The Green River Gorge - A call to preservation - 80 percent preserved - Mining history - The town of Franklin - Dam controls the Green River - Recreation - The fishermen - Access limited - Petroglyph - Special place

By Mike Archbold, King County Journal reporter

The 12-mile-long Green River Gorge is the last river-cut rock canyon in Western Washington, slashing down 300 feet into the Puget Sound's 50-million-year- old sub-tropical past. A wild place of natural wonder just east of Black Diamond, the gorge remains isolated, allowing it to survive man's intrusion. Coal miners came and went, their passage marked now by a ghost town, pieces of cable, and rock-filled mine entrances. A coal seam, part of a mine abandoned decades ago, still burns today.
Fossils, petrified wood, even a petroglyph are found here by the rafters and kayakers, fishermen, hikers and berry pickers who know the gorge's beauty.

BLACK DIAMOND -- In the depths of the Green River Gorge, a giant black and brown sandstone rock rises at a steep angle like a whale breaching from a white-flecked green sea. The sandstone glistens with the record of the 50 million-year-old subtropical climate that once covered this land. On its flank, a tiny dipper bird goes about its business, clinging to the vertical face. Elsewhere in the gorge, rock cliffs give way and spruce and cedar trees mark the steep, forested sides, feathering the rim 150 to 300 feet above the twisting river. Black bear, deer, elk, cougar and bobcat easily find seclusion here. Kingfishers, mergansers and even an eagle or two commonly ride the narrow airspace. Always there is the moving water, sometimes roaring as it crashes over rocks, sometimes silently pooling in a rocky grotto or lapping at a small rocky beach.
From the deck of a rubber raft bouncing through the Green River Gorge on a winter day, there is no mistaking that this is a special place -- a river-carved canyon wilderness unique in Western Washington.

A call to preservation
Thirty-four years ago, farsighted conservationists like Wolf Bauer, together with state park planners, moved to preserve the gorge and the lands along its rim. Bauer understood its uniqueness. He and three other members of the relatively new Washington Foldboat Club (now the Washington Kayak Association) were the first to kayak the gorge in the 1950s. They rode in German-built collapsible boats, the forerunner of the modern kayak. ``This canyon didn't belong in this area,'' Bauer, now 91, said in an interview at his Vashon Island home as he recalled that first canyon tour. It was summer and the water was low, he said. Most Western Washington rivers flow through soft glacial till in wide, meandering valleys. But Bauer said the Green River cuts for 12 miles through 50 million-year-old bedrock. The only two other river-cut rock canyons in Western Washington were on the Cowlitz River; dam reservoirs now cover them. The trip that most kayakers now make in three or four hours used to take two days. Bauer and his companions photographed the gorge and explored where miners once worked.

In a 1966 newspaper article that became a call to action to preserve the gorge, Bauer, an engineer and geologist, wrote: ”This Green River Gorge is, in reality, a fantastic corridor of natural history into which curious man can descend to browse among the open shelves of geological displays. Since many of these shales and sandstones were laid down millions of years ago during tropical climates, the most casual visitor will be particularly intrigued to see firsthand imbedded fossils and fossil imprints of shells, vegetation and ... carbon remains and coal seams.” Many people in the Puget Sound area didn't even know the gorge existed. There was talk at that time about building a dam in the gorge. “I got there in time,” said Bauer, who had also written a proposal to the state to preserve the gorge.

His call was heard.
A 1968 study of the gorge by the state Parks and Recreation Commission recommended a conservation area to forever protect the gorge's unique ecological and geological reserve. It called for an aggressive program of land purchases and development of public parks at its east and west ends. It recommended interpretive centers to explain the gorge's geologic, human and ecological history. It proposed both hiking and equestrian trails along its rim. 80 percent preserved. In 1968, the state owned no part of the gorge's 12-mile length. Starting in the 1970s, the state purchased the private Flaming Geyser Resort at the west end of the gorge and turned it into Flaming Geyser State Park. In 1983, Kanaskat-Palmer State Park was formed at its east end, effectively bookending the gorge. Palmer Coking Coal agreed to sell several sections of land in the gorge that became the centerpiece of the conservation area.

