The year of 1951 was called “the year of the big snow” by many old timers.
My dad whose name was Russell West, was a snow plow driver for the Washing State Department of Transportation. Although his given name was Russell, nobody here in Leavenworth knew him by that name but rather by “Bun”. According to my Aunt Crystal, a Leavenworth pioneer who owned and ran the Crystal Hotel and Boarding House, now known as Mrs. Anderson’s Boarding House, his eight brothers and sisters called him “bunny rabbit” when he was little because he had snow white hair and was quick as a bunny and that nick name stuck.
One early morning, after another night of heavy snowfall, my dad and one of his best friends, Ray Whittig, were in snow plows headed up Tumwater Canyon about five minutes and several miles apart. Dad encountered a few small slides which he was able to push back and keep going. Just below the Tumwater dam though he came upon a slide which covered the entire road and was way more volume and weight than his truck could handle. The radios they had in their trucks in those days were marginally functional, especially in the near vertical walls of the canyon. He couldn’t call for more equipment so he turned around to go back to the shop and get some help. As he headed down the road he’d just come up he came upon an even bigger slide blocking his way. He realized he was trapped and in the path of bad slide chutes. Turning back around he headed back up the canyon to some safer spot only to find a new slide had covered the road between him and the original slide at the dam. Just then a thunderous slide of heavy snow, rocks and trees came crashing down just behind him. He was trapped and realized it would just be a matter of time before he was buried in his truck or swept into the river by the next slide.
Dad said he thought about his friend Ray and hoped he was in better straights or even back at the shop having run into the lowest slide and maybe had turned back for help. Unfortunately, Ray was already dead. Apparently he had gotten out of his truck to fix something on his sander and was hit by a large slide which covered him and his truck.
Dad pondered his options which were few and bleak. Staying in your truck in such a situation was generally considered to be the best choice but with slides of such depth and weight and debris, he chose another option. He knew the canyon well and figured the best way to get to some semblance of safety was up the canyon toward Coles Corner where the Squirrel Tree Restaurant is, where there was a phone to call and tell someone he was alive. It was further, about ten miles, but he would be out of the worst slide chutes quicker than if he went down toward town.
The entire Tumwater Canyon was strewn with huge slides which buried the road. As he scrambled up and over each slide, like a squirrel”, he could hear the constant crashing of new slides coming down on both sides of the river. He kept moving but kept his eyes peeled on the cliffs above him in hopes he could scamper out of the way of the next slide and certain death.
After a couple of hours with no word from the either man, the rest of the State crew realized there was a problem and headed up the canyon to see if they could locate them. They soon discovered the buried truck and knew one of their comrades was also buried somewhere in that slide. The word made it to town that a man, a state snowplow driver, was dead in a slide but no name was given. In truth, they all believed that there were two dead men in the canyon that day. Men and equipment headed up to find and dig out the one they were certain of .
Nobody told my mom, who was about five months pregnant with me at the time. She knew something was up though since she heard on the radio that the canyon was closed due to heavy slides, and she could only imagine the worst.
It took my dad many hours to fight his way over the many slides and hike miles through unplowed snow to the Squirrel Tree Restaurant. Everyone was amazed to see a man walking up the road coming from the direction of the Canyon on that snowy day. He was drenched, extremely cold, hungry and exhausted.
It was a day of elation and of sorrow in the small town of Leavenworth. As is the case in most small towns, all lives in this tiny burg seemed to be inextricably woven together and all were touched in one way or another. There was death but there was also a miracle of deliverance. Grief and joy came together in that bitter sweet concoction which leaves the mind, the senses numbed, confused
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Dad worked for the State Highway Department for many more years retiring in the early 1980s. He dodged death more times than he cared to talk about but never saw a winter that measured up, at least in his mind, to that winter of the big snow, the winter of 1951
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