The Granite Group – Nov/Dec 2000

On Saturday, October 7, our granite group piled into cars with prybars, gloves, heavy boots, hand dolleys, an electric winch and lunch, to rescue forgotten river boulders from their cavities on the shore of mountain streams. We had selected the finest day of the fall to do this. We wanted to avoid both rain and breaking a sweat.

The first stop for the five of us (Brian Berman, Sharon Feeney, Sabah Al-Dhaher, Sondra Shira and myself) was Tinkum Road, to explore the road fords of Rock Creek and Harris Creek. But these spots were far too convenient. The stones were at road level and close to the vehicles. Why bother? Might as well buy them from a vendor. We were out for grunts.

So we hurried back to North Bend and the 15 mile trip on washboard roads to the Taylor River branch of the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River. Here we found our quarry in abundance. We had our choice of fresh rocks being sculpted by the water as we watched, or of historic flood stones now rooted in the forest. We hand-hauled some smaller stones from the riverbed, but focused most of our grunting on the moss-covered flood stones. We got a good load without damage to any extremities, then headed back along the road. There had been a significant rock fall at a major outcrop right along the road, which we could not ignore. We stationed Brian as flagger for cars coming around the bend and backed Sabah’s stone mobile to a naked lady masquerading as a hunk of granite.Ten minutes later Sabah had winched the lady in to the stone-mobile and we were headed back to the city.

For others following in our footsteps, be sure to inquire about permits with the Forest Service. They did not require us to get one (mention the word sculpture and you get all sorts of breaks) but they are not always so inclined.