Canceled after 9/11, tour of Skagit River dams is back

Jun 12, 2003

By Susan Gilmore

Seattle Times staff reporter

NEWHALEM, WHATCOM COUNTY — Call it "Skagit Lite. " The Famed Seattle City Light tour of the dams on the Skagit River is back this year, after a yearlong security-related, post-9/11 hiatus.

But you won't scale Sourdough Mountain on an incline railroad or end the tour with a chicken-dinner feast. The railroad trip was scrapped because of security concerns; the economy ate the chicken.

Still, the highlight of the tour remains the boat trip up turquoise-green Diablo Lake, a healthy dose of Seattle City Light history, and wildlife and scenic vistas that are renowned in the North Cascades.

"I like to see all the natural wonders," said Rosemary Woodward, a Tacoma resident who joined the first Skagit Tour of the season June 1. "I've never seen dams like that."

Woodward was part of a Centralia-based Discovery Tours group on the tour. Melody Miranda, who led the tour for Discovery, said she'd been calling all year to see when the tours would restart and plans to bring groups to the Skagit all summer.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the tours, begun in 1928 by then-superintendent of Seattle City Light J.D. Ross as a way to showcase the Skagit River and its potential for harnessing hydroelectric power. Today there are three City Light dams on the Skagit: Ross, Diablo and the Gorge High Dam.

Ross, City Light's second superintendent, headed the utility for 28 years and his legacy still abounds, from the lake and hydroelectric projects that bear his name to the crew of 180 employees who still work on City Light dams in the North Cascades.

How it started

Seattle City Light won approval to build a series of dams and power plants on the Skagit River in 1917 following a fierce battle with private energy interests.

To sell the project to voters, Ross offered a public tour that would merge the hydro project and the rugged beauty of the North Cascades.

The first Skagit Tour was a train ride from the town of Rockport to the City Light company town of Newhalem. There were no roads to the upper Skagit River, so tourists arriving in Newhalem would spend the night in bunkhouses and tents.

The tour included walks to the Newhalem Powerhouse, the Gorge Powerhouse and Ladder Creek Falls, which is now illuminated.

The day ended with a dance, and the next morning the tourists boarded electric trains for a trip to Diablo Dam, where they inspected the Diablo powerhouse and even visited a small zoo that Ross built in the town of Diablo that once housed more than 150 exotic birds and animals, including an albino deer.

Tourists then rode the Incline Railway (built to transport workers and supplies needed to construct Diablo Dam) 313 feet up Sourdough Mountain. They boarded a tour boat, the Alice Ross (named for J.D.'s wife), and motored up Diablo Lake through the narrow Skagit Gorge, passing an island where Ross once kept monkeys borrowed from Seattle's zoo to entertain the passengers as they sailed by.

When the tourists returned to Rockport they found their cars had been washed as a courtesy. At its peak, in the late 1920s and 1930s, more than 21,000 visitors each year took the tour. The cost of the two-day excursion? $3.03.

The tours continued every year, except during World War II when they were suspended for security reasons.

A highlight for decades was the chicken dinner, complete with apple pie, served in the old Diablo cookhouse after the tour. City Light stopped serving the dinner in 2001 as a cost-cutting measure.

Some present-day changes

Today the tour is 2½ hours, and there's no longer a zoo, or monkeys on the island, but a boat named for Alice Ross continues to carry tourists up Diablo Lake.

The tour, 2003-style, begins in Newhalem, about a three-hour drive northeast of Seattle. The tour meets at the Skagit Information Center across the street from the Skagit General Store, which was built by City Light in 1922 as an employee bunkhouse and is still operated by the utility as a store. It's on the National Register of Historic Places.

At one time City Light had 1,000 employees in the towns of Newhalem and Diablo; today the number is fewer than 200.

The tour begins at "Old Number 6," a restored Baldwin steam engine next to the general store. The locomotive used to run between Newhalem and Rockport and offered the only access to the area before the North Cascades Highway was built.

Six rings on the engine's brass bell signal that the tour is beginning and visitors pile into a bus for the drive to Diablo Lake, past deep canyons and waterfalls. Aboard the bus, tour-goers are told the history of the Skagit Dams and J.D. Ross.

They learn that Ross Dam is 540 feet tall with 12 spill gates that, when all generators are running, churn out 124,000 cubic feet of water per second. After driving across Diablo Dam, passengers board the Alice Ross III for a cruise up Diablo Lake.

Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the tour started in Diablo and included not only the incline railway ride but the Ross Dam powerhouse. With security changes, the powerhouse is now off-limits, as is the town of Diablo.

Janice Bowman, who runs the tours for City Light, said the new tour was designed under the security scenario of "orange alert," so it wouldn't be compromised if the alert status changes over the summer. While the drive over Diablo Dam is closed to the public in orange alert, the tour bus will still be allowed through.