The state now has acquired nearly 80 percent of the land in and along the gorge that was identified in the Green River Gorge Conservation Area Plan. The plan for the 14 miles of river is still a guiding light today. Randy Person, who until a few months ago was the State Parks regional planner for the gorge conservation areas, said that from 1969 through 2001 the state spent $7,757,065 to acquire 2,158 acres. The job is not done yet, and each year the land becomes more expensive. Person recalled that in 1971, the state bought 40 acres for $15,000. In 1993, the state bought 35 acres in the conservation area for $162,000. There still are no gorge trails for man or horses; don't expect any in the near future. The planned interpretative centers are non-existent.

A number of critical areas remain in private hands, including the Green River Gorge Resort. Here the river squeezes between high rock cliffs and house-size rocks. Overhead the 150-foot high Green River Gorge Bridge offers a tantalizing view of the most striking section of the gorge. Owner Jim Carter closed the resort in the mid-1980s out of insurance liability concerns and has closed off his access to the gorge below.
The resort property is also home to some 50 residents who live in cabins, RVs and mobile homes. A handful of homes intrude elsewhere on the gorge, their decks and roof lines a jarring note to purists floating between the canyon walls. They are all on the north side of the river. On the south side of the gorge, the Palmer Coking Coal Co. has platted six 15-acre residential parcels on property that sits on the rim above the state's Icy Creek steelhead rearing pond. Palmer mined in the gorge into the 1950s, closing the last underground coal mine in the state at nearby Ravensdale.

Mining history
If coal was still king, the gorge would be a very different place. It would never have survived modern man's first intrusion in search of the precious ore that powered the country and heated homes before oil. In 1879, the Black Diamond Mining Company of Mount Diablo, Calif., sent a party north to look for coal in Western Washington. They spread out, looking for outcroppings of coal hidden beneath the forested land. Bill Kombol, president of Palmer Coking Coal of Black Diamond, can paint a vivid picture of the flat coastal plain that once was East King and Pierce counties. His great grandfather, Joshua Morris, was a member of the exploration party that discovered coal in the gorge. The gorge provides a window to the past, a cross section of geology dating back 50 million years to when subtropical forests fronted an inland sea with a boggy shoreline. Over geologic time, successive forests and the rising and falling of the inland sea left layers of vegetation and sandstone. There were at least 17 different layers of lush tropical growth and 17 layers of sandstone in the coal seam here, Kombol said.
As later geologic forces crunched and scrunched the once-flat plain and built the Cascade mountains, Kombol said that ancient plain of coal, sand and shale was tilted up and down, twisted and broken apart. Much later, glaciers further carved the landscape, shaving off the tilted coal seams where they reached the surface. Today, coal seams peek out from the gorge walls, although the company quit mining in the gorge nearly 50 years ago.

The town of Franklin
Discovery of the McKay coal seam in July 1880 led to the creation of the town of Franklin in 1887. Located across the river from the present Green River Gorge Resort, it didn't take long to attract miners and their families. In its glory days, which lasted until the 1920s, more than 1,100 people lived there on the hill above the gorge. Today only a few moss- covered concrete foundations poke through the thick underbrush. Don Mason of Kent, a history buff and president of the Black Diamond Historical Society, continues to keep it alive with tours and old photographs. The entrance to the townsite is off the Cumberland-Franklin Road through a locked gate. The state has an easement across the flat area there, simply known as the Flats. Here the Knights of Pythius Hall built a community center. Baseball teams from rival mining towns played for bragging rights.
There was a hotel, a school and two saloons. One- and two-story wood frame homes clung to the hillside. A railroad line was built to Seattle. Mine shafts burrowed into the hillside following the rivers of coal, dropping thousands of feet. They ran under the gorge and poked into its flanks near the water's edge. Today most of the shafts are blocked and filled with ground water that flows back into the gorge.

