By Matt Kite
South County Journal

Is blood really thicker than water?

It depends on the water. Or, in the case of Greenwater, the rivers.

Straddling the confluence of White River and Greenwater River, the one-street town of Greenwater serves year round as a jumping off point for thousands of outdoor enthusiasts, including hunters, hikers and mountain bikers.

In the winter, nearby Crystal Mountain looms like a frozen Greek siren, luring skiers and snowboarders to its icy slopes. Fortunately, the way to the ski lift isn’t littered with shipwrecked sailors. Up here, the fate that awaits most amounts to nothing worse than a few frozen toes—or a peppermint schnapps hangover.

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But not everyone leaves for civilization when the weekend ends.

Some folks, like Bob and Debbie Grubb, call Greenwater home. The Grubbs set up shop on the side of Highway 410 in 1974, opening up Wapiti Woolies, a rustic outdoor wear shop specializing in wool hats. They manufacture the hats themselves, and their shop has become one of the most popular destinations in Greenwater.

“I guess you could say I was always here,” says Bob, who grew up in Sumner but spent most of his weekends and summers in Greenwater.

Bob found refuge in the tiny town after returning home from a year’s duty in Vietnam.

“I was a 19 or 20 year old kid working at Boeing when I got drafted (by the U.S. Army),” he recalls, “and they sent me to Vietnam. Can you imagine that?”

The jungles of Southeast Asia are a long way from Greenwater, a town of 300 or so that straddles not just two rivers but two counties (King and Pierce).

“We’re in Pierce County here,” says Bob, adding that he considers Greenwater part of eastern Washington and not the more urban half of the state.

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It’s clear and crisp outside, a rare sunny day in November. Inside Wapiti Woolies, the air is a balmy 70 degrees. Shoppers browse while the owner muses.

“We used to have to scoot over a hat rack and put down a cot when we first opened,” he says of the store’s old location, which used to be home as well before the Grubbs bought a house nearby. “Every time our shop space increased, our living space decreased.”

As for Greenwater’s popularity, Bob has one, simple theory.

“We’ve got the only bathroom for 70 miles,” he says, laughing.

Actually, Enumclaw is less than a half hour down the highway. But searching for amenities as you head east into the Cascades can be an arduous exercise in delayed gratification.

A few hundred yards away from Wapiti Woolies sits the sheriff’s office, a one-room building the size of a Kodak shack. The tiny front porch, complete with log posts, boasts a couple of chairs, both of which are empty today.

The building is closed up, with a sign in the window that reads “Sheriff is out today.”

Next door, Jessica Nelson stocks the shelves at Greenwater’s general store. Jessica, 23, has lived here off and on since 1994, when her mom found a job at Crystal. Jessica was soon to follow.

“Ever since I was old enough to work,” she says, “I’ve worked at Crystal Mountain.”

In the off season, she punches the clock for two employers: the general store and Naches Tavern.

“You can’t live here without knowing everyone,” she says. “It’s too small.”

Too small, maybe. But everyone looks out for each other. And neighbors might as well be family.

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When Rose Southworth first entered the Greenwater Lodge Coffee Shop 20 years ago, the building, which housed a canoe, was full of sand. A pair of floods in the late 70s had left much of the town’s structures badly damaged. As the rivers peaked, residents were cut off from one another, with the bridge underwater and the town gas pumps engulfed in floodwater.

First built in 1917, the Greenwater Lodge Coffee Shop survived several floods, as well as a handful of name changes. Rose and her husband Mel bought the building five years ago, eventually overhauling the restaurant and re-opening it with its original name last August.

“We like it up here because it is a small community, and you do get to know your neighbors,” Rose says during a smoke break. “People pull together.”

Rose serves up what she calls “Cascade Country” cuisine to neighbors and tourists alike. Her chef, Eric Clever, makes everything from scratch, including the pride of the menu: Grilled Breast of Chicken Cascade, a “char grilled breast of chicken served on pasta, with grilled portobello mushrooms and sautéed artichokes, drizzled with a thyme-scented wild mushroom sauce.” Other local-flavored specialties include Wild Mushroom Toss, Pan Seared Trout and a Venison Chili Burger.

Clever commutes daily from Puyallup. And, though he’s not an official Greenwater family member, says he’s welcomed every time he crosses the river.

“I don’t feel like an outsider,” he says. “There are really good folks here.”

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Back at the general store, a community bulletin board serves up the usual fodder: vacation rental available, babysitter wanted, and so on. In the middle of the board, a handwritten note, tattered from the wind, pays homage to the town.

The note, written by the Grove family, was posted a few weeks earlier, when Jake and Carol took their two-year-old son Leif, known as the “Greenwater Baby,” back to Montana so they could be closer to family.

“People always say that blood is thicker than water,” the note reads. “If there was ever a case that comes close to making that statement not true, it would be a town called Greenwater.”