The rain arrives in pebbles
it pools as mercury, gathers
in mud runs in mud
where even the Snake is sunk.
Rain in rivers, torrents
spearheads, watersheds
in echoes within this tent,
gathers moisture in the switchbacks
loosens rainbows, shakes
the ponderosa pine,
drips upon a mariposa lilly.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The path to Lake Chelan - July 5th to July 16th
Now I know the weight of life. The weight of death. And ‘the unbearable lightness of being’ gets it wrong. It’s the solid, small weight of it that leaves you gasping. 
We were three full days’ hike into the North Cascades. We hadn’t seen a soul. Two days earlier we had crossed over Horsehead Pass, 7,600’, through the last of the snow, out of the Methow Watershed and west, down toward Lake Chelan far below, sixty miles long and as thin as a snake. We hadn’t even half planned to be here, having being told by the rangers in the know that the passes even 1000’ short of that were still impassable. But what we had thought of as a few days up and around the wilds of the Eagle Lakes, on the East flanks of the Sawtooth ridges, above the Methow, had gathered adventure like a rolling stone when, pitched for our first night on a rocky outcrop, tea brewing, Becs spotted the pass above on our crude map. No-one had even mentioned it as a way through. That night as light faded I (Tom) climbed higher to see how the pass was looking, through broad spreads of snow, past Upper Eagle Lake still iced over. And the raven was there once again, at home below Raven’s Ridge, close enough I could feel his heat, the drive of the air about him. I returned, marking out the route with a stick, the fire a welcoming through the pine, one of his broad feathers behind my ear (a goodnight story for Freya and Kai tucked behind the other). And I had other company though I didn’t know it. We decided that
night that we’d give the pass a go. And when we re-traced my steps the following morning, the four of us in a line, there clear behind my bootprints in the snow were those of a wolf. All the way up they were with us, as watchful as the mountains.
In fact the pass itself was no big deal. Quite a bit of scrambling, and a couple of deep snowshute sections were we dug in with our boots and carried Kai across. Freya’s now sussed using a stick for support, making sure to keep it uphill. And what a feeling to be there at this crossing, a place of wolves and ancient footsteps, the jagged Sawtooths arching off on either side, and knowing that away down below, even though we couldn’t begin to see it, were the cool deep waters of Lake Chelan. Hauling those packs on our backs, setting Freya and Kai loose on the downward
path, was stepping into mystery.
We camped that night by Cub Lake, with lots of fresh bear shit and prints on the last stretches of the tight, overgrown path. There were old signs of horses, but nothing from this year, maybe longer. We were the first over the pass and down. And I caught my first (and only) trout of the hike, not even in the mouth poor thing. The kids were already in bed and Becs and I gutted and gobbled it getting increasingly anxious about how tempting the smells would be for the local bears, and how impossible it was to wash your fingers clean.
Still, we needed the food. We had brought five-six days supply with us, including a wonderful stash of magic from Annie, exotic dried tomatoes, apricots, raspberries, squash, all from past harvests on the farm. We’d used two days’ worth. And although we felt pretty confident that we had enough to get us to the Lake, arriving at Prince’s Creek two thirds’ northward along it, and then hike on up to the tip and food at the village of Stehikan (only accessible by boat, hike or waterplane), we needed to be careful.
But it should have dawned on us as we hiked down from the lake the next day that something wasn’t quite right. Early on we began to hit burnt-out tree-fall, then great stretches of it, endless tangles across the path, a criss-crossing of blackened trunks big and small. For miles. In the gathering heat as we descended. The kids were absolutely astonishing, just to write about it now gets me glowing. Without any complaint, in fact almost with springs of adrenalin and youth and life-force in their short legs like pistons. We dunked them in streams running off the canyon side, and they would climb and crawl over and under, charcoal across their faces, steaming. And they developed a game of choosing whether a given trunk across our path was an ‘underly’ or an ‘overly’ or a ‘roundy’, and enjoying how we adults would struggle across one balanced under all the weight of our teetering packs while they slipped beneath and away light as elves. But we should have paused and caught breath and got thinking rather than striding stumbling on, forward driven. Why was the path so wild and unused? Why had it not been cleared for some number of years? As the sun edged down, and we at last dropped steeply down the canyon side to the roaring river, Princes Creek, and I saw Becs ahead arms wide face up and open, heavenward, shouting something my way, I knew even if I couldn’t hear her – the bridge was out.
