All Good Things, letter 2: Skagit River, Night Whisperer, & Twin Lakes
All Good Things is a collection of letters I wrote to my dear friend Caleb Bouchard between Summer 2020 and Spring 2022. It was published as a small chapbook by Analog Revolution Press in 2022. I’ve compiled the letters here, with additional photos, for you. Enjoy.
July 20, 2020
Today is my 3 year Appalachian Trailversary. Today I woke up in the fish hatchery park and started organizing my truck while preparing a matcha latte complete with powdered milk, Laird coconut creamer (look up the surfer Laird Hamilton if you’re not familiar, he's a living legend), and honey from my mothers' hives. I had piles of gear all around my truck (I basically have to reorganize everything I own every few days) when some lady walking two dogs barked up to me. "Where ya going today? I see you're from North Carolina, are you just driving around for the summer?" She was from Indiana I found out later, so now go reread that with the type of whining nasal drawl you'd never want to hear anyone imitate. I told her no, I was working here, and that I planned to paddle the Skagit River today. "I dont think people do that. The Skagit isn’t one of those rivers that people kayak. Plus, someone died trying to kayak on it last week." The Skagit is the second largest river in the state, behind the Columbia. It is 120 miles and is one of the most paddled rivers in the region. Most of it is very flat and slow. Like 4mph slow. Clearly I was talking to an expert. To cut to the chase, I paddled 12 miles of the Skag (it's pronounced like ‘badge’) that afternoon and it was so calm I wished I'd brought a book to read. The water was so clear that at times when the river was broad and shallow, I could see an infinite bed of riverstones (it's a word now) whirring past just an arms length deep. There were sand bars and islands that could be (and one even was) made into my own private beach. I paddled from Hamilton to Sedro-Woolley, where I had stashed my bike. I locked up my kayak and pedaled in my Daisy Dukes and Sperrys all the way back to Hamilton on the Cascade Rail Trail to retrieve my truck. Later that night I got pulled over by the cops. “What brings you to the Skagit Valley this evening?” My connections to the PNTA got me off with a warning for hitting a road reflector with my tire. I can’t make this stuff up.
The other night I watched a meteor shower at 3am with my buddy Night Whisperer on the third anniversary of his fathers death. I met NW (N-Dubs) on the Appalachian Trail in 2016 when I hitchhiked from Kent, Connecticut (the damndest town in all of CT) to Damascus, VA with his sister. One time he drove from Connecticut to Maine to pick me up when my shoes had fallen apart. My feet were literally falling out of the sides of my shoes. We drove into Bangor, past Stephen King’s house and found some acceptable footwear before he dropped me back off where he found me. His father passed the same day I finished the Appalachian Trail. Luckily, I was able to catch a bus to Hartford and attend his fathers wake. I think I sent you a picture of Mark Twain's house that day. We've been pretty tight ever since, seeing each other whenever we can. He left to move to Washington two days before me. The morning after the meteor shower we drove deep into Mt Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest and discovered the limits of my truck's four-wheel drive, stalling out time and time again trying to climb the switchbacks of the highest road in the forest at 5500 feet. On the way up we saw a sign high on a tree that read:
DONT DOOM THE SPOT
Don't talk about it
Don't instagram it
Don't write trip reports about it
Don't be stupid
Be safe!
