Monthly Archives: August 2015
Twisp River Fire: A mother’s grief, times three
A firefighter looks out at people lining the streets as a procession of fire vehicles makes its way to the memorial for the three firefighters killed in the Aug. 19 Twisp River Fire.
When Tom Zbyszewski’s mother stood Sunday to address the memorial service for her son and the two other wildland firefighters lost to Washington’s Twisp River Fire on August 19, she seemed so very small, her curly hair, shot through with gray tendrils, trembling slightly as she crossed the stage at the Toyota Town Center in Wenatchee.
She straightened her cream-colored suit jacket and put on her glasses.
She looked out on several thousand faces, most of them employees of the U.S. Forest Service, just like her, like her husband, “Ski,” by her side, who is retired. Many of those who came to mourn were dressed in the pants and T-shirts they would wear when they returned to the still-active fires burning across the West. So many faces. So young, like Tom.
Golden oldies: friends, that is
Smoke shrouds the skyline over the Spokane Falls, which cut though the middle of the city.
We love meeting new people on the road, and we’re also able to reconnect with longtime friends who’ve moved away from Arizona.
Glimpse: The Hiawatha Rail-Trail
Tom heading into the nearly two-mile tunnel on the Hiawatha Rail-Trail, one of our entertainment splurges.
The Hiawatha Rail-Trail is my kind of bike ride, 15 miles through the stunning Bitterroot Mountains, over seven trestles, through 10 tunnels, including one more than a mile and a half long, all downhill with a shuttle ride back to your vehicle. Genius. The route follows the former Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, which crossed through the mountains to reach the Pacific in 1909. Construction was estimated at $45 million, but exceeded $234 million. The route hosted the luxury Hiawatha train, with Super Dome observation cars and Skytop sleepers. The line went bankrupt more than once, was abandoned in 1980 and converted to a bike trail beginning in the late 1990s. Signs along the route show where people escaped the 1910 fire called “The Big Burn,” stories of the amazing construction required to get over the Idaho mountain passes, and of the people who worked on the rails. A trail pass costs $10, a shuttle ticket, $9. If you don’t have your own bike, you can rent one at the Lookout Pass Ski Area. They’ll even give you a bike rack to get it to the trailhead. Here’s a glimpse.