GRAYDON RESERVE
Spring fever
We at the Graydon Re-
serve, ever optimistic, have
become infected with the
euphoria that bubbles up
in spring. Everything is
possible.
Don will build a little
teahouse at Rosebud
Meadow. Jonelle will cre-
ate her field guide to the
plants and flowers of the
reserve. We will host the
Forest Bacchanal of Sound,
Video and Installation Art.
We will discover a realistic
route to the Dark Tower.
When the bubbles burst,
we’ll turn to our practical
list: clean the septic tank
filter, repair the footbridge
hit by a falling alder, seal-
coat the asphalt driveway.
By the time the snows
come, we hope to look
back on spring and sum-
mer 2010 with the same
satisfaction that we remem-
ber 2009. Last year’s long
hot summer brought wel-
come changes. The new
interior of Cantina del
Rio—in primal red, green,
blue and yellow—fairly
demands that you come in
for a beer. The serpentine,
all 110 feet of it, became a
sculptural reality in Emily’s
Park. We now have a good
swimming hole right off the
firepit, thanks to the ever-
changing course of the
river. Penny Lane got its
own street sign, straight out
of Liverpool, and in the
woods, walkers now en-
counter a sign that looks
suspiciously official: “Wild
Sky Wilderness—Graydon
Reserve.” (See pages 6 and
7 for photos.)
INDEX, WASHINGTON SPRING 2010
Upward bound
Time marches on, and so does Index

RE-OPEN THE BUSH HOUSE Even in seemingly timeless Index,
The Bush House sits along Index Avenue, Washington, time moves on and things
bedraggled and forlorn like an abandoned do change. Here’s a look at some of the
cat. To say the hotel has seen better days is a ways Index is trying to move ahead . . . .
wild understatement. But those days of wine a few goals for the future.
and roses may yet return. The star rating with each story gives
The Bush House opened its doors in Index an idea of how things are progressing.
well over a century ago. But a few years ago  DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH
the strain of operating a ramshackle hotel in
a tiny out-of-the-way village apparently led to
 HOPE BEATS ETERNAL
its closure.  THINGS ARE LOOKING UP
Now for the good news: a group has come
 GREAT NEWS
up with a plan that may well save the place.
The idea would be to create a mixed venture  PRAISE THE LORD!
that includes a profit-making restaurant and
a nonprofit component to provide a meeting
venture Center in Index, historian Louise
place and lodging.
Lindgren and a couple of major investors.
Among those involved in the effort: owner
Stay tuned for good news.
Loyal Nordstrom, restaurateur Jimmy Tar-
anto, the Corson family of the Outdoor Ad-

