Robe Canyon

This is the Stillaguamish River as it passes through Robe Canyon, just outside of Granite Falls, Washington.

This area has a very interesting history. In the late 1800's there was gold discovered in Monte Cristo a few miles away. To get to ore from the mines they needed to build a railroad and decided that building the tracks along the river would be the quickest and cheapest way to go. You can actually see the tracks in this image on the left hand side. Anyway, after a lot of problems of building the route along the river, they complete the passage.

While this is happening, the town of Robe is established at the mouth of the canyon and upwards of a few hundred people live in the city. After a while the mine ends up not being a lucrative as investors thought and continued problems with the rail route force the mine to eventually close down in the 1930's.

Since the closure of the rails, a trail has been been created in their place, granting a great view of the canyon. In December 2006 there was a powerful wind and rain storm and the Stillaguamish River overflowed quite a bit. There were a handful of landslides in the region and along the trail. As of the time this picture was taken, the trail was not passable past the first tunnel.