Letter: “Oh Man! Somethin’ Special!”

The park ranger at the entrance to the Sol Doc Valley in Washington’s Olympic National Park asked where I was going.

“High Divide Loop,” I answered.

“Oh man! Somethin’ special!” he replied.

As I drove on up the mountain road to the trailhead, I brushed away tears. It was the day of what would have been my 52^nd Anniversary but I had lost my wife to cancer sixteen months previous.

‘You have no idea,’ I had thought of sharing with the ranger, ‘how special this day is.’

Nor did I know how incredibly special it would be.

Obvious as the nose on my face was the sign at the trailhead that fairly shouted ‘David! Lunch Lake, right next to Round Lake where you have reservations to camp for the night, is THIS WAY!

‘Turn right David!’

But, for reasons at that intersection and at that moment inexplicable, I turned left instead of right.

I even had a map, with directions, and arrows pointing the way, and I still turned left instead of right.

I hiked for seven very tough hours, up and up, wondering ‘where in the heck is Deer Lake? And Lunch Lake? And shouldn’t I have come to Round Lake in the Seven Lakes Basin to spend the night? I’m exhausted!’

But did I pull out my map and check? No. I simply didn’t think of it.

After being on the climb almost twice as many hours as I had estimated (this hike is rightly described in various accounts as “very challenging,” the elevation gain “moderate to steep” – 4000 ft. in fact according to “Washington Trails”) I crested a rise having thought for some time that I couldn’t go much farther and there, right in front of me was a lake in the shape of a heart.

Dumbfounded, I said right aloud, “What am I doing at Heart Lake?”

It was then that I looked at my map and discovered that at the very outset of the trail – seven hours ago – I had made a ‘wrong’ turn which, as it turned out, would be the right turn after all.

I had originally wanted to stay at Heart Lake, given it was what would have been my 52nd Anniversary, but in making my reservations weeks before I was told Heart Lake campsites were all taken for the night of my request.

But now that I was here, and way too tired to move further, I found a grove of trees, a place just perfect for my little tent, and there I set up camp.

I would not see other tents in another grove of trees nearby until the next morning and only then as I climbed on up above Heart Lake and looked back at the way I had come.

There is a high rock peak atop the ridge with steps formed out of the rock over which hikers are directed to go who plan to complete the loop of 18 miles. And that’s when I turned back, realizing then – as I sat viewing the majesty of Mount Olympus – that I would have never made that loop as exhausted as I was with these 74 year old knees; that even now every step back down would have to be carefully planned; that I had seen what I had come to see; that I had come the right way after all.

And I realized too – as I rested alone atop the ridge before the long trail down, and as I looked out over fields of flowers sprinkled over these alpine meadows, that that night, the night of what would have been our 52^nd anniversary, when the moon was full, high above the ridge, its reflection caught in the still water of Heart Lake – I realized how very blessed I have been.

And that night, as I drifted off to sleep, my heart happy to be in this beautiful place where I was, my heart was happier still to have been for a half-century married to my dearest treasure on all this beautiful planet.

Because I had made a ‘wrong’ turn, I was where I hadn’t planned to be, camped at the bottom of Heart Lake.

Which leaves me thinking, again, as throughout all my life, from the bottom of my heart, I believe that my steps have been ordered and orchestrated, my plans on occasion overruled, so as to arrive where otherwise I would not have been, to have been blessed beyond what I could have dreamed.

Somethin’ special.