REBUILD INDEX-GALENA ROAD
Question: How many county workers does it
take to rebuild half a mile of highway?
Answer: None, if the job’s never started.
That sometimes seems like the situation
on rebuilding a section of Index-Galena Road,
washed out in the record-breaking floods of
November 2006.
Since then the road has been closed about
5 miles east of Index, ending convenient
highway access to state campgrounds and the
vast recreational treasures of the upper
North Fork Skykomish River. The river con-
tinues to flow down the old roadbed.
In 2007, Snohomish County officials met
with area residents to “discuss possibilities
for repairing and rebuilding the road.” The
year 2008 brought a “route feasibility study.”
In 2009 the county met again with residents
to explain the study’s fourteen possible solu-
tions. This year will bring a design report
DOWN, BUT NOT OUT PLEASE SEE PAGE 10
s even pages in the October issue of Climbing maga-
zine document the spectacular history of the Index
Upper and Lower Town Walls. “If you measure a
crag by rock quality and the influen-
tial climbers who perfected their
technique there,” the article says,
“it’s clear Index holds a very spe-
cial place in the granite pantheon.”
Then comes the bad news: “Index
demands a penchant for self-
flagellation. Desperate locals have
been known to wrist-seal their
raincoats with duct tape while solo-aid climbing
in the near-constant drizzle.”
Trendy Index the next Waikiki? Apparently even
the people of Hawaii need to get away once in
a while. Windsurf board designer Stevie B. and
his lady Yoshiko fell in love with Index during a
three-day visit last July. And it was also Hawaii
weather a month later when Jim and Stephanie
JIM and daughter Sonya were here from Maui.
Roofs are up on two new houses along Avenue A. With its steep
roof, dormers and modest window sizes, the two-story dwelling
for Amy and Dean Johnson and daughters Addy, Emily and
Isla should blend beautifully with the historic old homes of In-
dex. Farther east on the road, the tall house of Frank and Re-
becca Cook is coming together nicely. And passersby have
nothing but smiles for Rebecca’s flowering rock garden out by
the road. . . . Emily Johnson
found the perfect place to
celebrate her 5th birthday:
Emily’s Park. In the park
named in memory of my
mom, a dozen or more little
kids ran around like crazy
under the watchful eyes of
at least that many parents, Emily Johnson Emily Graydon
at age 5 at age 18
on a hot and happy Aug. 1.
Democracy inaction: Whether shy, reclusive, lazy or just too
busy to be bothered, six of the seven candidates for public of-
fice in the Index area declined to place their photos or writeups
in the election guide mailed last fall to all voters. Cheers to
Mayor Bruce Albert, the only candidate to take this opportunity
to communicate with citizens.
Whaddya know! I’ve finally found a place that gets as much
rain as Index. It’s my brother’s area, where he has averaged
122 inches a year over the past 21 years. I put
the two areas nose-to-nose for the past five
years and here’s what I found. 2005: Index 88
inches; Brother Dan’s place 142 inches.
2006: Index 113, Dan 103. 2007: Index 102,
Dan 95. 2008: Index 99, Dan, 93. 2009:
Index 100, Dan 102. But with rainfall totals,
the climatic similarity ends, since brother Dan
BROTHER DAN lives in upcountry Maui.
Monday July 27, 2009, ushered in an oddity for Index: a week
of hundred-degree or near-hundred-degree days. . . . On
Tuesday, Stevie B. and Yoshiko arrived from Oahu. (“Is it al-
2 SPRING 2010
ways this hot here?”) . . . . On Wednesday, the Witzels left for
Shanghai. Not to escape the heat—to start their new teaching
jobs. . . . On Thursday, it was swimming in the river with Carla
and Michael from Shoreline and David and Paige and daughter
Lucy from Tennessee. (“Is it al-
ways this hot here?”) . . . . On
Friday, more of the same. . . .
On Saturday, half the crowd at
the Index Arts Festival was
down under the bridge, playing
in the river. . . . On Sunday, I
piloted an inflatable kayak several
miles down the Skykomish, from just above the reserve to
below Boulder Drop. Boulder Drop? Uh, I walked around it. And
for this, my first time whitewater kayaking, I was closely guarded
by Steve, Doug and Tim, river pros all.
The Upper Avenue A Community Assn. is so loosely organized
that even its members have never heard of it. There are no dues,
and no meetings. No officers either. Just a
group of good people who happen to live
along Avenue A, east of the Index town limit.
Charter members of the association, whether
they know it or not, are Jacque, Evelynn,
Frank and Rebecca, Micky, Norbert and
Kevin, Edie and Warren and Lisa, Don and
Jonelle, Heather and Doug and Miles, Jim
HEATHER & DOUG and Erynn, and Steve.
New in the ’hood: Doug Guillot is the happy new owner of the
riverside log cabin next to the reserve, built many years ago by
Doug McKnight and his mom and dad. The cabin is now the
weekend home of Doug and Heather and
their ever-enthusiastic son Miles, age 5, the
lucky boy who will have a brother come July.
. . . Storycatcher Lisa Stowe is collecting real-
life stories of Index, its people, history,
places. Contact Lisa at the Town Hall, where
she works Mondays and Tuesdays as town
clerk-treasurer, or at lmstowe@yahoo.com. MILES
Signs of spring 2010: Index schoolteachers
Carol Mangiola and Rachel Ford herd a crowd of sub-5th-
graders on a visit to Emily’s Park. . . . The beaver pond at the
eastern Index town limit comes to life, only this year with a river
otter. . . . Eight rafts loaded with whitewater en-
thusiasts bounce past Emily’s Park on a sunny
Sunday afternoon.
Zippy, dippy, exuberant and lively: that’s the
Index Times, the tiny seat-of-the-pants, good-
spirited rag that now appears weekly on the
counter at the general store. Anthony Vega gets
ANTHONY top billing as Senior Founding Editor. (PO Box
56, Index WA 98256; indextimes.wordpress.com) . . . .
Favorite weekly feature in the Index Times: “Day
in the Life of Louie and Brian,” pithy remarks
from two of the town’s independent souls. Sam-
ples: “Hang loose, stay cool, admit nothing.”
“If you fall down in the woods, does anyone
hear you?” “I ain’t gonna change for nobody.”
[DON]
 RECIPE FOR LIFE
FOURTH OF JULY
Parade and potluck picnic
in Doolittle Pioneer Park
INDEX ARTS FESTIVAL
Work, play,
The seventh annual small-
town extravaganza of crafts,
painting, poetry, crafts, food.
eat, drink
Sat., Aug. 7, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
indexartsfestival.org

OUR WORLD ON THE WEB

W hen I want to work/play in the yard
until dark yet know I’ll have to even-
tually come in and fix dinner, I sometimes
Index town: make this easy, yummy stew that can be
indexwa.org made the night before. Enjoy it with a glass of
Skykomish Valley news:
skyvalleychronicle.com wine while you reflect on all the great things
Skykomish Valley news: you accomplished during the day.
monroemonitor.com
Index weekly:
CHICKEN STEW WITH OLIVES AND LEMON
indextimes.wordpress.com Prep and cook time: about 45 minutes
Index area news: Makes 4 servings
mtindexreporter.com 1 lb. boned, skinned chicken thighs, rinsed and patted
North Fork Skykomish news: dry. Packages of frozen or fresh, already boned and
skyko.org skinned, make this easy.
The Herald (Everett): 2 T. flour
heraldnet.com
1 tsp. each salt and freshly ground black pepper; add
Rafting/kayaking: more to taste
outdooradventurecenter.com
2 T. olive oil
Climbing:
2 large garlic cloves, minced
washingtonclimbers.org
1 T. capers, drained and minced
SUSAN WALLACE CARTOON Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
½ cup dry white wine
1¾ cups chicken broth
1 lb. Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and cut into ¾-
inch cubes
1 can quartered artichoke hearts
A publication of the Graydon Reserve 1 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley (or less)
Spring 2010 1 cup pitted medium green olives
Lemon wedges