On June 28, 1891, the gorge echoed with the sounds of a gun battle between African American miners brought in as strikebreakers and the striking Franklin miners. One man was killed. Disaster struck in 1894, as 37 miners died in a smoky fire, the worst mine disaster in Western Washington history. In 1913, a fire destroyed a residential area known as Dogtown. That year the Franklin mines were closed; they reopened the next year as World War I increased demand for coal. But by 1920, Franklin began disappearing into history. In the 1970s, the Franklin site once again drew crowds, this time for weekend motorcycle hill climb competitions. Besides coal, clay and cinnabar for mercury were mined from the gorge. Streaks of the distinctive cinnamon-colored cinnabar can be seen in the sandstone rocks.

Today, at low water, abandoned coal cars can be seen in the deep pools, including one just down river from the Green River Gorge Bridge. Under the bridge itself, partially hidden by brush, is the remains of an old donkey engine, a small steam engine used as a locomotive. Further down, the old rail bridge used to haul coal from a mine still spans the gorge. It now carries the City of Black Diamond's water supply from its watershed adjacent to the gorge. A pile of rocks anywhere in the gorge usually marks an old mine entrance, now sealed. Thick cables rise out of the water. Heavy-duty key rings are sunk in solid rock. Across from the old Franklin site, a coal mine deep below that caught fire many decades ago still burns. Water filters through the heated rock, warms to 80 degrees and seeps out of the hillside into a shallow man-made pool of rocks. It is a welcome soak for cold hands and feet for rafters on a winter day.

Dam controls the Green River
While the Green River in the gorge may appear wild, the Howard Hanson Dam upriver, operated by the Corps of Engineers for flood control, dictates the flow of water. The flow level, measured in cubic feet of water per second, can rise and fall on a daily basis. Flow is also dictated by rain, flood control requirements and the needs of Chinook salmon listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. Rafters and kayakers usually can only run the gorge between May and November, when flows and water depth are high enough. Heavy rains in January and March allowed winter runs this year. The City of Tacoma Utilities Department, which draws water from its Green River watershed, is the biggest threat to boating through the gorge, say kayakers. The utility has plans to take even more water for its Pipeline No. 5 project, which could further deplete the water needed for white-water rafting. The gorge, however, does have a friend: its splendid isolation. Don't look for highway signs in the area pointing to the gorge.
The one-way Green River Gorge Bridge and the Kummer Bridge on State Route 169 south of Black Diamond provide scenic overlooks, though serene reflection is hard with cars zooming by. Except for boaters, access is by foot. The state parks at each end allow the adventurous to enter the gorge during low summer water, but there are few other easy public access points. To those who know the gorge -- its neighbors and fishermen -- there are numerous hidden trails that drop down into the gorge and follow its twisting path.

Recreation
Jay Cohen spent part of his 51st birthday a couple of months ago catarafting through the Green River Gorge. ``It was beautiful,'' he said. ``I can't think of anyplace else I'd rather be.'' Fellow catarafter Mark Burns, 35, from Covington, joined him on the river. They had bobbed and dipped 16 miles from the City of Tacoma headworks above Kanaskat-Palmer State Park through the gorge to the Whitney Bridge by Flaming Geyser park.
Catarafts are one-man crafts with a seat and oar locks strung between two air-filled pontoons. They are light and more maneuverable than rubber rafts. And more exciting, users say. Burns' hands were still cold, hours after getting off the river. It had been as wet a trip as they could make it, forgoing easier routes through the rapids and past van-sized rocks to enjoy spray-in-the-face fun. That's the way the two veteran gorge boaters like it. They said they have run the gorge more than 200 times. Cohen, a self-described semi-retired carpenter, confesses to being a whitewater fanatic. ``My ex-wife uses other names,'' he said, laughing.

Between Jan. 1 and April 2, according to his whitewater log book, Cohen had been through the gorge 17 times, including a birthday trip. He made his first trip here in 1981.
If the water flows through the gorge were predictable, Cohen said it would be the most popular whitewater river run in the state and even in the Northwest. ``It's a classic pool-and-drop river,'' he said. Some of those drops can be 10-12 feet high. Ledge Drop One, Ledge Drop Two, Paradise Drop, Bob's Hole, Mercury, The Nozzle. Rafters make up their own names for the rapids; there is no formal list. On the whitewater scale of 1 through 5, 5 being the roughest, the gorge has Class 3 and Class 4 rapids, and even some Class 5 depending on the flow of water.

