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Into the Skagit

Day 5 · Completed

Arlington

Washington

Arlington at the forks of the Stillaguamish

This day on the route

Date
The day
Walking
Walked
9 miles

Day 5, September 11: 9 miles walked, from Marysville into Arlington by way of the Centennial Trail. This public place anchor does not imply a hosted visit, tribal affiliation or a reserved trail route.

Route overview, not turn-by-turn directions.

Painted view from a wooded bluff over two river channels meeting around gravel bars, with a town, fields and blue mountains beyond.
Illustration inspired by Arlington, Washington.

On September 11 Jeana walked 9 miles from Marysville into Arlington, the last of them on the Centennial Trail with only a day pack. River travel, the railway and the trail each leave a different layer in the town’s history.

Arlington stands at the forks of the Stillaguamish River. The city’s history describes the river as a travel corridor long before the settler town and records Arlington’s incorporation in 1903. The location matters independently of any modern road: two river branches meet here, tying the town to the wider valley.

The city’s Main Street walking tour, updated with the Stillaguamish Valley Museum in 2026, follows another layer of that history. The original depot closed in 1972 and was later removed. A replica was built as a visitor center. Some railway tracks remain near Legion Park, while the corridor north of downtown became part of the Centennial Trail.

She started the morning at Marysville Fire Station 62. Just after noon a woman in a white van, Becky, pulled over to tell her the Centennial Trail was close by and led her round to it. Becky took the heavy pack home ahead of her, so the last miles into Arlington were walked on the trail with a day pack, and at the end of them there was a shower, a hot dinner and a tent pitched inside an outbuilding on the family’s farm.

From the road

Nine miles to Arlington, and a stranger with a farm

She started the morning at Marysville Fire Station 62, and told them about Roy Chelsen. He was the man at Engine 28, on East Second Street, who twenty-five years ago to the day found a way out along a brick wall and under a pedestrian bridge and got his company clear of the North Tower. In December 2005 he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and the search for his marrow donor became a public appeal on behalf of everyone else waiting. His story is on the Foundation’s Heroes page. The crew were moved by it, photographed her sign, and said they would pass on how to join.

On her way into Marysville the day before, and on her way out of it, she found a lot of wild blackberry bushes. The berries were ripe and delicious, so she picked them as she walked by.

Then 67th Avenue Northeast, which has next to no shoulder and a great deal of traffic. It made for slow going — a few steps, then off the road onto the lip above the gully, every time a car came. She walks facing the traffic and catches the drivers’ eyes, so she knows she has been seen.

Just after noon a white van slowed and stopped beside her. The woman driving wanted to tell her the Centennial Trail was close by, and led her round to a side street where they could talk away from the highway. Jeana explained the walk, and that she relies on the generosity of other people for her food and her bed. The woman apologised: there was no room in the house. Jeana asked whether there might be room in the garden for a tent. She smiled and said they live on a farm — so there was plenty. Her name is Becky.

So the last miles into Arlington were walked on the Centennial Trail with nothing but a day pack, because Becky had taken the heavy one home ahead of her. There was a shower at the end of it, and a hot dinner, and a tent pitched inside an outbuilding in case it rained in the night.

It is a house with three generations in it, and Becky’s daughter Jenny took to the thing Jeana has been carrying all week along with everything else — that a pack teaches you very quickly the difference between what you want and what you need, because you will carry what you need and the rest is only weight. Jenny passed it on to her own children the same evening. Jeana calls it a lovely family and says so twice.

You learn very quickly the difference between what I want and what I need, because you will carry what you need, but what you want is extra and you don’t want to carry that weight.

Jeana Moore
An archival black-and-white photograph of a firefighter in a helmet and turnout coat with reflective stripes, one hand on a grab bar, standing beside a fire engine marked 28 with a Fire Department City of New York emblem on its side.A gull standing on the crossbar of a grey metal pole beside a road, in front of a tall sign reading Casino, Quil Ceda Creek, Torch Grill, with parked cars and tall evergreens behind.A dense, cone-shaped evergreen standing in a cemetery among taller dark trees, with granite headstones in the dry grass around it and a small American flag on a grave in the distance.A two-lane road with a double yellow centre line running ahead between dry grass and tall evergreens, with power lines along the left side and a single car approaching in the distance.Orange, red and white flowers growing thickly behind a wire trellis strung between green metal posts, with tall corn plants in tassel rising behind them.The front of a fire station under a bright overcast sky, with a red command truck parked in the open bay door.Two horses, one light brown and one black, grazing side by side in a dry fenced pasture beneath a wide grey sky, with trees and wooded hills beyond.A black horse in mid-stride across a dry pasture with its head turned towards the camera, a light brown horse standing at left and a pale horse facing away by the wire fence, with tall trees behind.A two-lane road dipping and climbing away under the arching branches of a row of trees with dark purple leaves, with fallen leaves heaped along the curb in the foreground.A field of tall corn in tassel filling most of the frame, with power lines and a dark wooded ridge under a grey sky beyond.Two dead trees with pale grey trunks and bare branches, one tall and one slender, rise over thick green undergrowth, with low shed roofs, one heaped with fallen branches, and a flat brown field beyond under a cloudy sky.Long, trailing branches of a willow hanging like a curtain over thick undergrowth, with a red barn just visible through a gap in the trees.
Show all 20 photos from this dayShow fewer photos
A paved trail running straight between tall trees and long grass, dappled with leaf litter.A paved trail curving away under a wide, pale sky, with a striped metal bollard inside a painted yellow diamond in the middle of the path and a tall tree beside a road with a turn sign marked 15 MPH.A wooden fence painted with a row of fir trees and a mountain, lettered Arlington, WA.An owl with yellow eyes and ear tufts painted on a fence of pale wooden boards, perched among evergreen branches beside a hanging cone, the mural signed and dated 2024.Clumps of ferns spread across a sloping forest floor of brown needles, dead fronds and fallen twigs, with drooping evergreen boughs at the top and a pale, straight trunk along the right edge.A dense clump of ferns filling the frame, their long green fronds spreading over a forest floor of dry brown leaf litter and dead fronds.Small, deeply lobed leaves turning orange and pink on the branches of a tree, framing a pond with a fountain playing beyond and a grassy bank on the left.The red log front of a building under a pale ribbed metal roof, with a long sign reading Stillaguamish Valley Pioneers, a carved board reading Pioneer Hall 1923 and two log benches.
Distance walked
9 miles
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Sources

Local history and background reading for this stop.

  1. History of Arlington — checked Sep 5, 2026
  2. Main Street walking tour — checked Sep 5, 2026
The flyer: STOP BLOOD CANCER set in tall letters over a dark plum page, a quote, and a QR code beside a text-to-join line for the U.S.One standing face of the table tent: the same headline and quote on the left, a large QR code on the right.

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