“We’re not in Kansas anymore.” 1. Cut each chicken thigh into 2 or 3 chunks.
In a plastic bag, combine flour, salt and pep-
per. Add chicken and shake to coat.
Editor Don Graydon
Contributing Writers Bob Hubbard, Jonelle Kemmerling, Andy Graydon, Matt Graydon
2. Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high
Photos and Design Don, except where noted IT Support Paul Witzel
heat. Add chicken (discard excess flour) in a
Publisher Yellow Submarine Press Printer Kool Change Printing single layer and cook, turning once, until
browned, 4 to 5 minutes total. Transfer to a
Scientists envision a vast number of parallel universes, some of them much like our plate.
own . . . only different. I often feel that the Graydon Reserve exists in a parallel 3. Reduce heat to medium. Add garlic, capers
universe—a place similar to the everyday world, but blessed with a touch of over– and lemon zest and stir just until fragrant,
the–rainbow magic. The concept of a reserve was inspired by a visit to the Bloedel about 30 seconds. Add wine and simmer,
Reserve on Bainbridge Island. There, Jonelle and I discovered the kinship between scraping up browned bits from bottom of pan,
that landscape of dark fir and cedar forest rich in mosses, ferns and wildflowers and until reduced by half, about 2 minutes. Add
our own home on the western edge of the Cascade Mountains. Our eight acres, a broth, potatoes and chicken and return to a
reserve in spirit if not in fact, begin at the Skykomish River and rise hundreds of feet
simmer. Lower heat slightly to maintain sim-
through woods and cliffy terrain with narrow whitewater streams and tiny waterfalls,
mer, cover, and cook 10 minutes.
the spires of Mount Index lording over it all. I hold the deed to this place, but can
you ever really own such beauty? Jonelle and I offer this newsletter as a way to 4. Add artichokes to pot and stir. Cover and
share our love of the reserve and as an invitation to come enjoy it with us. cook until potatoes are tender when pierced,
8 to 10 minutes. Stir in parsley, lemon juice
to taste, and olives. Season with additional
GRAYDON RESERVE salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot, with
51303 Avenue A lemon wedges on the side.
PO Box 166
Variation: Replace chicken with halibut
Index, Washington 98256
chunks, omitting step 1 and skipping the
360.793.9148
browning in step 2. Sprinkle the fish with salt
graydonreserve@gmail.com
and pepper, add to the stew with the arti-
graydonreserve.blogspot.com
chokes, and cook until opaque in the center.
Mount Index, left, and Mount Persis from the reserve.
[from Jonelle, thanks to Sunset Magazine]

SUMMER 2009 3

BUGS
For the
insects of
the forest,
dead trees
are just a
lunchroom
When he’s not out in the
woods building trails or sur-
veying plants and bugs, natu-
ralist Bob Hubbard keeps busy
as an Index town councilman,
Index Historical Society host,
and planner for the Heybrook
Ridge county park. He would
rather walk than ride.
4 SPRING 2010
A WALK IN THE WOODS
By BOB HUBBARD
W hen it comes to forest gossip, dead
trees (or snags) are among the
chattiest of sources. I was wan-
dering the upper part of the forested area
that Don calls Muir Woods when I spotted the
Twin Towers, a couple of hoary old reddish
brown snags as thick as garbage cans and
about 20 feet tall. A trail led to the twins, so I
walked over to give them a closer look.
They have the cubed and clinkery look of a
pair of old soldiers long dead but too ornery to
lie down and admit it. These Douglas fir trees
were probably dead long before the loggers
came through here 80 or 90 years ago, or they
would have been harvested too. Like nearly
all the local snags and old stumps, they have
charcoal on them, probably from the forest
fire of 1939.
Some concentrated bug tunneling activity
was still evident in the east twin, in a zone
that was once far beneath the surface of the
wood. By all the evidence—the curved and
stratified nature of the frass (the excrement
of wood-eaters), the meandering tunnels, the
flattened cross-section of the tunnel, and the
large size of the bigger ones—it looked like
this tree had once raised hundreds of golden
buprestid beetles.
Almond-shaped and slightly wrinkled, the
adult buprestids are an iridescent metallic-
green, with copper borders on the wing cov-
ers. In a tree, however, the larvae are just
white grubs with swollen shoulders and tiny
heads—the so-called flat-headed wood borers.
Trapped in lumber cut from infested trees,
golden buprestids have been documented
emerging 50 years later.
I ARRIVED AT THE Twin Towers from
the Saw Springs area on the eastern edge of
the Graydon Reserve. Saw Springs is where
the water of Ribbon Creek goes, although
throughout the dry season the water runs
subsurface from Alder Meadow to there. A
few turns up-trail from the springs area, the
path jogs around Teddy’s Mustache, a big old
stump with traces of charcoal in its creased
sides, then continues a bit before leveling out
next to a swollen-bottomed cedar tree with a
head-high “cat-face” scar at its base on the
uphill side.
When the fire of 1939 burned through
here, the heat wasn’t enough to kill many
trees. But shallow-rooted, thin-barked spe-
cies like cedars often had parts of their bark
and cambium killed where the flames
wrapped around the backside (downwind
side) of the tree. The trees, like this one, sur-
vived, but the heat-killed areas dried out and
the bark became brittle and fell off. Fungal
diseases got into the exposed wood.
Here, a colony of Pacific dampwood ter-
mites (they’re our only Northwest species)
lived for a while, riddling the heartwood with
their tunnels. They’re gone now. Frass fills
the tunnels, distinguishing these as the work
of termites, not carpenter ants, who keep
their tunnels clean.
FROM HERE I WANDERED over to the
Twin Towers, then up to Alder Meadows,
past a pretty collection of moss- and plant-
covered logs cantilevered over each other in a
pleasing way. At the meadow I found a long
log with a nurse tree at its far end and sat
myself down, my back to the nurse tree and
feet splayed along the log, facing uphill. Be-
neath my log, Ribbon Creek splashed down
the steep slope.
I looked at the decayed trunk of a dead
SIX-LEGGED forest citizens include this banded
alder borer and the golden buprestids above.