Paradise Drop is just bellow the Green River Gorge Resort. There, water pours over a huge rock creating an eddy where kayakers love to play. They can ride the wave caused by the eddy like surfers. During the summer, the low-water gorge is a jumble of huge rocks separated by pools. Cohen said it is possible to take an innertube through the gorge if the boater knows what he or she is doing. The gorge and the Green River in general are not for the inexperienced. The water, especially in winter, is incredibly cold, and it doesn't warm up much during most summers. Currents are dangerous and can suck swimmers underwater and pin them onto rock ledges or under logs. A 30-year-old Mill Creek man celebrating his birthday drowned in the river last week just west of Kanaskat-Palmer State Park. The cold water and current swept him under a log.
Drownings in the gorge are not uncommon for those who do not respect its hidden power, Cohen said. No trip through the gorge is exactly the same. Cohen said flows change, trees and rocks move, rapids change, eddies appear and disappear. Burns recalled a winter freeze in the late 1990s where many trees fell into the water. He rafted the gorge with a friend, armed with a chain saw in the front of the raft to clear a path.

The gorge also attracts fishermen, sunbathers, hikers and berry pickers. The gorge has captivated Kanaskat-Palmer State Park Ranger Dennis Myers, who has spent nearly his entire Washington State Parks career here. He has rafted its rollicking length more than 160 times in 23 years. “I like the isolation. When you are down in the gorge it seems 100 miles from nowhere. Here you are in King County, the biggest population center in the state.” Bruce Richards, an Enumclaw-based game agent for the Department of Fish and Wildlife, has hiked the gorge for nearly three decades and floated it for the past 10 years. For him, it's also the wildness of the place that attracts. “It's so wild; it feels like you are a million miles away from anything. When you go down there, it's like going back in time.”

Beginners can start by floating the river through Flaming Geyser Park and then graduate to the stretch of river from the State Route 169 Bridge to Flaming Geyser. The next step is from the Green River Gorge Bridge at Franklin down to Flaming Geyser. Myers said the upper gorge from Kanaskat-Palmer State park to the Green River Gorge Bridge is reserved for the experienced. The majority of the Class 3 and 4 rapids are here, ncluding the Nozzle. The Nozzle is a series of three large rocks that span the Upper Gorge. A rafter can pass on the left, right or middle. The middle is preferred, but the gap is so narrow a rafter has to pull in his oars at the last second as the raft scrapes through on a column of fast-moving green water. What makes it harder, said Myers, is that the Class 4 rapid called Mercury comes just before the Nozzle, requiring a rafter to set up quickly for an imminent squeeze play.

The fishermen
Boaters are boaters, and gorge fishermen are fishermen, and rarely do they mix, said Stu Mercer, who manages the state Department of Fish and Wildlife's rearing pens just upriver from Kanaskat Palmer State Park and at Icy Creek in the gorge. Palmer handles steelhead; the ponds at Icy Creek rear Chinook salmon. Mercer is a gorge fishermen and, like most of that cadre, likes to fish where people ain't. That's why the gorge is so attractive, he said. “Let's just say I don't fish with the crowds,” he said. Mercer often leaves his home on the bank of the Green River next to the Palmer rearing pond and walks downriver into the gorge. He knows the trails well. “I'm always like the old fool who wants to see what's around the next bend on the river and regrets it when they have to walk back.” Mercer also likes the quiet of the gorge. “There are no cars down there,” he said, The fishermen also like the steelhead and trout that run through the gorge, though -- as with many rivers in the Puget Sound area -- there aren't as many as there once were. In the late 1970s, it was the second- or third- best steelheading river in the state. “I've got fish to 25 pounds,” said Mercer, who has been at Palmer since 1988. “The steelhead average 6-10 pounds.” There are no real tricks to fishing the gorge, he said. Tackle depends on water conditions. One spot he likes is about a mile and a half downriver from Palmer, just above where the river goes through a bedrock wall.
Mercer's knowledge of the gorge has come from fishermen who have fished here for decades. “It's word of mouth,” he said. The trails come off the canyon rim, and the old fishermen know them well. “We call them brush-busters,” he said. There used to be conflicts between fishermen and boaters, he said. While fishermen were trying to fish a pool, four or five boaters would get in the way. Sometimes there were words. But most of that conflict has gone away, he said.

