Skagit River

Another freshwater shoreline, although one still influenced by the tides. This spot is really a point bar, not a gravel beach, after all it was formed by the flowing river, not by waves. Today, it was a little hard to believe that this river drains the entire western side of the North Cascades, but given a big fall or spring flood this place might get pretty exciting.

The river here (just upstream of the I-5 bridge north of Mount Vernon) is carefully confined between high levees and riprap. Overbank flooding and channel migration may be the river's natural inclination, but would be messy and inconvenient for the floodplain towns and their rapidly developing subdivisions and commercial strips. I guess we should hope that future floods stick to the script we have provided for them.