Dirty Harry's Balcony

I sat on Dirty Harry's Balcony, and gazed down at the twin ribbons of I-90 as it headed toward Snoqualmie Pass.

No, not that "Dirty Harry," of course. Dirty Harry's the name given to a gyppo logger named Harry Gault, a guy famous in his day for building logging roads no one else would attempt and hauling out the timber. The name wasn't entirely a compliment, I gather.

As I sat here on his balcony -- a rocky ledge hanging over the valley -- this morning, I vowed to learn more about the gentleman as soon as I returned home. My own, barely-remembered grandfather was also a gyppo logger in his prime -- go in, throw up a sawmill, cut 'em down, haul 'em out, shut down the mill and get the hell out, leaving scalped hills and stump-littered meadows behind. In the course of his lifetime, he made and lost fortunes several times over. Unfortunately, like a Las Vegas gambler, he never quit while he was ahead.

I'm sure he would have rolled his eyes and splashed down a shot of bourbon if he'd known his eldest grandson would grow up to be a Sierra Club tree hugger.

Unfortunately, there isn't much to learn about Dirty Harry on-line. His story is told in passing by a number guidebooks and articles describing the hike to Dirty Harry's Peak. But they all seem to rely on each other as source material. I'm not even sure when Harry did his dirty work -- the source that sounds the most authoritative simply says that he logged the area "several decades ago." The lower part of the trail is now shaded by fairly mature second growth fir and cedar, so it's been a while since it was logged. The higher you hike, the more alder you encounter, suggesting that the higher areas were logged recently enough that evergreens have not yet taken over.

The trail today -- which is what has evolved from Harry's logging road -- forces some grudging respect for his efforts. During much of its length, it resembles nothing so much as a dry, rock-strewn creek bed, just waiting for the first rain to turn it into a raging torrent. The footing is difficult and the hiking is steep.

I climbed up to the "balcony," from which I took the photo above, and then another mile up the trail to Museum Creek. The creek is named after "Dirty Harry's Museum" -- the rusting remains of a large amount of logging equipment, including an entire logging truck. It's all back there in the forest somewhere, the hiking guides assure us, but they add that it is disappearing into the vegetation (like Angkor Wat, I suppose), and that many hikers waste a lot of time looking for it unsuccessfully. I admit, I didn't bother.

It would have been another mile horizontally and 2200 feet vertically from Museum Creed to Dirty Harry's Peak, but I called the creek my destination. My guidebook says that the peak is a high point on a forested ridge. It's difficult for a hiker to know when he's actually on the peak, and there's no panoramic view to reward his exertions. I'd had both my view of the valley and my history lesson. I was ready to pick my way back down the boulder field they call a "trail."

If Harry actually ever sat gazing out from his balcony -- I gather he wasn't much one for introspection and aesthetic appreciation -- his view would have been different from the multi-lane freeway that dominates the view today . Until the interstate highway system was built, cars followed the same route on a simple two-lane road (U.S. 10) through the Snoqualmie Valley and up over Snoqualmie Pass.

Going back to territorial days, the first wagon route was completed over the pass in 1867. Most passengers and freight crossed the pass by railroad, once the Northern Pacific finished tunneling and laying track in 1883, Apparently, some intrepid soul actually drove an automobile over the pass, using the rutted wagon road, in 1905. In 1915, the state constructed the "Sunset Highway" through the valley and over the pass, designated officially as State Highway 2. It became part of the U.S. Highway system, as U.S. 10, in 1926.

Under whichever name it was called, the road was slow, and eventually made slower by installation of traffic lights in the valley towns through which it passed, until I-90 was completed.

I'm not sure what Harry would think now, sitting on his balcony and watching the flow of traffic below. As long as he could get at those trees with his equipment, he probably wouldn't give a damn.
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Photos, top to bottom:
Snoqualmie Valley and I-90 from Dirty Harry's Balcony
Sunset Highway, piercing the valley's then-dense forests, ca. 1915
Sunset Highway, switchbacks going over Snoqualmie Pass, ca. 1915