Access limited
All access to the gorge is by foot. A couple of the easiest entry points are at the end of gated dirt roads off the Enumclaw-Franklin Road south of the Green River Gorge Bridge on the southside of the river. There are no signs, though. “We've put up signs, but they disappear,” Myers explained. The hikes are less than a mile to the rim and down the steep flank of the gorge. They are the only gates off the Enumclaw Franklin Road not marked with a no-trespassing sign. The first gate is rust colored, and on its back is lettered “Hanging Gardens access.” Hanging Gardens is a popular spot with a wide rocky beach area that faces a sandstone wall 150 feet high, giving the place its name. Myers said the sandstone is etched with small cliffs where plants have found purchase. Ferns sprout from the ledges during the summer, their fronds cascading downward like a hanging garden.

The next public gate south is silver colored. The dirt road leads to the Icy Creek Rearing Ponds. At low water, there is a beach. Icy Creek is a gash of white, spring-fed water tapped to fill ponds where Chinook are raised to yearlings before being sluiced back into the river for their journey to the ocean. The creek is named for the temperature of its water.

At the old townsite of Franklin near the Green River Gorge Bridge there is also a beach access, but visitors must bluff their way past “No Trespassing” signs erected by Green River Gorge Resort owner James Carter. He objects to people using his property to drop down to the gorge. Myers said the state has an easement across the Carter property to state park land that provides access to the river. The beach there gained brief notoriety a couple of decades ago when it was listed as clothing optional in a magazine for nudists. A slide has since reduced the size of the beach.

There is also access to the gorge where State Route 169 crosses the Green River between Black Diamond and Enumclaw. That route is steep, and better left to the adventurous.

Perhaps one of the more unique finds here is the petroglyph carved a half-inch deep into a large moss- covered boulder at the Flaming Geyser end of the gorge.
Myers steers the raft easily toward the rock. Park rangers don't like to say exactly where it is located, fearing vandalism. The carved figures, however, are unmistakable. They depict the outline of a fish, an elk or deer, and a man. Petroglyphs aren't uncommon in the region, but State Parks Archeologist Dan Meatte said the images on the rock are unlike others found in the region along the coast, and few have been found in the inland area of Puget Sound. Are they authentic? “Good question,” he said. “I can't say one way or the other.” But there it is -- another window into the Northwest past, another wonder of the Green River Gorge.

Special place
Resort owner Carter, a former commercial abalone diver from California, came upon the Green River Gorge 25 years ago after traveling the country looking for a special place to live and work. The resort, which dates back to the 1930s, was rundown, Carter recalled. But the waterfall that cascades into the river just below the resort was but one of the gorge's attractions. “It's just a beautiful place, and so peaceful,” he said while watching a crew cut downed fir and cedar trees into rough-cut lumber on a portable saw-mill. Carter said that over the years he planted several hundred redwood trees on his property. The redwoods like the climate and grow fast, he said. Carter thought the resort could survive, but by the mid-1980s liability concerns forced him to close. The resort, however, is now home to a unique industry: Carter Lift Bags used by divers to raise items from under water. He makes plastic bags that can lift from 25 pounds for divers to 25,000 pounds for commercial salvage and Navy/Coast Guard use. They are sold all over the world, he said.

But spreading the gorge's beauty remains a goal. Carter is thinking about opening a private membership club for RV owners. He estimated there is room for at least 50 RV sites. He figures an Internet site extolling the beauty of the gorge would easily attract vacationers. His wife, Linda, said everything is special about the gorge, which she has explored over the years. There is one special place she has found. “I have this big flat rock that has sun on it all day,” she said. “The dogs come with you. I swim in a pool of deep water.” It's one of her secret places, and she said local tribal members have told her is a sacred place. “That's what they say,” she said, smiling like a believer.

King County Journal, June 08. 2003 12:00AM