Valley Record SNOQUALMIE
Wednesday, April 17, 2013 n Daily updates at www.valleyrecord.com n 75 cents
Keeping the blues alive
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North Bend’s Paul Green shares love of music with Valley at new Blues Walk
Find out what’s cooking in the student-run Wildcat Café Page 19
By Seth Truscott Editor
“This is the project that got a bunch of us started working out here,” explained Boyar, a recreation enthusiast who’s basically adopted the Snoqualmie corridor over the past 20 years. “It got a bunch of us excited, and we went from there.” The project was a one-of-a-kind bridge, guarded day and night by volunteers during construction, and installed with the help of a two-rotor helicopter that lowered it, whole, into place. Interesting origins, yes, but the most important thing about the bridge, Boyar said, was the access it created.
A man with a tenor sax is waiting to jam. A couple just pulled up chairs by the stage, and there’s two guys in the back playing a board game. It’s a real mellow atmosphere, with Paul Green croonPaul Green ing “Lost Mind”, just about to let his harmonica wail through The Black Dog cafe. Green, North Bend’s resident blues legend, takes the stage every week here. Music, the blues in particular, has been his life, ever since he picked up a harmonica at age 20. Blues music is still vibrant, and Green does his part to keep it that way. He’ll be one of a dozen performers to rouse North Bend’s downtown Saturday, April 20, at the inaugural North Bend Blues Walk.
See MIDDLE FORK, 3
See BLUES, 3
Carol Ladwig/Staff Photo
SPORTS
Hiking the airlifted footbridge over the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River, Mark Boyar, one of the volunteers who helped build it, says the crossing was a key development in opening this wilderness to hikers, bikers and kayakers. Below, the fork makes for pleasant camping, but with possible designation as a wild and scenic river, it may come under increased protection in the future.
Game on! Mount Si girls tennis team racking up a real win streak Page 13
Index Opinion 4 5 Letters 7 Movie Times Health & Fitness 9-12 14 Calendar Classifieds 15-18
Vol. 99, No. 47
Gateway to the wild ‘It’s going to be busy’: Big changes come to North Bend’s Middle Fork wilderness By Carol Ladwig Staff Reporter
They call it the Gateway Trail. It’s a shortish trek, partly through old-growth forest, partly along the trout-rich Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River, with a spectacular arching footbridge at its start. Hundreds of thousands of visitors come to the Middle Fork area each year for hiking, camping, kayaking, and cycling, and many will discover this spot. But, at 12 miles up a winding gravel road, is the Middle Fork Trail trailhead really a gateway? In more ways than one, says Mark Boyar, now a Mountains to Sound Greenway board member, and one of the volunteers in the loosely organized Middle Fork Coalition who helped the U.S. Forest Service build that footbridge 12 years ago.
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