My little cabin is on the north fork of the Stillaguamish River. The Stilly is what I see looking out the front windows of the cabin. You can hear it passing by when you are outside. Since my property is what is called "high bank", I can't just walk right out to the river bank, but I do overlook it from all of my 15 acres. The Stilly is what gives my piece of the woods its character. I can honestly say a river runs through it.
Yesterday was a gorgeous, Pacific Northwest October Saturday, and Nonie and I decided that it would be lovely to take a drive east towards Darrington, to see what we could see. What we saw was autumn along the Stillaguamish. When you head east on Highway 530 from Arlington, the Stilly is on your left (north) side the whole way. Here and there you get little peeks at it while you drive, in other places the view opens up and you see the river flowing through the the wide valley. All along the way the trees are turning a most delicious spectrum of color, mostly golds, and the blue sky just set everything off perfectly. We saw snug little farms tucked up alongside the hills and we saw tall, tall stands of evergreens, and through it all the Stilly threaded its way west toward Puget Sound. We stopped at a prime fishing hole about 10-12 miles west of Darrington and took a walk along the river. There were several fshermen trying for a salmon but while we didn't see any fish caught, we did see some very happy men enjoying a gorgeous day practicing the high art of fly casting in the most beautiful setting I can imagine. (Sorry, Norman Maclean, I think the north fork of the Stilly is as beautiful, if not more so, than the Big Blackfoot River and I have had the honor to walk the riverbanks of both.)
For me, Norman Maclean said it best:
"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.
The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the
basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under
the
rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
"I am haunted by
waters."
----A River Runs Thought It, by Norman Maclean
