Rain Rain Rain!

January 10, 2008

Some of you have asked about our rain over the past few days. This "Pineapple Express" came in on Sunday January 4th and hung around for four days, dumping up to 11 inches of rain in the local mountains. This all fell on top of the unsually large snow pack that we'd had in December, creating massive floods. Many new flood levels were set.

This is a great representation of the amount of rain:


The worst of the flooding was in the Snoqualmie Valley. In this area, four major rivers converge and it's quite prone to flooding. Here is a map showing the rivers and how they meet in the valley.

The bridge visible in the bottom of the photo is the 124th St. bridge.

Not too far from here is the place that we've taken Keegan and Jake to go herding. This is the second time in 2 years that Diane's property has flooded. Her Border Collie Tess has been known to swim out to gather sheep and drive them to higher ground. Diane's Blog with photos of the flooding is here.

Snoqualmie is also famous for it's Falls. The Snoqualmie Falls park is an impressive place to visit on a regular day, but the recent view was astounding (and very wet):

The Falls are about 12 miles away from us. Thankfully, we are on higher ground and only had to deal with the flooding in our little town of Issaquah. No small amount though- Issaquah Creek rose to more than 10 feet and on a couple of mornings I drove through deep standing water.

To show a little example of how many roads were affected, here is a blurry map posted by the WA state DOT about 24 hours after the storm started. The road closures shown here were done BEFORE the rivers crested.

In our backyard (literally), the creek went from a trickle to about 8-10 feet wide and washed onto the lawn. The video was taken AFTER it started to receed.

The large black pipe noted by Scott at the end of the video turned out to be a six-foot section of the french drain pipe that was uprooted by the force of the water.

Nancy's BIG Birthday

October 31, 2007

I took the day off of work, of course. When I awoke, found I was treated to coffee in bed, a few gifts to open from my wonderful hubby, and time to be lazy and snuggle with the dogs under my down comforter. A little later we headed out for a hike to Wallace Falls, where the air was clean and there were no phones or mirrors to remind me that I've somehow managed to live for 50 years.

Wallace Falls is one of the tallest in the state, visible from the highway over 5 miles away. It's in a state park but the park is currently closed. Keegan went along and seemed pleased to be away from her brothers. The air was cool, but it didn't take long to work up a sweat. It was a little foggy but no rain was forecast.

There weren't too many people on the trail so often we had the trail to ourselves. The trail follows the Wallace River upstream and there are three main stopping points: the Lower, Middle and Upper Falls. The Middle Falls is the most spectacular. The falls drop 275 feet to a pool, then there is another drop of about 75 feet. Even this time of year there was plenty of water! Much of the river is cut into rock so it's steep and fast.

Between the Middle and Upper Falls is a viewpoint over the Skykomish River, Goldbar, Startup and, faintly in the distance, the Olympic Mountains.

The weather remained cool and the fog lifted. We worked up a good sweat over the 5 1/2 mile roundtrip, 1200 foot gain. It took about 2 1/2 hours with lots of photo-stops on the way up, and 1 1/2 hours to come down. Here are some photos and video of Upper Wallace Falls.

Wandering beneath the alders and fir, seeing fall mushrooms (the one in this photo is about an inch high), hearing the water roar in the falls, and just enjoying nature was the best possible way to spend the day.

A scenic drive home was followed by a hot bath (no photo!) with a glass of wine. Scott went out and picked up some yummy Chinese food. I was pleasantly tired, full and relaxed by the time I went to bed.

Thank you everyone for the calls and cards, and for not giving me too much grief about turning 50. I sure don't feel any older than I ever did (even if the mirror tries to tell me so).