Would you like to keep me company pondering and/or discussing a new topic from my friend, author Tyrean Martinson’s book – A Pocket Sized Jumble of 500+ Writing Prompts – with all screens switched off? Then lean back, and let yourself be swamped with ideas about an evergreen forest reaching up to an overpass. And we have plenty of such in Western Washington, that’s for sure.
First of all, we do have a lot of evergreen forests this side of the Cascades. But I also grew up with evergreen forests in Germany, specifically close to the Black Forest. I have always been fascinated by evergreen forests, and I still try to figure out why. It’s not that I don’t like trees that shed their foliage; but as a child I was not into those bare trees that took so long to become green again. So, maybe that’s the reason. Plus, we see a lot more evergreen forests replacing hewn lumber than deciduous trees.
We also have a lot of bridges, or overpasses, in Western Washington. Many of them cross over brooks, rivers, and gorges … in evergreen forests. Some of these river gorges are extremely deep. That deep that the overpass goes way over the very tips of the evergreens below. Only those on the sides of the climbing slopes reach up to the viaduct, and if one gets out of the car, one might think that one could touch the very treetop with one’s fingers. But leaning out that far over the railing is out of the question, of course.
Even more fascinating about evergreen forests reaching up to overpasses is that when the viaducts are at a higher elevation and it is humid, clouds will be caught in the treetops. You see the very tips pierce the whisps of white. You might be above the clouds, maybe even in them. Surrounded by the evergreens.
There is a specific bridge that comes to my mind when I picture all this. If you drive towards the Carbon River entrance of Mount Rainier National Park, a few miles after the town entrance of Carbonado you will reach the Fairfax Bridge. It is an old steel-lattice three-hinged bridge that spans the Carbon River at 250 feet (76 m) of height. The gorge below is steep, and the river runs wild. In the typical cold and humid rainforest climate of late fall through early summer, the bridge’s elevation of 1112 feet (339 m) is not high enough to be enveloped by clouds. But it is quite close to that experience due to the narrowness of the river gorge between the summits of which clouds easily get caught.
Would wildlife use the overpass to cross from one side of the gorge to the other? My husband and I have never encountered any deer or other wild mammals even closer by, apart from the occasional chipmunk. Since wildlife is known to get used to overpasses in order to avoid traffic, I think it is entirely possible that animals might use the viaduct as a short cut instead of going all the way down, crossing the treacherous river, and climbing up the other side again. Especially as the bridge is a one-lane one and only used by the few cars that either head for Fairfax or for the park entrance. Of course, I might be wrong.
There are lots of other overpasses in the world where evergreen forests grow. What are YOUR thoughts or memories when pondering the prompt?