THE FIRE-SCARRED Douglas fir snag at right,
one of the Twin Towers, once served as nursery
for hundreds of golden buprestid beetles.
maple next to the log and saw more bug tun-
nels in the gray, rotting wood. Some were
termite tunnels, and there was also a tunnel
that was probably from a round-headed wood
borer, specifically a banded alder borer. This
insect—an inch and a half or more long, with
antennae even longer than that—sports
bands of black and white all down its anten-
nae and wing covers.
Some insect guidebooks describe the
banded alder borer as one of the most beauti-
ful of the forest insects. Personally I like
golden buprestids better, though both beetles
are like living gems: the alder borer a fine
onyx, the buprestid a fire opal.
WALKING DOWN Penny Lane I paused
on the corner below Alder Meadow to admire
a light-colored cedar snag about 30 or 40 feet
tall with the classic root flares and deep in-
foldings around its base that helps you iden-
tify old decayed cedar stumps from the
rounder, redder, less flared Douglas firs. A
red huckleberry bush grows out of the top of
the snag.
Farther down I exited left onto a path that
leads back toward the Twin Towers. A few
feet off the lane, the path swings close to a
Douglas fir that broke about 15 feet up the
trunk and fell to earth just a couple years
ago. The trunk is two feet in diameter at the
base, with a wide scar up one side and a de-
cay column of rotten wood in the center a foot
in diameter. This tree may have been another
victim of the 1939 fire. On the trunk, fine
light-colored dust lies atop flakes of bark like
snow on a windowsill, beneath holes the di-
ameter of cocktail straws. The holes do not
enter the decayed wood; they enter the bark
beside the exposed scar. These are the holes
of ambrosia beetles, who dispose of their bor-
ing dust out the tunnel mouth. The dust here
is from the striped ambrosia beetle.
Ambrosia beetles (Trypodendron lineatum)
are not your average forest insects. Trypoden-
drons mate for life. They hand-raise their
babies in special tree-trunk nurseries, bring-
ing them pieces of fungus to eat and carrying
away their wastes for disposal. They often
raise successive broods in the same tree. They
are farmers, bringing the spores of their food
with them in special pouches and planting
them on the walls of their tunnel farms,
where the fungus soon turns the walls black
and fills the spaces with edible pieces of fun-
gus and spores. Sometimes the fungus grows
so vigorously in the tunnels that the beetles
perish, smothered in their own food.
The tunnel farms are such producers of
food that other small animals sneak in to
share in the resource. Nematode worms grow
and reproduce in the wet films of water that
cover everything in the tunnels; bacteria and
yeasts do, too. Mites hitchhike into the tun-
nels on the bodies of the beetles, then go off to
hunt nematodes or to eat yeasts and bacteria.
TREES WITH heart-rot columns, like the
termite-nest cedar and the ambrosia beetle
Doug fir, offer bug-eating wildlife, such as
birds, a sort of twofer: they can dine on cater-
pillars and sawfly larvae that have fed on the
tree’s living foliage, and they can also chow
down on buprestid beetles, termites and wood
borers that have fed on the tree’s dead wood.
On my way out from the ambrosia beetle
tree I passed by three other snags: one bigleaf
maple and two red alders. All three showed
termite sign, and they had a lot of other tun-
nels in them. I wondered: out of all the frass-
filled, abandoned bug tunnels I’d seen this
day, how many insects had been produced?
How much would they weigh in aggregate?
How many birds, mammals and other wildlife
have fed on them, and thus, indirectly, on the
trees? How many pounds of bugs are pro-
duced per acre per year by Muir Woods?
When a tree feeds a bird, does it make a
sound like an insect?
SPRING 2010
The rap sheet
■ Due to unacceptable sani-
tary conditions at the Sports-
man Campground, a citizens
militia has installed Linksys
wireless web cams. When and
if the motion detectors capture
the perps in action, the move-
ment will be streamed and
posted on the community
Facebook. (Index Times)
■ The Snohomish County
Sheriff's helicopter was used to
rescue two men July 4 (2009).
The two, described as in their
20s, were climbing Mount
Index when one of them fell
and injured a shin. (Sky Valley
Chronicle)
■ Bonnie Vater found an in-
jured bald eagle along the
banks of the Skykomish River.
The injuries were so severe the
eagle had to be euthanized.
(Index Times)
■ The man who died after
falling from a log was identi-
fied as Vladimir Dmytriv, 50,
of Des Moines, Washington.
Dmytriv was crossing Silver
Creek when he fell. (Everett
Herald)
■ Alex Gibb and Peter Gott
will compete in the Nov. 3
general election for a four-
year term in Position 3 on the
Index Town Council. Neither
candidate responded to inter-
view requests. “Hello, you’ve
reached this number and no
one’s here,” went the message
at the number Gott provided
to the Snohomish County
Auditor’s Office. “We will not
return your call, so please
don’t leave a message at the
beep.” Calls were not returned
at Gibb’s number, either.
(Everett Herald) [Gott won.]
■ September 26: The river is
full of spawning salmon.
They're everywhere—
thousands of them. The chan-
terelles are out. I had a mush-
room omelette this morning.
Tonight it's a mushroom bur-
ger and tomorrow I'll make
soup with the rest.
(www.skyko.org)
5
The sun is shining,
the river sparkles,
the mountains call.
Life is lived in the
out-of-doors,
and it’s light from
4:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

