The river begged to be explored so, its rushing water on occasion wetting her little bare feet, my granddaughter and her tiny backpacking companion hopped from protruding boulder to boulder under the watchful gaze of her nearby mother, all while leaving a trail of footprints of where she had been. Then she paused and sat […]
Letter: The Wayfaring Stranger of Grief
The place I pitched my tent the night I camped at Cape Alava recently on Washington’s coastal shore of the Olympic National Park, was a bit beyond the reach of high tide and in the shadow of Tskawayah Island. Or might have been in the shadow of the forbidden, fog-enshrouded, formidable spruce-encrusted island, a sacred […]
Letter: Sweet to Be With
Three miles beyond the northernmost point of the wild and mystical hike hauntingly and appropriately called “The Shipwreck Coast,” on a small bluff overlooking the surreal landscape of jagged rocks and boulder strewn shoreline, there is a monument, the engraving of which reads in part, “From Osett endings have become beginnings.” The Makah Indian Nation […]
Letter: There’ll Be Mountains
“What did you like best about your first ever hike?” I asked my five year old granddaughter when we returned home last evening from her two-and-a-half miler. I was quite surprised at her answer. She did not mention the river at all, though she had taken off her shoes and spent more time in the […]
Letter: There’s Joy in the Journey Too
It would have been her 76th birthday so though I had lost her to cancer after a half-century of marriage, once again I found myself in the mountains. There by one of our favorite rivers, a simple hike where so long, long ago we had gone hand-in-hand, I unpacked both her and my favorite beverage, and […]
Letter: Still Walking Her Home
As I write this today, July 29, I am 46 miles away from my goal of a 100-mile summer of hiking through the mountains of Washington’s Cascades and Olympics and along the Pacific Coast. I just took off one day, a very special day, the one year anniversary of my wife’s homegoing. I lost her […]
Letter: Every Step
The High Divide trail in Washington’s Olympic National Park climbs higher, and higher, and higher still, 6,190 feet elevation gain over 20.5 miles according to “AllTrails.” The narrow, single file path forever reaches for the sky even while meandering through alpine meadows of lupine and Indian Paintbrush. The trail leads up and over formidable, forested […]
Letter: Go Gently, Know Beauty
Creekside, on the way up the trail to the High Divide in Washington’s Olympic National Park, are the tiny yellow Arnica, and in addition to their happy ‘sunflower look’ they have a long history of use by Native Americans given the flower’s medicinal healing properties to treat inflammation. Higher up, above the mystical and magical […]
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 […]