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Walking in February: Of Woods and Water

February 2023 brought the opportunity for a weekend getaway to Lake Quinault Lodge in Olympic National Park to celebrate a friend's birthday. Some of the group drove to Montesano with their tandem and solo bicycles and rode the 50 miles from there to the lodge. Others, like those of us healing from a broken wrist who can't cover that much ground by bike right now, drove to the lodge.
Photo of sign that reads Pacific Ranger District at the top, Olympic National Forest at the bottom, with a graphic map of Lake Quinault showing campgrounds, trails, and points of interest in the middle.


As I drove out Friday afternoon, accompanied by the Eagles Live double album, the rain came and went and came again, reminding me with the watery blur and the slapping of my windshield wipers that I was heading into a temperate rain forest. (And, not incidentally, reminding me that I wasn't totally sorry I had to miss the bike ride in the cold grey wetnesscold makes my wrist ache even more.)

Friday dinner and Saturday breakfast meant pleasant socializing with some new acquaintances. We were going to gather again for Saturday dinner, and meanwhile the agenda was wide open for whatever activities appealed. For me, this meant a walk in the woods.Photo of sign reading Worlds Record Sitka Spruce next to narrow road with no shoulder

Photo of the base of a giant tree with roots snaking away above ground, puddles of water standing on muddy ground
I headed first up the narrow, shoulderless road past the lodge to visit the World's Biggest Sitka Spruce. At 191 feet it's a neck-craning forest giant standing in a spot that felt sad, surrounded by the encroachment of spaces designed for tourists exactly like me. 

Photo looking up the trunk of giant Sitka spruce with gnarled bolls and branches
I tried to imagine it standing as one among many in a lush, unbroken tree canopy, birds and animals rustling in the brush that no longer grows around its feet, no signage prompting us to go visit other giant trees in the park, no people posing for a picture to put on Facebook.

From there, following the simple paper map available at the lodge, I headed back to the road and across, following the trail to Gatton Creek Falls.

I walked alone on the soft paths, surrounded by so much green! Mosses, mosses everywhere, reminding me of listening to the audiobook of Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer with its rich description of their complex lives, structures, and functions.

Every so often I passed a gigantic stump, quite possibly a mother tree cut down to build the lodge I had slept in the night before. I could not help but say softly, "I'm sorry, Mother." Saplings sprang from each stump to fill the space left behind, fed by their mother's body and watered by the rain falling all around.

Photo looking up a forest stream with green trees and lush ferns on either side, fallen logs leaning from the bank into the water that's foaming over rocks.
I heard a creek chuckling off to one side. A small wooden footbridge provided a place to stop and listen to the water rushing downhill before continuing cautiously across on the slippery wet wood, then on up the hill.


Photo of a wooded path stretching ahead and curving left, surrounded by tall trees, stumps, ferns, moss

This wasn't a hike to cover lots of ground quickly or get somewhere by a certain time. This was a walk simply to be in the woods. I gazed up, down, around and along the trail. Every minute gave me something to look at.

The very small: Delicate traceries of mosses and baby ferns. 

The very big: Those mother trees, downed logs, and tall trees soaring up, draped in long grey-green beards of Spanish moss. 


The pale: The underside of a patch of lichen, fallen from a trunk or limb above. Perhaps all that sogginess was too much to hold onto? It's so moist, like walking on thick sponges. Weblike masses of another moss shrouding a tree as if I were in Shelob's lair.
Photo closeup of a curly swatch of lichen showing its pale underside and a bit of the pale green upper surface

The bright: Rusty red maple leaves decaying into the soil, the contrast of a log's interior below the dark bark, pale orange dead ferns.



Life, life everywhere. The full circle, with green springing up from brown, climbing, growing, falling back to become soil again. Walking in woods and water reminding me that this world doesn't require me, or humans, to be whole and beautiful.

Photo of giant stump of tree that pulled out of the ground and tipped over with green ferns growing up out of the exposed soil

Photo looking into a forest with standing trees, fallen logs, ferns, dead leaves on the ground

1 comment:

  1. Right after publishing this I read a wonderful piece by novelist Tommy Orange in Orion Magazine on ancient redwoods and sequoia. So much better than anything I said in this post. https://orionmagazine.org/article/trees-of-mystery/

    I didn't write about the Quinault people, who would have walked these woods with no signage or maintained trails, and who are still here. I should have; I thought about that and their absence from the history on the signs.

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