The Tye River is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. It rises near

Stevens Pass Stevens Pass (elevation ) is a mountain pass through the Cascade Range, Cascade Mountains located at the border of King County, Washington, King County and Chelan County, Washington, Chelan County in Washington (state), Washington, United States. ...

in the

Cascade Mountains The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, ...

and flows west, joining the

Foss River The Foss River is a stream in the U.S. state of Washington. It has two main forks, the East Fork Foss River and the West Fork Foss River. The main stem is formed by the confluence of the two forks. The river and its forks rise near in the Alpine L ...

to form the South Fork Skykomish River. Its waters eventually empty into

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...

near Everett via the Skykomish River and

Snohomish River The Snohomish River is a river in Snohomish County, Washington, formed by the confluence of the Skykomish and Snoqualmie rivers near Monroe. It flows northwest entering Port Gardner Bay, part of Puget Sound, between Everett and Marysville. The ...

U.S. Route 2 U.S. Route 2 or U.S. Highway 2 (US 2) is an east–west United States Numbered Highways, U.S. Highway spanning across the northern continental United States. US 2 consists of two segments connected by various roadways in southern ...

follows the river's entire length. A

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...

line follows most of the river except near the pass where the tracks use the

Cascade Tunnel The Cascade Tunnel refers to two railroad tunnels (original and its replacement) in the northwest United States, east of the Seattle metropolitan area in the Cascade Range of Washington, at Stevens Pass. It is approximately east of Everett, wit ...

. Powerlines run by the

Bonneville Power Administration The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is an American federal agency operating in the Pacific Northwest. BPA was created by an act of Congress in 1937 to market electric power from the Bonneville Dam located on the Columbia River and to cons ...

(BPA) follow the Tye River west of Tunnel Creek. Most of the Tye River drainage basin is within

Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

. The Tye River is considered the continuation of the South Fork Skykomish River above the Foss River confluence. However, the true source of the South Fork Skykomish, in terms of streamflow is not the Tye River but the Rapid River, a tributary of the

Beckler River The Beckler River is a tributary of the South Fork Skykomish River in the U.S. state of Washington in the United States. The Beckler River originates near Jack Pass and flows southeast about where it is joined by the Rapid River, its princip ...

, which in turn is a tributary of the South Fork Skykomish. The Tye River is named for W.H. Tye (or William Francis Tye), a surveyor for the Great Northern Railway who laid out the rail grade to Stevens Pass.TYE, William Francis
Biographical Dictionary of Canadian Engineers

Course

The Tye River originates on the west side of the crest of the

North Cascades The North Cascades are a section of the Cascade Range of western North America. They span the border between the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. state of Washington and are officially named in the U.S. and Canada as the Cascad ...

Cowboy Mountain Cowboy Mountain is a 5,853-foot-elevation (1,784 meter) mountain summit located in northeast King County of Washington state. It is situated at Stevens Pass, on land managed by Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. This mountain is best kn ...

at Stevens Pass. It flows west, then southwest, collecting numerous small tributary streams. At upstream from the Tye's mouth, near the Cascade Tunnel's western portal, Tunnel Creek joins the river. U.S. Route 2 makes a hairpin turn in the valley of Tunnel Creek. The Tye River then turns more directly west. It collects Surprise Creek and its tributary Scenic Creek near

Scenic Scenic may refer to: * Scenic design * Scenic painting * Scenic overlook * Scenic railroad (disambiguation) * Scenic route * Scenic, South Dakota, United States * Scenic (horse), a Thoroughbred racehorse Aviation *Airwave Scenic, an Austrian par ...

. Deception Creek joins near Deception Falls, above the mouth of the Tye. Scenic, Surprise, and Deception creeks all join from the south. Below Deception Creek the Tye River is joined by Martin Creek from the north. Then, upstream from its mouth, the Tye falls over Alpine Falls. Below the waterfall the Tye River is joined by Carroll Creek and Alpine Creek from the south. The BPA powerline crosses the Tye River above the river's mouth. A couple miles east of

Skykomish Skykomish is a town in King County, Washington, United States. The population was 198 as of the 2010 census, down from an estimated peak of "several thousand" in the 1920s. Located in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, 49 miles east ...

the Foss River, flowing from the south, joins the Tye River, forming the South Fork Skykomish River.General course info from USGS topographic maps accessed via the "GNIS in Google Map" feature of the USGS

Geographic Names Information System The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and locative information about more than two million physical and cultural features throughout the United States and its territories, Antarctica, and the associated states of ...

website.

