Small town 'on brink of change'

By DON GRAYDON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The train doesn't stop anymore at this tiny mountain village an hour's drive east of Seattle, but the tourists do.

They're a modern breed, the kind that sees Index as a playground for climbing, rafting, skiing.

"You can be anywhere in the rafting world and say 'the Skykomish River,' and they'll know Index," says Dan McLaughlin, the town's maintenance man and a longtime river boatman.

Same with climbers. Mention the Town Wall to a climber and you're likely to hear a story about an "interesting" pitch or two on the vertical cliffs next to the old granite quarry a half-mile west of town.

"We're on the brink of change," says McLaughlin, 36, with a seemingly perpetual grin never leaving his round, bearded face. "Recreation will take over here."

In the town's lone park on a hot Monday in August, river guide Shane Turnbull, 36, prepares four whitewater neophytes for a run down the Skykomish.

The two middle-aged couples, one from Tucson, the other from Chicago, squirm into wet suits that put every bulge into sharp relief.

"Oh, wait a minute," Turnbull says politely to one of the men. "You've got it inside out."

Their run today includes Boulder Drop rapids, highlight of the stretch from Index to Gold Bar. A 49-year-old rafter (not with Turnbull's Chinook Expeditions) was killed at Boulder Drop in June when his raft capsized. But Turnbull says the low water of late summer means anybody can make the run.

The natural wonders that surround Index helped lure the river guides, waitresses, retirees, artists and businesspeople who live here now, replacing the miners, loggers and railroad builders of a century ago.

The chance to practice amateur gold mining almost in their backyard attracted Karen Sample and her husband, Pat, to Index 14 years ago. The move fulfilled her childhood desire to be "a mountain girl."

Eui Ho Shin, 52, left his West Seattle store to take over the Index General Store about nine months ago because he wanted to get away from the city. "Too much tension," he says.

"Two times, gun," he explains, making a pistol with his right hand. "Give money. Two times. I don't like. So I take countryside store."

Continued:

• Tiny village boasts lots of diversity
• Small populace has no shortage of activists
• Mother Nature is the real power here
• Progress may bring end to isolated splendor