More than just tradition has brought the tour back. Bowman said the tours are required under the license to operate a hydroelectric project that the city negotiated with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 1991. All FERC-licensed facilities are required to provide recreational activities and Bowman said City Light's Skagit Tour is considered a model. The city was given a special dispensation last year after the terrorist attacks.

The boat cruise is part of fulfilling the licensing agreement, said Bowman. The chicken dinner is not.

A natural tourist draw

Still, the scenery of the North Cascades, with the jagged snow-capped mountain peaks, and the city's hydroelectric legacy is certain to draw tourists this summer. Michael Kurtz, director of tourism development for Asia and Latin America with the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau, was on the June 1 tour and sees it as a natural for the Japanese tourists flocking to Seattle to watch Seattle Mariners games.

A group of Japanese travel agents have scheduled a Skagit tour later this month. Tour officials are promoting a three-day fly-drive tour around the Cascade Loop, driving to Leavenworth and Wenatchee on Highway 2 and returning through Lake Chelan and Winthrop and the North Cascades Highway. The Skagit Tour would be a natural stop.

The tour offers not only history of City Light's hydroelectric project, but a glimpse of life in a company town.

One tour employee, Myla Moody, 18, offers a unique perspective, having grown up in Diablo. Her father moved the family from Federal Way to Diablo when she was in third grade, and she went from a large school two blocks from her home to a small school 90 minutes away by bus in Concrete.

Her fondest memory, she said, was all the snow that blanketed her new home in winter.

Bowman said this summer is a rebuilding year for the Skagit Tour. She said when the chicken dinners ended, City Light lost 60 percent of its reservations and now she's trying to reach out to new markets.

She said City Light may try to bring back the popular dinner. "I recognize the importance of it and am doing my best to build the market demand," said Bowman. "This is the test year."

The tours are limited to 120, and Bowman said the capacity this summer would be 14,000 visitors. She has a goal of 10,000.

Miranda, the Discovery Tour operator, said she's eager to support City Light's efforts on the Skagit. "Anything to support getting the chicken dinner back."

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com

City Light's Skagit Tour is offered Saturdays and Sundays in June and September, and Thursdays-Mondays in July and August. The last day of the tour is Sept. 28.

Hours: There are two tours each tour day, at 9:45 a.m. and 12:45 p.m. Check in 30 minutes prior to departure at the Skagit Information Center in Newhalem, 140 miles northeast of Seattle on Highway 20.

Cost: $17 for adults, $15 for seniors older than 62, $12 for youths 6 to 12. Children 5 and younger free. While no food is included on the tour, box lunches may be ordered for $10 for adults, $5 for children; they are prepared at the general store across the street from the information center. Included in the lunch is a souvenir red bandana. Children's lunches include a train whistle.

Access: The tour is handicapped-accessible by advance arrangement. When making reservations, notify the agent to ensure that the bus used on your tour can accommodate wheelchairs.

Discount coupons: City Light is including coupons in its bill inserts good for two-for-one tickets on the Skagit Tour.

For reservations: Call 206-684-3030 or see www.seattle.gov/light/tours.

Getting there: From Interstate 5 in Skagit County, take Exit 232, the Cook Road/Sedro-Woolley exit. Head east through the first stoplight close to the exit ramp. Continue east on Cook Road for 4.5 miles until you reach a second stoplight and turn left onto the North Cascades Highway (Highway 20). Continue for approximately 40 miles, through the town of Marblemount. Newhalem is 15 miles east of Marblemount. Look for the black and blue sign "Welcome to the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project" and for the "Old Number 6" locomotive parked adjacent to the highway as you approach Newhalem's Main Street. Parking is available in a lot on the north side of the highway.

Other things to do nearby:

The Trail of the Cedars begins at the foot of Main Street in Newhalem, winds a half-mile through an old forest grove and passes the Newhalem Creek power plant, which provided electricity during the Skagit construction.

Ladder Creek Falls and Rock Gardens are located behind the Gorge powerhouse in Newhalem, with benches, plants and views of Ladder Creek Falls. The half-mile trail is lighted at night during the summer. Cross the Skagit River on the pedestrian suspension bridge next to the powerhouse.

Ross Crypt, across from the Gorge Powerhouse, is where J.D. Ross and his wife, Alice Ross, are buried.

Gorge Overlook Trail is 3.5 miles east of Newhalem. It overlooks Gorge Creek Falls and has an interpretive loop trail with views of Gorge Dam and Gorge Lake.

Happy Creek Trail is a half-mile, wheelchair-accessible trail that starts about 5 miles east of Diablo, just past the Ross Dam trailhead. The trail is a raised boardwalk.