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The owner's name was Tony. He seemed about as concerned about the place as a dog is about climate change. I told him I might go check it out, if I had time. I didn't want him to think I was desperate, didn't want him to know that within twenty minutes of receiving his message, I was speeding northeast, feverishly trying to cut out of the urban sprawl of Seattle before armies of tech workers swarmed the highways on their commutes home. By three o'clock, I had made it to U.S. 2, a two-lane, east-west corridor that roughly followed the Skykomish River as it wound down from the Cascades to Puget Sound.

In the winter, the highway was clogged with powder-hungry skiers headed to the resort at Stevens Pass. In the summer, it was equally clogged with a combination of hikers and campers looking to escape the bustle of Seattle for a weekend. And in all seasons, city folk streamed over the pass to reach Leavenworth, a stunning mountain town that had been transformed into a strange, pseudo-Bavarian theme park promising big pretzels and overpriced beer. It was, and continues to be, bafflingly popular.

It didn't take long for the landscape to begin shifting as I made my way east. The chain restaurants and clogged intersections gave way to one-light towns and rolling farmland. An hour after I left, the road aligned with the wide banks of the Skykomish River, flecked by the occasional retiree in full waders casting a line. I passed through Sultan, Startup, and Gold Bar, a trio of tiny places that were all too easy to mistake for one another. Experiences on previous road trips had taught me to remember that Sultan was home to the bakery that made cinnamon rolls the size of spare tires and giant cups of coffee that never cost more than a dollar. Startup, of course, was home to the drive-in with the best milkshakes and saltiest fries, and Gold Bar had the Prospector, where a kids' karaoke night turned the establishment into a makeshift day care on odd evenings.

I found myself daydreaming about a life where I would lean into the nooks and crannies of the town's homespun businesses. I imagined stopping in the little lumber store to buy bags of nails by the pound like my dad and I had when I was a kid. I pictured ducking into the studio apartment size post office in Startup to send out letters to friends and family over longer cabin stays. And when I passed by one of the many white water raft companies that shuttled tourists down the Class IV rapids farther upriver, I took special notice of the road sign calling for "New Seasonal Guides! Now Hiring! Training Provided!" picturing myself as a summer raft guide. I hadn't even seen the cabin yet, and I already had a whole new life picked out to complement it.

After Gold Bar came Index, but not immediately. Index had something akin to intro music. In the few miles that separated the two towns, the road got tight. Gone were the farms and rural housing developments. There was no room here, no more flat. Groves of massive Douglas fir and cedar guarded the shoulder. At the edge of Gold Bar, a long bridge revealed the Skykomish River below. No longer wide and calm, it had transformed into a mesmerizing display of shifting blues, swirling from deep cobalt to turquoise to snow white as it churned and tumbled over granite boulders the size of minivans. Taking inspiration from the river, the road began to snake through the valley. Around each bend were teasing glimpses of Mount Index, whose nearly six-thousand-foot peak loomed over the forest below.

U.S. 2 was known for being dangerous. It was the only highway in Washington I knew of that had a permanent sign erected to keep track of how many days it had been since a fatal collision. In over a decade of visits to the area, it felt rare to see the number top twenty-five. The sign itself was just outside of Index, and I often wondered if the dangers came not from the icy conditions in winter or the high speed limit (sixty miles per hour on what were very windy mountain roads) but from the sheer beauty of the place. When you approached the town, it was instinctual to shift forward in your seat, pulling yourself over the steering wheel to see even just 5 percent more of the surrounding granite spires. It was as if the mountains themselves had the power to draw you straight through the fucking windshield.

It seemed too good to be true that I wasn't driving through but diving deeper into those woods. I could only imagine what sort of picture-perfect cabins and cottages would be tucked along the river here, built by those who wanted to complement the surrounding environment rather than impose themselves on it. I figured I'd see folks chopping up firewood in preparation for the cold weather ahead. Maybe there'd be a father and son casting their lines into calm river pools for salmon, or someone out with their dog just enjoying an early-autumn walk.

The directions seemed fairly clear. When I took a right off the highway, I started getting excited. Crunching over a well-maintained gravel road, I slowly cruised along a winding drive that paralleled the river. Up and over a small hill, a homemade arch welcomed me to the Mount Index Riversites.

As the car found its way around a high bend, the road quickly dropped, and I hit the brakes. There was a monster below: a massive waterfall shooting out of a long, bottleneck canyon. It looked like something out of an Old Testament story. Later I would learn that Sunset Falls only drops 104 feet, but it does so over a span of rock about as long as a football field. With most waterfalls, there is an element of grace, a moment when the water is free to slip over the edge and drop without influence. Sunset Falls was not graceful. It was an aquatic mosh pit, a cocaine-fueled waterslide designed by Poseidon himself. I rolled down the window and slowly followed the road as it wound around the pool at the base of the cascade. Mist from the falls drifted through my open window and settled on the dash. It smelled like cedar.

Past the falls, the road turned sharply to cross an old wooden bridge above a straight section of railroad. I was supposedly getting close. According to Tony, Wit's End was not far beyond the bridge, but nothing by that name showed up. Before long, I started second-guessing my directions and my desire to stick around.