FUN-SEEKERS
(clockwise from left):
Bill approaches the crux
on the climb to the hut.
Yoshiko cools off in the
river off Emily’s Park.
Dana gets in the mood
for the opening party at
Cantina Del Rio. Paul
takes in the view of Mount
Index from the hut.

JONELLE discovers one of the joys of backroad travel. Above,

a new sign direct from London greets walkers on Penny Lane.
EASY LIVIN’
(Clockwise from left):
Fourth of July fireworks at
Emily’s Park. A swallowtail
butterfly visits the Sweet Wil-
liam. Dana and Jordan pose
while Doug paddles past.
Rebecca tries some salmon-
berries. Emily opens another
birthday present. Carolyn
presents one of her fresh
blackberry pies. A curious
deer peeks into the bathroom.
BILL HAS FUN picking in the wild apple tree.

DON AND STEVE set off on the first direct

ascent from Baring Hut to the Dark Tower.

ANDY, on a visit from Berlin,

shows he is at least as tough
as his old dad. Above, a rare
find near the Swirl: we think
it’s a seriously poisonous
fly agaric mushroom. FIVE HARDY DUDES fixed the footbridge after building the Serpentine (at left, covered in
maple leaves). Left to right, they are Paul, Jim, Don, Brad, Jordan. Also on the Serpentine
crew were Jonelle, Dana, Lisa, Anya, Sarah, Emily, Rich, and Jennifer.
 From China, the Middle East,
Europe and Mexico, our correspondents
report back to Index, Washington
SET IN STONE
The road works of Berlin
By ANDY GRAYDON
BERLIN, Germany — Often the “grand
scheme” logic of a new and foreign place is
unavailable, elusive, or overwhelming. Most
days it is like that for me in Berlin. The
sculpt and flow of a place, its reasoning, is
something that seeps into you over time; that
is how it was built and that is how an out-
sider must come to know it: slowly. In the
mean time, here in Berlin, I find myself
drawn to the pedestrian details and the more
emphatic gestures that the city lets slide.
Since arriving here I have been fascinated
by the city’s road construction projects. Not
sprawling feats of overpass engineering, but
simple, small-scale road repairs and sidewalk
building. They are distinctly unlike what we
are used to in the States, and present an in-
teresting counterpoint to an American think-
ing about city infrastructure, time, and topog-
raphy.
The difference in a nutshell is this: major
street paving here is asphalt, but all side-
walks, curbs, alleys and smaller byways are
still paved with stone. Light in color and
SHANGHAI, China — Paul
flecked with quartz like a rough granite, the
Witzel reports: Shanghai is
uncemented stones sit in a tight bed of sand,
under construction. I read that
packed in a meandering grid with thousands
the government is spending
of others of equal size and shape. This is
double what it spent on the
everywhere, not just in the tourist centers or
Olympics to prepare for this
year’s World Expo. A new
subway line just opened and
others are being expanded.
Shanghai is always open for
business. Construction contin-
ues 24/7 (union rates do not
apply). It’s breathtaking to see
globalization up close.
Paul Witzel and his wife, Lisa
(above), teach at the Shang-
hai Community International
School. They and daughters
Anya and Sarah will be in
Index for the Fourth of July to
visit Lisa’s mom, Jonelle.
THE SMALLER byways of Berlin are still paved in stone, hand-set in sand.
8 SPRING 2010
historic districts; it’s just how it’s done. The
stones are set solidly but can be unsettled by
hand (I have tried) and carried away. Curbs
are built from long rectangular blocks, hun-
dreds of kilos in weight, which are set end-to-
end the length of the block.
When you look closely at a street here, you
look directly onto the bare materials that give
it structure by virtue of their simple place-
ment and mass. It’s an ancient and profound
technology that suggests, literally, the bed-
rock of the city’s civilization.
Road works in progress are the real jewel
to me, in reading Berlin. For months at a
time, the street will be in a tumult of over-
lapping demolition and reconstruction, but
throughout this process the materials of
building sit in constant heaps like miniature
mountains or displaced earthwork sculptures:
stones cut into cubes in three or four sizes,
from ring box to hat box; sand in absurd
quantities; flat paving stones for the bike
lanes stacked into totems. In New York, no
one would think to leave these mounds on the
street without 24-hour supervision, they are
so clearly useful and valuable. But here, it is
as if the mound itself were the finished work;
they go untouched and largely ignored. In a
city that has seen so much building in the
last fifteen years, and so
much rubble in the past
fifty, these intrusions
are perhaps a special
category of invisible.
The flow of yin and
yang in the cycle of
demolition and con-
struction are especially
Photos by the correspondents
clear here. In a city in
the States the old sur-
faces are torn out and
discarded to allow new
building. Here, they are
dismantled and put
back into a pile to be reused on the site, or
carted to a new location. There is no new
without the old. They are constantly handling
and sifting the past here, in a simple crystal-
ized form; the present is built from it. And
must be rebuilt again and again, up close
with a hand pick, from stones that have seen
past lives in other parts of the city in other
ages.
For our two-year-old son Graham, who is
often my companion on morning bike trips,
these construction sites bear no weight of the
past but are a sheer delight. He squeals with
excitement after every dump truck, crane,
and pile of dirt, calling out their names in a
hazy combination of English and German.
For him the building sites are pure energy,
expansion, and kinetic pleasure, and he can’t
get enough.