History

The Great Northern Railway built the train tracks today owned by BNSF. The railroad tracks originally followed the Tye River to Stevens Pass, which it crossed via a number of switchbacks. The first Cascade Tunnel was built at

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

, just west of the pass. After the

Wellington avalanche Wellington (later known as Tye) was a small unincorporated railroad community in the northwest United States, on the Great Northern Railway in northeastern King County, Washington. Founded in 1893, it was located in the Cascade Range at the we ...

disaster of 1910 the Great Northern changed the town's name from Wellington, which had become associated with the disaster, to Tye, after the river. The town was abandoned after the second Cascade Tunnel was built in 1929.

Natural history

The upper Tye River flows through a steep, narrow, and densely forested valley. Below Surprise Creek the Tye's valley alternately widens and narrows. There are dense mixed deciduous and conifer forests in the valley bottoms and thick conifer forests on the valley sides. Much of the lower elevation forests have been logged at least once. Old growth forests are founded mainly along the higher tributaries. Above Deception Creek the Tye River has a steep gradient and a confined channel, resulting in a nearly continuous series of steep cascades and smalls waterfalls. Downstream, near its mouth, the Tye's gradient lessens and its channel widens. The valley becomes more broad and flat. The river becomes somewhat

braided Braided is a musical group consisting of Casey LeBlanc, Ashley Leitão, and Amber Fleury, who all competed on the third season of '' Canadian Idol'' in 2005. They are the third music group to come from an Idol show in the world, after Young Div ...

in this stretch, with numerous channel splits. There are many logs and other types of

large woody debris Large woody debris (LWD) are the logs, sticks, branches, and other wood that falls into streams and rivers. This debris can influence the flow and the shape of the stream channel. Large woody debris, grains, and the shape of the bed of the stream ...

in this part of the river, contributing to excellent

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

habitat. The final mile of the Tye has a steeper gradient with cascades alternating with deep pools. Nearly all the Tye River's tributaries are high mountains streams with steep gradients. Some entering the Tye's valley from

hanging valleys A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams over ...

, plunging down high waterfalls. The Tye River is used by chinook and

coho The coho salmon (''Oncorhynchus kisutch;'' Karuk: achvuun) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family and one of the five Pacific salmon species. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". The scientific species name is ...

salmon. Adults migrate upstream as far as Alpine Falls. Spawning occurs mostly in the mainstem river. Some coho spawn in the lower parts of a few tributary streams such as Alpine Creek. Juvenile salmon rear throughout the accessible waters of the river basin. No

anadromous Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousan ...

fish are found above Alpine Falls as it is a total barrier to fish migration. Sunset Falls on the South Fork Skykomish River, below the mouth of the Tye River, is also a total barrier to fish migration. All anadrmous fish above Sunset Falls, which includes the entire Tye River basin, are present only as a result of a trap and haul operation initiated in 1958 by the Washington Department of Fisheries. Between July and December fish are trapped below the falls, trucked above, and returned to the South Fork Skykomish. About of roads have been built in the Tye River basin, resulting in a road density approaching and in places surpassing the threshold where damage to the watershed may occur through road effects on slope hydrology and

mass wasting Mass wasting, also known as mass movement, is a general term for the movement of rock or soil down slopes under the force of gravity. It differs from other processes of erosion in that the debris transported by mass wasting is not entrained in ...

. The Martin Creek and Beckler Peak roads present the greatest hazard to streams. Winter sanding of U.S. Highway 2 is a chronic contributor of fine sediment to the Tye River. Each year 2,500- 7,000 cubic yards of sand are applied to the highway. It is not known how much enters the Tye River. If just 1% does the result is equivalent to a small landslide each year. Increased sediment is a concern because it damages salmon spawning habitat.

Tributaries

Tributaries of the Tye River are listed below, from mouth to source. Tributaries of tributaries are marked by multiple bullet points. Many streams have no name and are labeled "Unnamed". This list is not exhaustive. * Alpine Creek * Carroll Creek * Martin Creek ** Unnamed *** Jakes Lake ** Kelly Creek ** Unnamed *** Embro Lake * Deception Creek ** Sawyer Creek ** Fisher Creek *** Unnamed **** Ptarmigan Lake *** Fisher Lake * Unnamed ** Deception Lakes * Surprise Creek ** Scenic Screek ** Unnamed *** Spark Plug Lake ** Surprise Lake *** Glacier Lake * Tunnel Creek

References

External links