I’m not sure why, but lately I’ve been highly interested in connecting, or even more so wanting to expand on the connection with my families. For those that don’t know, I have three, my mothers, biological fathers, and my step dad’s. I don’t know if emotionally I’ve felt like I’m not as close with my families as I once was, if I’m still in mourning over my grandfather and great grandmothers passing, possibly even the realization that the rest of my remaining grandparents might not be much longer for this world could be weighing me down. Leaving me in a preemptive state of grief while I wait for the inevitable.
But regardless of Why I’ve been feeling this way, I decided that there is something I hope to contribute to my family members, hopefully before any more of us pass and move on to whatever comes after our period of time on earth. I wanted to do my best to reconnect my family and myself with places that could be classified as a “place of origin”, and so on June 18th 2023 (Fathers Day) that’s what I did, I started Project: Family Photos.
Two weeks before Fathers Day I had to go into the doctors, my arm was bugging the hell out of me and I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I found out that I have tendentious, and that I needed to try and take it easy, which was going to be difficult to do, since I had a car show event coming up on Fathers Day and I knew I’d be lugging my camera gear around all day. Which led to a bit of a heart breaking decision not to attend this years car show. But since I wasn’t going to be going to that, I thought instead it’d be fun to take my dad out on a hike to see if we couldn’t find the old Dye Homestead. When I asked, it sounded as if he almost jumped through the phone with his “YEAH! That’d be great”.
So we planned it for Fathers Day, and headed out early (for me) that morning to the “trail head”, located just North of Sedro Woolley. We tossed our packs on our back, filled with snacks, rain gear, water, a few other necessities, and in my pack I had the addition of my “new” Canon A-1 film camera and my Sony A7iv (for recording video). I wanted to bring my A-1 film camera for two reasons. One, because I’m using the restrictions of shooting film to teach me more about photography in general, and two, because I love that with shooting film everything is captured on that exposure. It’s a tangible memento of frozen time, and yes I know that the same could be said with shooting digital photography. But is it really the same? Anyway, back to the trip.
After setting down the trail, it wasn’t but 10-20 feet we walked before reaching a trail head sign showing the route. We had already roughly known the route, since we could pretty easily see with Google maps satellite imaging where a trail snaked along the river (South Fork of the Nooksack River). What we didn’t know was what kind of stream crossings we’d encounter were going to be like, and if we’d even find anything that could even remotely be evidence of the Dye Homestead. But we were determined and excited to be out in the woods enjoying the beauty Washington and the Saxon area has to offer.
The trail, other than fighting nettle bushes the entire way, was pretty straight and had very little deviation in elevation (until the very end). We walked along for about a mile and a half or two miles, talking and having a blast while I picked out a few spots to take some shots, before we came to our first stream crossing. My dad being the agile old man that he is, decided to take the “log balancing” route, while I opted to go the obvious “horse” route (being that I’m about as agile as a Clydesdale). Luckily the stream wasn’t very deep or wide, and we made short work in crossing it. Not much further though, maybe another mile/mile and a half down the path, we came across Cavanaugh Creek, a much deeper, much wider, and much stronger creek.
This was our first challenge (wasn’t going to be the last), but after taking a quick “assessment” break and pulling out my hiking poles, we crossed. Fun fact, Cavanaugh Creek is fed by snow run off from South Twin mountain, so when you cross it (even in the middle of June), it’s still cold as FUCK!!! Somewhat intelligently though, once we crossed over the creek, we sat down and rung out our socks and shoes, making sure that we got as much water out as possible but not changing into new socks just yet, since we know we’d be doing it again on the way back.
Once Cavanaugh was dealt with, and we rung as much of the creek that came with us out of our shoes and socks, we set off back down the trail. Once again being met with a nice little hike through the woods, down a pretty well maintained path, until we were met with a fork in the path. Going Right was pretty easy to see that we’d be headed almost straight down to the river, potentially having the trail chocked off at some point and having to double back. Going Left we faced our second (and almost adventure stopping) challenge, a path that led up a “hill” of unknown distance and incline. Taking a quick look at the GPS and having a quick calculations discussion, we decided to go left.
