Our last full day in Concrete is today so we chose to take another loop up one side of the Skagit River and down the other side. Today’s drive started with us crossing one of the bridges over the river at Concrete and heading east up the south bank on the Concrete-Sauk Highway.
This road would probably be considered as just the way home to locals but is a stunning drive through magnificent terrain and vibrant vegetation and trees. At some places, the looming peak of the massive volcano, Mount Baker, fills up the scenery to the north.
About 8 miles up the south bank of the river, we were passed by an ambulance. Then a fire engine had us pulling over into the ditch. We followed them for a while until they stopped in the middle of the road to speak with a passing motorist. That seemed a bit strange. They finished their chat and took off again, lights ablaze. A mile or two later, they pulled off the right side of the road for a conference between themselves. We passed them but not another mile up the road we passed an oncoming male pedestrian wearing frightening plaid pants and little else and packing a chainsaw. We waved and he waved back. About another mile up the road we came across two middle-aged apparent tweakers standing alongside a car that had an overturned pickup truck another 100 feet down the road. The wrecked truck was on its side when we got there so we asked if anybody was hurt.
The male and female tweakers started rapid-fire simultaneous chatter regarding what occurred and it sounded as if neither had coordinated their reports. The things we were able to discern from their chaotic descriptions were that a guy wearing plaid pants and carrying a chain saw had stolen the truck, driven a short distance before flipping it and climbed out and fled. The tweakers surmised the alleged perp had stolen the chainsaw from a neighbor before taking off on his spectacular, but short, joyride. We left after making sure their was no dead or bleeding.
We eventually emerged from the south side of the Skagit at WA-530 which we followed into Rockport for our drive back down the north side of the river. We will miss this place. There are few places prettier than here and the weather this July has been great.
We even got a picture of the stolen pickup. Click here