Spencer Jack Takes A Drive Where The Skagit River Used To Flow

That is Spencer Jack waving at us. A couple days ago Spencer Jack took his dad, my favorite nephew, Jason, also known as FNJ, on a driving tour of the former Skagit River, now known as Skagit Creek.

Spencer Jack is waving from Young's Bar in the town I grew up in, Burlington. The town I lived in before moving to Texas, Mount Vernon, is on the other side of the creek.

The former Skagit River is currently flowing at an historic 60 year low. What remains of the river as it flows through Mount Vernon is 10 feet deep at its deepest.

You can go to my Washington blog to a blogging titled Spencer Jack Tour Of Washington's Shrinking Skagit River to see Spencer's entire Skagit Creek photo documentation.

One thing that I noticed as I looked at some of Spencer's Skagit photos, even though the Skagit River is in extreme drought shrinkage mode, it still appears to be flowing more water than the Trinity River is currently flowing. And the Skagit water sure looks a lot cleaner, even now, with its greatly reduced flow, than the Trinity River looks on its best day.

I wonder if the Skagit River is tested regularly for e.coli like the Trinity River is subjected to?

I suspect not.

I also wonder what with the Skagit now running low and at a higher temperature than is the norm, if any local genius has thought to organize Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats? With music.

I suspect not.

There are a lot of water related activities to entertain people in the Skagit zone. A manufactured entertainment in the Skagit River would likely illicit a collective yawn with few people interesting in participating.

Along with a lot of public consternation directed at the numb skull who came up with the dumb idea...