15 WASHINGTON PICTURES - MT INDEX

This Gallery is central Washington,  teasing the viewer with idyllic open spaces, but it is also demonstrating  powerful rivers that wildly race down the Cascades. The  Tieton River, captured by the Tieton Diversion Dam, creates Rimrock lake.  This river has been irrigating  the Naches and Yakima Valleys since 1917. Orchard fruits including apples, often packed in containers made in Longview,  are enroute to buyers via the Columbia River  One of the dams on the Columbia River, the Rock Island Dam, provides electric power for Chelan County as well as aiding boat travel with its navigational locks. Graceful Willows reflect in "open water" drawn from the Columbia.  Orchards  continue to line the Columbia River well past  Wenatchee. West of the Columbia, orchards of  Leavenworth pears  are among those that feed from the Wenatchee River.   The Wenatchee River Valley leads to the mountains of the Wenatchee National Forest  on the East side of the Cascades.

One crosses the Cascades at  Stevens Pass to reach the Snoqualmie National Forest. Suddenly... there are the cathedral spires of  the most unique peak of the Central Cascades, showy Mount Index. Tucked in the Snoqualmie NF is a  Historical Museum and the very active Northwest Railway Museum teaching visitors about Washington's life today and yesterday.