Rain in the New Year!

Well, the heavy rains that the Pacific Northwest is well known for have returned. Good- kind of-'cause we certainly didn't need any more low country snow. Unfortunately, all that snow we received before Christmas melted fast with the recent heavy rainfall creating a rash of floods in the western half of the state. Up here in Skagit County, we dodged another inundated bullet. Well, barely, there were plenty of mudslides up valley and the Samish River created quite a mess-but the big ole Skagit for the most part behaved herself. Farther south, the Stillaguamish, Puyallup, White and Chehalis Rivers did not. Widespread flooding, mudslides and general havoc was the scene. I empathize with those who incurred property damage-especially on top of this dismal economy-and I can only imagine how much more damage has been done to our trails and access roads. A lot of us will be out of work this year and we won't even be able to access our trails or go to our parks after the state closes a bunch of them-more on that later. Its going to be a rough year- extreme weather and a terrible economy means plenty of hardship. Oh, I never thought that I would miss the 80s.

(photos- Heather and I went for a run on the flood plain to see the new lakes that have formed.)