Andy Graydon, a sound and

video artist, lives in Berlin with
his wife, Henriette Huldisch, an
art curator, and their son, Gra-
ham. Andy often escapes the
big city to visit his dad in Index.
MULEGÉ, Baja California, Mexico — Gary Bott of Index hands a bag of clothing
to the wife of the fisherman Cristobal, near the house that Gary keeps in Mulegé.
Gary drove down from Index with a truck and trailer loaded with clothes, bedding
and food from the people of Index for victims of last summer’s Hurricane Jimena.

WINDOW ON JORDAN

The taxis of Amman

By MATT GRAYDON
AMMAN, Jordan — The best way to
see this city is by taxi. For every group
of cars that passes by, there are guaran-
teed to be least two or three dusty
South Korean econoboxes painted incon-
sistent shades of yellow. Occasionally a
sparkling new Chevrolet or even a Mer-
cedes will roll past—avoid these at all
costs. Stepping inside one instantly
identifies you as a tourist (in other
words, a sucker).
Your best bet is to grab the grimiest,
grungiest cab around—preferably one
with tinny Koranic recitations blasting
from a tape deck. Seatbelts are usually
used only when passing by police check-
points; otherwise, they hang by the
open window, collecting the day’s ex-
haust fumes, and cigarette ash. Every
morning, stepping into a cab wearing a
fresh button-down, I have to weigh my
desire for a clean shirt against my will
to live. After the first near-collision of
the day (usually during the no-look
merge back into traffic), the seatbelt
invariably wins.
Unless you’re swashbuckling through
the desert with the Bedouin, life in Jor-
dan can be on the slow side. Cynical
diplomats refer to the country as the
Hashemite Kingdom of Boredom. So, to
keep things lively, Ammanites like to
drive “defensively.” Or offensively, as
the case may be. It’s common practice to
simply force one’s way into a crowded
intersection, or to reverse on the free-
way if you’ve missed your exit. The po-
lice in their sparkling new Audi sedans
may yell at you on their loudspeakers,
but they’re unlikely to go beyond that.
Thankfully the traffic is usually slow
enough to keep a drive entertaining
rather than terrifying. An average trip
in Amman will see a good chunk of time
spent idling in traffic. This is a good
opportunity to really see the demo-
graphic makeup of the city. Glance at
the license plates of the cars stacked up
around you. The majority will be Jorda-
nian, but the rest will be from a hodge-
podge of surrounding countries, some
near and some far. Saudi Arabia, on
Jordan’s southern border, is always well
represented, usually on the back of a
mammoth Range Rover or Land
Cruiser. The same goes for the flashy
emirate of Dubai and its island cousin
Qatar.
Every so often a fresh license plate
will crop up from neighboring Iraq, a
subtle reminder of Jordan’s unique posi-
tion in this complex and often troubled
part of the world. You’ll also see visitors
from Jordan’s other restless neighbors,
Israel-Palestine and Syria.
Sitting in traffic surrounded by men
and women from all over the region,
some in sharp business suits and some
wearing crisp white dishdashas or sleek
black abayas, the concept of Amman
begins to make sense. The city stead-
fastly remains a neutral ground, a calm
core floating in a tumultuous sea.
Matt Graydon works in
Amman, Jordan, for the
Iraq mission of the Inter-
national Organization for
Migration, which aids
displaced families. He is
no stranger to Index,
where an uncle lives at
the end of Avenue A.
SPRING 2010 9
Index meanders
toward the future
FROM PAGE ONE
prepared for the county council. Then the
state and the feds get into the act. An esti-
mate on a starting time for the job is 2012 or
2013. (Look for ribbon-cutting on November
6, 2016, tenth anniversary of the flood.)
 left at both of the two principal Ys).
SHUSH THE TRAIN
I got a rude introduction to the local trains
when I lived on Index Avenue for several
months, a short distance from the tracks.
Every night I was blasted awake by a whistle
whenever the train went rattling through
town. What a relief when I moved into my
new house at the east end of Avenue A, out of
reach of most of the noise.
From his home on the other end of Avenue
A just a few houses from the tracks, Bill
Cross gets a daily ration of railroad racket.
He took a stab at finding a way to stop the
whistles when he was a town councilman in
2000, but the effort went nowhere.
Since then the federal government has set
up a procedure for declaring quiet zones. If an
area meets certain safety requirements for
signals at crossings, the whistles are silenced.
You can check out the details from the
Federal Railroad Administration’s website at
www.fra.dot.gov/pages/1318.shtml.
David Meier, who lives next to the railroad
crossing, says he has “pretty much gotten
used to the trains.” However, he adds, “in a
parallel universe there would be no trains.”