Now, I’ll be the first one to admit that I am not in peak physical shape, but I huffed and puffed and “one step at a time’d” up that damn hill with everything I had, and I am DAMN proud of myself for doing so. I paid for it for the entire week afterword, but I didn’t care, I wanted to do it (not for anyone else, but for myself). My dad on the other hand, climbed that hill like he was part mountain goat, and I will not bull shit you that I was jealous the entire way up (and of course back down as well).
When we reached the top, we didn’t have far down the trail to go before we came to another decision to make. Now we were faced with having to deviate from the trail entirely, or continue up the trail that doubled back and looked to lead away from our GPS marker. So, we decided “screw it”, the path as the crow flies might be the better option here, so let’s try it, and away we went into the brush.
Moving at a much slower pace now, we made it maybe 200 yards from the path when we noticed a rather obvious small tree cleared area in the woods. Quickly I pulled out my GPS, thinking we’d found the homestead, but when I saw our location, I noticed that we were still a little ways North of the homestead coordinates. What we did come to the conclusion of though, was that we had found the 1st homestead location, which we had been told burned down and forced the Dye family to push further down the hill and closer to the river (where the 2nd and final homestead was built). We didn’t want to stay too long, mostly because there wasn’t much to “see”, or better yet photograph, and also because we had burnt a lot of daylight dealing with that stupid hill and still had a “little” ways to go.
After my dad snapped a quick shot of me standing in the middle of the cleared out homestead area, we set back down the “trail” (which we also determined to be the original wagon/carriage road). At last we made it, no not to the homestead, to the final challenge. A stream/waterfall crossing, ripe with eroded land on either side of it, and an almost vertical edge to jump up onto. “Not so gracefully” crossing, but at least making it over unscathed, we were met with an amazing site. A blatantly obvious historic logging road, with alder trees beautifully lining each side. Unfortunately this is where our exploration adventure ends, since we could actually make out the “road” on the GPS, and it lead all the way down past the Homestead to the river and we couldn’t chance not being able to find a path back North to actual homestead coordinates.
Exhausted, slightly discouraged we didn’t fully make it, and hungry. We sat down for our final break of the day, where I broke into my tuna sandwich and bag of mixed nuts, before recording a short video to talk about where we were and how we couldn’t make it. We were so close! Damn it! I know there’d be another shot at it, and we talked about next time planning for an overnight trip, but I still wanted so bad to keep on, knowing all to well that it would’ve a stupid decision to try and keep pushing on.
So after pouting for a few minutes and then telling myself “you did amazing, so stop being a bitch”, we stuffed all our trash in our packs, I put all my camera gear safely into my pack, and we started our trek back to the car. Carefully crossing back over the little stream/waterfall, passing the tiny homestead clearing, cursing my entire way back down that god forsaken hill, trying our best to cross Cavanaugh Creek will less water in our boots than the first time (didn’t work) and then wringing out our boots & changing into dry socks, then hoofing it down the trail again before crossing the 2nd little creek (this time dad decided to opt out of the “balancing log” path), and marching all the way back to the trailhead. That last part, from the little creek crossing back to the trail head was the hardest I’ve “dug deep” while hiking in years. Being out of shape and being so exhausted as I was, I’m not going to lie that I almost gave up a few times.
I’m not sure when I’ll attempt to get to the homestead again, but mark my words, come hell or high water I will make it.
I’m so happy I got to spend Fathers Day with my dad, happy to have started Project: Family Photos, and happy of what I accomplished physically. The power of determination is a crazy motivator.
I know this was a long one, and I hope you enjoyed the read. The photos that follow are a mixture of both my dads and mine, and will be cherished for the rest of my life, alongside the photos I took with my film camera (that hopefully come out exposed correctly, lol).
Until next time, I hope you have fantastic days ahead, and I’ll catch y’all later.
Andrew Hoyle
Crossing Cavanaugh Creek
Enjoying Cavanaugh Creek
