Winter in Rockport

Just a few eagles, no Eagle Festival until Jan 2016, SR 20 closed.  😦

Credit: WSDOT

Rockport is really ground-zero for the Skagit Eagle Festival, every January.  But in the cold and dark winter months before that time, it can be pretty gray and quiet up the Skagit.  Took a little drive on Nov 16, 2015 and took a few photos.  Not really thinking about where I would end up.  This was, by shear coincidence, the same day that State Route 20 over to Eastern Washington was closed for the Winter.  It had temporarily been closed for about 2 weeks due to a freak early snow storm.  Now closed for good until probably April 2016.  When the passes are not open, this stretch of highway becomes a dead end road.  Most businesses close for the Winter, others just hang in there.  The tourist traffic slows to a trickle…….a painful trickle.

Rockport now has a few other problems.  The gas station/store closed in 2015, the Pub closed in 2015, and is posted as ‘For Sale – Make Offer’  The Post Office is the last public building, not including Howard Miller Steelhead County Park, open in this once thriving railroad town. Oh…. yes….., did I mention the 68 inches of average annual rainfall?

Pub

Post Office

Rockport was once the end of the road on the way to the dams being constructed on the upper Skagit River.  In order to go further east, between 1920 and about 1945, you had to take the Seattle City Light-owned train.  Before 1920 it would have been by mule pack

Rockport 1950

train!
’til next time,
Dennis George
Highland Garden House B & B
501 E. Highland Ave.
Mount Vernon, WA 98273
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