RE-OPEN FOREST ROAD 62
Hikers and climbers will again have access
to the Mount Persis trailhead beginning in
mid-July. That’s when a one-year emergency
closure of Forest Road 62 expires.
Mountaineers have used the publicly man-
aged road for decades to reach the trailhead,
for the summit trek that crosses a section of
Longview Fibre property before entering For-
est Service land.
The Forest Service approved the closure
after Longview Fibre complained of dumping,
vandalism and illegal shooting along the road
that runs through the company’s timberland.
Longview hoped to extend the closure, but
Peter Forbes, the acting Skykomish District
Ranger, says the company would have to go
10 SPRING 2010
through a full process of public and environ-
mental reviews.
The emergency closure expires July 16.
Steve Tift of Longview Fibre says the com-
pany will reopen the gate and basically hope
for the best. If problems recur he may ask for
another closure. Forbes and Tift ask visitors
to report problems they see along the road to:
Skykomish Ranger Station 360-677-2414
Longview Fibre 360-770-1199
County Sheriff 425-388-3393
GeoHiker on nwhikers.net
Road 62 heads south from US 2 two miles
west of the turnoff to Index. The Persis trail-
head (unmarked) is 5 miles from US 2 (stay
A very rough, informal trail gains 2700
feet in about 3 miles, traveling through forest
GOOD TRY, but this Jeep and meadowland to a broad summit with
swamped on Index-Galena views out toward an infinity of mountains
Road on Feb. 25 of this year.
and down to the town of Index. With good
binoculars you can watch folks coming and
going from the Index General Store.

CHEER THE COFFEEHOUSE
It’s the town’s good fortune that the
skyvalleychronicle.com
Corson family bought the closed Index Tav-
ern a few years ago and turned it into the
Outdoor Adventure Center. The latest good
news is that they have opened a coffeeshop in
the building — the first and only one in our
KATHY CORSON serves up
tiny village.
the goodness at the Out-
For the moment it’s more like an indoor
door Adventure coffeeshop.
espresso stand. Good coffee, muffins and soft
drinks, no food service. But what a setting.
The building is on the river next to the Index
Cliff Leight photo in the Seattle Times
bridge. Inside, tables sit on the beautifully
refinished wood floor of the old tavern, next
to a long, handsome bar backed by a river-
rock wall. It’s roomy and inviting, a perfect
meeting place for the community. Wi-fi too.
The coffeeshop is open 8-4 every day.

THE INDEX climbing park BUY THE CLIMBING WALL
may be named for Stimson It looks like Washington rock climbers are
Bullitt, here at age 83. on target to raise enough money to buy the
lower Index Town Wall from a private owner.
The Washington Climbers Coalition is trying
to find $300,000 to buy the world-famous
rock climbing wall and surrounding crags.
The coalition says more than half the goal
has been reached. If all goes well, the prop-
erty will eventually be given to Forks of the
Sky State Park, which already owns the
neighboring upper Town Wall.
Planners hope to name the new climbing
THE SUMMIT of Mount Persis park for Stimson Bullitt, a widely admired
will see more visitors when broadcast executive and urban developer who
Road 62 reopens in July. was an avid rock climber well into his 80s.
Bullitt died last year at the age of 89.
Even if you don’t climb, it’s fun to watch
the monkeys at play on the wall. To get there,
just drive over the railroad tracks by the
Bush House and head west out of town on
Reiter Road (Avenue A becomes Reiter Road)
for six-tenths of a mile. Look for a rutted little
hidden-away parking lot on the right. Park,
walk across the tracks, and look up. You’re
staring at the lower Town Wall.
 locked to visitors.
BRING BROADBAND TO INDEX
Town council member Karen Sample has
been looking into the possibilities of high-
speed Internet for Index, without a lot of luck
so far. Meanwhile, townsfolk continue to fall
asleep at their computers while waiting for
Internet sites to load.
One possible solution is to run a Verizon
T1 broadband phone line to an antenna tower
in town and charge users a monthly fee for a
wireless hookup. But the setup might cost
$10,000 or more and Verizon won’t do it, even
though it could recover its money through
subscriber fees. And the town of Index seems
legally constrained from setting up a public
system on its own.
So here’s what we have: Verizon couldn’t
care less about Index. The company has no
plans to run fiber optic cables for universal
broadband. We can’t get it through cable TV
since the town has none. Satellite broadband
is expensive and slow. The charge for a T1
line to an individual house would run hun-
dreds of dollars a month.
I’m falling asleep at my computer just
thinking about it . . . .

