10 p.m. The darkness seemed impenetrable as our small group of hikers and paranormal enthusiasts approached the eastern entry of the Iron Goat Trail, near the abandoned town site of Wellington, 15 miles east of the town of Skykomish near Stevens Pass.
Guided only by the tungsten-cast glow of two antique, wooden candle lanterns during our adventure last fall, we were silent, somber and introspective. Our thoughts were focused a century earlier, when the worst avalanche in United States history occurred near where we walked, claiming the souls of nearly 100 people.
Our goal this evening was to hike the dark trail and reflect on the history of the site; to experience the location in a different, more unique fashion. In the silent darkness of a sensory-deprived environment, some in our group felt that “other” senses — preternatural ones, perhaps — would offer us a deeper insight into Wellington’s past.
Iron Goat Trail
The Iron Goat Trail stretches 7.5-miles from the Wellington area to Scenic, Wash. and follows a remnant path of the Great Northern Railway line between Leavenworth and Everett. The IGT passes the site of the tragic March 1, 1910 avalanche, which swept down Windy Mountain and destroyed two stalled Great Northern trains waiting out a snowstorm near the railway town of Wellington.
Crashing into the stranded locomotives, passenger, sleeper and boxcars, a sea of loose ice and snow swept the trains hundreds of feet down the slope into the Tye River Valley.
In the aftermath, 96 people were reported dead — two-thirds of them railway employees. According to records at the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, the count also included six unknowns. In addition, three people were killed on the east side of the Cascades prior to the avalanche and a couple more in the days after the avalanche who were working to clear the tracks.
Over the weeks and months following the tragedy, the bodies were placed on toboggan-style sleds and pulled by manpower to Windy Point then lowered by rope to the Scenic Hot Springs Hotel. All the bodies were held at Scenic until the line was cleared that far and then transported to Everett and Seattle by rail. After the rail line opened to Wellington, rail transportation was used.
In the end, Great Northern changed Wellington’s name to Tye, due to the negative thoughts passengers might have traveling through Wellington after the avalanche. The Tye River ran nearby.
The town was ultimately abandoned in 1929 when the railway moved the line away from the old Cascade Tunnel to a new 7.8-mile Cascade Tunnel which continues to be used today by every train travelling between Leavenworth and Everett.
Capturing disembodied voices
Overhead, the stars were beacons of radiance; the Pleiades flickered over the eastern summit of Chief Mountain, beyond the Stevens Pass ski area. Cutting a swath overhead, the innumerable stars of the Milky Way glowed brilliantly, casting a dull luminosity over the Tye River Valley.
The autumn night sky was serene, but underneath the snow shed (a concrete structure completed in 1911 by the railway to prevent further avalanche tragedies), the trail was steeped in somber, inky darkness. Huddled in the candle-glow at an interpretative platform a third of the way through the shed, I read another excerpt from a historical narrative about the tragedy, while a paranormal researcher activated a digital recorder, hoping to capture disembodied voices that might respond to my recitation.
While the victims of the 1910 Wellington avalanche arguably could not anticipate such a tragic disaster as they sat huddled in their passenger berths waiting out the frozen winter night under Windy Pass, today’s travelers across our mountain passes are better prepared for the possibility of massive snow slides or avalanches that routinely cross highways and trails.
Tragic Irony
By viewing historical photos of Windy Mountain, historians believe that the hill was burned by fire from locomotives. During construction of the line from 1891 – 93, historical forest documents report that fires were set to clear the area to speed construction both contributing to bare slopes that may have otherwise stabilized the snow.
That winter in 1910, a warm tropical “Pineapple Express” brought unexpected rain and lightening to Windy Mountain, saturating the accumulated snow and triggering the movement of the unstable snowpack onto the snow-corralled trains at Wellington.
Today, 100 years later, the memory of the horrible avalanche at Wellington lives on in the history of Washington state. As our group heard more about the event that night in the candlelight, we were all moved to silent contemplation of the stark and different ways that the passengers, victims, railway employees and their families must have viewed this mountain pass, where so much pain and anguish permeated the forest and trees on that winter night.
March 1 will mark the 100-year anniversary of the tragedy and will undoubtedly attract a number of other historians, hikers, paranormal researchers and other enthusiasts to the abandoned Wellington town site. Curiously enough, the North Cascades, and those who venture back to the Iron Goat Trail in March, may encounter similar weather conditions which occurred a century ago.
Most importantly, perhaps, it’s recommended that all visitors to the Iron Goat Trail understand some of the history recorded there, and carry themselves accordingly, with the proper equipment and avalanche training — and with the reverence and respect due to sites like Wellington — Washington state’s proverbial “ghost town” high in the North Cascades.
Wellington Disaster 100-year commemoration
The Skykomish Historical Society will host a commemoration of the Wellington Disaster at 1 p.m., Feb. 27 at Skykomish School. Featured speakers will be Gary Krist, author of the best selling book The White Cascade, and Martin Burwash, who recently published Vis Major, a novel told from the standpoint of the railroad workers. Bob Kelly, SHS collection manager and leading expert on Wellington, consulted with both authors of these excellent books.
The event will also feature other authors and local historians as well as information and displays. SHS is connecting with relatives of Wellington victims and survivors and intends to have a display of photographs of persons who were there on that fateful day. Persons who have photos or specific information regarding people who were involved in the avalanche are encouraged to bring them for display at the event or email skykomishhistoricalsociety @yahoo.com.
Resources/Information
Information about the Wellington Disaster of 1910
The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America’s Deadliest Avalanche, by Gary Krist, Holt, 2007
Iron Goat Trail
Iron Goat Trail Website: www.irongoat.org/
Forest Service Iron Goat Trail: www.fs.fed.us/r6/mbs/recreation/activities/trails/srd_1074.htm
Plummer Forest Reports at WSU Archives
Paranormal Groups Studying Wellington’s History
Northwest Paranormal Investigative Agency: www.nwpia.com
Washington State Ghost Society: www.washingtonstateghostsociety.com
NW Avalanche Resource and Information Sites
Weather Northwest and Avalanche Center (U.S. Forest Service): www.nwac.us
National Snow and Ice Data Center: www.nsidc.org/snow/avalanche
Avalanche.org: www.avalanche.org
Washington State Emergency Management: www.emd.wa.gov/hazards/haz_avalanche.shtml
Editor’s Note: The IGT was named by Robert W. Norton, the trails Supervisor at the Skykomish Ranger Station. When locals Ruth Ittner and Grant Sharpe visited the area in the early 1990s with Norton to investigate the possibility of a trail, Norton had already done a survey of the possible trail and had named it the Iron Goat Trail. He gave this information to Ittner and Sharpe. Locomotives that were used in the mountains were sometimes called Iron Goats or Iron Horses.
Michael Kundu is a long-time contributor to Outdoors NW. He lives with his family in Lake Stevens, Wash. His work can be seen at his website, www.seawolfmedia.com.
Research Contributors: Ruth Ittner Manager of Iron Goat Trail for Volunteers for Outdoor Washington; Bob Kelly, Skykomish Historical Society; www.skykomishhistoricalsociety.org
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