Clean up any trash
IF YOU SEE SOMEONE FUCKING UP
CALL EM OUT
We decided to walk the last quarter mile rather than burn out my clutch (the smell was getting to both of us). We met four hikers who told us how they had just barely escaped the summit with their lives. None of them had thought to bring an ice axe, microspikes, or even trekking poles, when climbing a 6500' mountain that was still capped in snow. Go figure. Anyway, we weren't there to climb mountains, we were there to go trout fishing in america. The only problem was the lake at the trailhead was still thoroughly covered in quickly melting, but very present snow. There were two small cascades splashing into the lake from the mountainside that had carved out a crescent of blue surface around one quarter of the lake, so we trudged through the snow in our sneakers, t-shirts, shorts, rods, and fishing net to the thawed shore. I caught one. Actually, I mercy-killed one that I found with a lure down its throat, tethered to a shrub by some discarded fishing line. I've gotten pretty damn good at cleaning and filet-ing tiny five and six inch trout. Normally, you don’t take the small ones, but I've been making my rounds of the "overabundant" lakes that were overstocked and under-fished due to their remote location or other factors. The fish there are farm-raised, stupid, and are too numerous to get enough to eat in the barren ecosystems they've been injected into. So it's up to responsible anglers like myself to clean up after the Washington Fish & Wildlife Department by catching and frying up dozens of little brook trout. I have the tiniest, flimsiest, carbon fiber tenkara fishing pole you can get, so the little guys actually feel like they're putting up a fight. It's quite fun. We had no other bites. Maybe it had something to do with that guy (me) who took his pack raft out on the lake to break through the ice barrier like a more successful, albeit minuscule, incarnation of the Titanic. You've never seen such infinite depths of blue in your life. It was so beautiful until I paddled up to the ice floating over the truly deep parts. The shadow cast by the snow crust shared none of it's secrets, I felt with absolute certainty that I was moments away from being snatched into the abyss by some unfathomable force. I found a new phobia, thalassophobia, then tried a few moments later to face it and was met with similar results.
N-Dubs' Subaru didn’t have the clearance to make it the last two miles to the top of the road, so he'd ridden with me. I asked him if he was comfortable driving my truck back down to where he had parked so I could bomb my bike down the gnarliest road I'd ridden since I dislocated my shoulder in Idaho last summer. He obliged and I had a hell of a time navigating the drainage ditches, potholes, snow, and baby-heads (rocks the size of a baby's head) in my suspension-less drop-bar gravel bike.
We said our goodbyes and I zoomed down the Mt Baker Scenic Highway back to Bellingham to meet Sean at the BMX track where he'd been riding all day. I took his new bike for a few laps on the pump-track, and left to go jump off the pier at the boardwalk into the Bellingham Bay. Then it got dark and I stealth camped in a new spot I found by the railroad tracks.
Today, Tuesday (7/21), I scouted a river-ford for work. It's too gnarly for us to ask our crew to cross, so we'll have to backpack an extra 12 miles carrying all our tools to get to our worksite this Friday, the 24th. Now, I'm posted up at Clearwater Creek. I got in one of the pools, let the current rinse off the days of dust and sweat, and perched on a boulder in the sun to read more Kerouac. There's a stump carved into a mushroom at this campsite and more trash than I can count. I'll pack out all I can tomorrow, I carry large trash bags in my truck for just an event.
Last week I walked into the restroom at the Sedro Woolley River Park. It was dark inside the one-stall, one-urinal room, so I flipped the switch when I walked in. A voice from inside the stall called out:
"Thanks for the light!"
"No problem!" I responded.
"I couldn't see the light switch when I came in." he defended.
"That's probably because it was dark."
And the restroom roared with laughter.
I haven't showered since July 7th, the day before you wrote me. I must've killed 40 flies tonight while reading. I was in my hammock for the first time in a year (given to me by the very owners of ENO for coaching their 5 year old son in gymnastics. They also paid me $50 an hour, once a week for about a year) until it ripped, dropping me three feet onto a boulder, which dumped me another two feet to the ground. I was just wondering if it was possible to patch that hole.
Sorry for an abrupt end to the letter, but the library is open for curbside services only. I printed this at work finally and am sending it to you a solid two weeks after I wanted to. So it goes…. Glad to see your Nashville trip was a hoot! Shoot me a call some time when you get this and I'll fill you in on what I haven't been able to answer in this letter. I'll be on hitch from Friday 8/7 to Friday 8/14, but will be available after that for a good old fashioned chat. Pencil me in for an hour or two, maybe we'll drink the same cheap wine during our call. Until then,
All good things,
-Ryan