DEVELOP A COUNTY PARK
The Heybrook Ridge county park is moving
toward reality. A full-scale survey of the
property just across the river from Index is
now underway to pin down boundaries before
trail work and other development begins.
Citizen action in 2008 raised enough funds
to buy the 129-acre tract and save it from
logging. Snohomish County put up half the
money and is taking it on as a county park,
but you and I are still expected to pay for and
carry out much of the work. Friends of Hey-
brook Ridge (heybrookridge.org) is putting up
something like $25,000 for the survey.
Among hopes for the future: trails within
the forested north side of the ridge, a meadow
area on the south side with permanent moun-
tain views, an easement to connect the park
with Index-Galena Road.
[DON]
How to find
the best view on
Heybrook Ridge
The glow is off the hike to the Hey-
brook Lookout now that trees have
grown higher than the lookout itself,
stealing the view. And in any case the
lookout on top of its five-story tower is
But wait! There’s now a way to as-
cend the Heybrook Ridge trail and still
find a commanding view of Mount In-
dex and the Skykomish River Valley.
To take this adventurous little hike,
begin at the trailhead for the Heybrook
Lookout, on the north side of U.S. 2,
1.8 miles east of the turnoff to Index.
(Get a Forest Service parking permit at
the Index General Store or on the way
to the trailhead at the Espresso Chalet
on US 2. $5 daily, $30 annual.)
Ascend the well-used track through
rich forest, sounds of the highway dying
away as you tramp upward. Stay on the
trail for about three-quarters of a mile,
gaining 600 feet elevation from the
trailhead.
At this point the trail makes a sharp-
right switchback to avoid a low cliffy
band. Walk another hundred yards,
keeping an eagle eye on the left for the
“road sign” that tells you it’s time to
leave the trail: a triangle of three 3-foot
-long logs lying on the ground.
(Alternate takeoff point from the
JONELLE SNOOZES away on mossy
rock at the new Heybrook viewpoint,
Mount Persis in the background.
Map adapted from “55 Hikes around Stevens Pass”
(The Mountaineers Books), Gray Mouse Graphics
THE SHORT cross-country route to the
new Heybrook Ridge viewpoint takes
off from the old trail. Round trip from
the trailhead is only about 2 miles.
main trail in case someone moves the
triangle logs: again, about 100 yards
up the trail from the switchback turn,
find a flat rock that intrudes into the
trail. The rock is about 4 feet in diame-
ter and a foot and a half high, with the
corner in the trail pointing directly north
into the woods.)
Now it gets fun. Set your compass to
due north (you did bring your compass,
didn’t you?) and march assuredly into
the forest for a few minutes and up the
nearby hill until you hit a wide, flat
bench below a ridge. Turn left and
walk northwest for 5 minutes or so until
you come out into the open at a clear-
cut swath under power lines.
Continue along the edge of the
clearcut for a couple more minutes until
the terrain rises up on your left. Scram-
ble up a steep little 20-foot-high knoll
and re-enter the forest on a hillside,
now traveling southwest. From here it’s
just a mild bash to the top of the hill
and a few steps down to the viewpoint,
for a total elevation gain from the car
of less than 800 feet.
You’ll know the viewpoint when you
see it. The forest opens up, cushiony
moss covers the ground, and before
you in rich blues and greens lie forests,
waterfalls, peaks and river. Modest-size
pine trees adorn the site. The terraced
rock is perfect for lunching and nap-
ping. Be kind to the fragile moss.
You’re now enjoying the new im-
proved Heybrook lookout, courtesy of
the hard work of Bob Hubbard, who
figured out the route and marked its
start with the triangle of logs. He also
flagged the way with blue surveyor’s
tape, but Bob is so determined to not
litter the wilderness that it’s unlikely
you’ll find any of his discreetly placed
ribbons. No matter, you’ll find the way.
SPRING 2010 11
 ...
rive r rocks .
h a few
Secrets of Start wit

the Swirl
On the forest floor in
Rosebud Meadow, visitors
to the Reserve encounter a
large spiral of river rock
set in a bed of moss. Af-
ter five years the spiral
almost looks like it
grew there, but I’m
afraid it wasn’t that easy.
Over a period of time, Jonelle and I
collected dozens of round, flat river
rocks, anywhere from an inch to a foot
....
and a half in diameter. We ended up e more
dd s om
with piles of them down at Emily’s ... . then a
Park.
I hired a young man named
Henry to grunt the rocks into a
wheelbarrow, then into my truck
for a ride up Penny Lane, then
again by wheelbarrow to the build-
ing site in the meadow named in
memory of Jonelle’s mother,
Rosella Kruse. There I dug out a
flat 15-foot-diameter circle and filled it
. . . . an
with a couple inches of gravel topped with an ds ome mo
re . . . .
inch or so of sand. Now for the rocks.
Jonelle was the artist who started the de-
sign, placing tiny rocks that spiraled round Swirl it became. We filled the spaces
and round from the center, each rock a bit between rocks with red cedar bark
larger than the last. After eight loops we from dead stumps and logs in the
ended the design with a row of large rocks woods. Later we planted moss in the ish
n
that trailed off into the woods. Then I pre- spaces. The Swirl today is set in moss gar
, a nd .
ss k
cisely dug each rock into the gravel and sand, with an outer ring of red bark. And each mo r bar
setting it level with its neighbors. year when the maple leaves fall, I dress up n t with f ceda
pla ar o
We called it a spiral. Our granddaughter the Swirl with a necklace of autumn leaves.
. . then a coll
.. with
Sarah, at age 5, chose to call it a swirl. So the [DON]

GRAYDON RESERVE
PO BOX 166
INDEX WA 98256

Jacque and Anita in Muir Woods