Hippie liberals leave a mark along Highway 2

Knute Berger

Gold Bar — Highway 2 was a working highway. It was cobbled together from wagon roads, rail beds and horse trails. Westside towns in the Skykomish River Valley like Sultan and Gold Bar still resonate with that. There’s a prospector’s shop where you can buy gold-panning equipment in Gold Bar and the summer festival in Sultan features traditional logger competitions. Further into the foothills, the town park in Index features a giant circular saw blade that once cut Cascade granite for buildings in Olympia and Pioneer Square. The town of Skykomish, built to serve the Great Northern Railway, is still a railroad town where you can lunch next to a table of BNSF Railway engineers who haul freight over the mountains.

Hippie liberals leave a mark along Highway 2