Green River Gorge Bridge, Kanaskat-Palmer State Park, and Flaming Geyser State Park. However, if you do so, use extreme caution. Don’t walk on the rocky shorelines, they are extremely slippery, and you could quickly find yourself falling into the deadly river. Go with other people in case you get into trouble. Let someone know where you are going. Plan ahead, some roads may be flooded and impassable. Sometimes it’s better to wait until after the main event has subsided.
View from the one-lane Green River Gorge Bridge.
Enjoy the journey, the Green River Gorge feels more alive and wilder when the winter rains arrive. If you want any tips on where to visit or how to plan feel free to contact me via the contact page.
Find Information on the river level by tracking the Green River Gorge Flows:
3200 c.f.s. Not flood stage, but the highest level I’ve ever rafted the Green River Gorge.
For more images of the Green River Gorge and surrounding foothills visit these two galleries.