Different lives will throw up these moments different numbers of time. Usually (at least in the West, if you’re as lucky as most of us are) I guess a couple of times. Maybe a small handful. Moments when you really feel it, the small weight of your child’s existence in your hands. As eternal as a pebble. And here we were. It was a big, thick-limbed, broad-backed good-old corker of a wooden bridge, and it had been torn open by the river and all that it carried, sometime way back. Now the river just thudded and jostled around its cracked ends. And on. Steeply down. Heading its own way, utterly unbothered.
I think we both felt pretty calm. We knew very clearly that we were in a spot where it was crucial that we made the right decisions. And once we’d triple-checked that there was n
o way that the river could be forded, there were only two basic options – to climb back the way we’d come, across all that timber, up 5,000’ plus, over the pass and down all the way back to our car. 3 to 4 days with not quite enough food. A really tough challenge for us all. Awful but doable. Or, the cottonwood tree we found fallen three hundred yards downriver, its long trunk reaching out from the other side. A crossing. But one where if we got it wrong and either of the kids, and probably either of the adults, went in, the chances of survival were low.
The crossing with Kai, in my emptied rucksack, that’s where I felt the weight. The first ‘runs’ were different – a test go without anything, then the heavy loads of the rucksacks one by one. Very sure. Very focussed. Absolutely intent on remaining sure. Faithful. Knowing that if I let any doubt slip between my laces it would topple me. But on those I didn’t carry the weight of life. The tactileness of it. As I set out with the little man I could feel it heavy in my hand. Like a balance. Like the startling yellow of the swallowtail butterfly, the weight of weightlessness. A magical weight. And after those first few steps with Kai I teetered, Becs on the bank but I don’t think she was looking. Lost my cool, unsure, the only time. It was always more difficult going out than back, the shape and slope of the trunk, it started narrow, rose, up and down a couple of times, a knobbly bit, then broader, safer as you approached the far bank. It would move beneath you early on. And there as I wavered I felt the weight of death and life most keenly, and the very heaviness in my hand, the absoluteness, the identity of it, of Kai as a breathing living sprit of life, solid in my palm, rounded, almost like a stone shaped long ago, righted me. We crossed OK.
Then back for Freya, and once again for Shootarocket (Kai’s dog, doesn’t really eat anything, stupid, he’s not real) and odds and ends, light-footed, Becs sure too, smooth as a bum-shuffle. Euphoric. Buzzing in the aftermath. And so high and exhausted that as we climbed back up and along the north face of the canyon, cliff-edged tight-pathed, driving forward at speed, Becs and Freya ahead, searching for a camp spot, telling Kai a tale to keep his wee legs pumping, still somehow pumping, the two of us little and large completely lost our sense of direction and the path and doubled back on ourselves thinking we were on a switchback. Mad! With fear rising afresh out of that water as I shouted loud for B and F and got no reply, fallen petals on the ground, our first rattlesnake watching on a rock beside the path, Kai’s tight brave little hand in mine.
The final couple of hours of that day were half dream, the sun behind the steep slopes. We were so caught within the bundle of our adventure by then, seesawing about in the tale end of a story. Skipping about as we at last heard each others’ shouts along the trail, but a moment later really fearful as a long rattlesnake hurtled at Becs off a rock beside the path. Freya was a few feet back, so Becs had the space to jump back else she would surely have been bitten. And then the creature wouldn’t budge, coiled in the centre of the path, head high, fear concentrated in that rattle. We lobbed a couple of stones at it, tried to persuade it with a long stick, but it wouldn’t budge. These things are meant to budge! Everyone says that they just want to get out of your way. This one didn’t. We reckoned in the end that it was protecting a nest, and gingerly climbed up and around on the steep slope above the path.
There were others, it seemed like they were stacked up on energy from the hot day, and out on the hunt as other creatures headed back to their nooks and crannies. We could have taken the hint from the map, with ‘Rattlesnake Creek’ running adjacent to the north. And for the only time on what eventually turned out to be a 12 days in the mountains, I took Kai on my shoulders for a stretch. We tucked Freya in between the two of us, and stomped on.
That night we got to Lake Chelan. The bonny banks. It’s an incredible geography, sunk in a great twisting wedge between 9,000’ mountains, 1,500’ deep. And we had no idea what we would find at Prince’s Creek as we spilled out of the mountains, until we took a look for bears through the binoculars and saw instead crude colours. It turned out that there was one other party camped there, a father and his two kids, they’d boated in, really friendly. But our fourth night in, with only wild creatures and ourselves and the space for company, it jarred.
As did the three days that followed. The father (Sean) kindly re-stocked our food supplies when he made an overnight trip back to the south end of the lake, and we stayed put, taking a couple of solo day hikes, adjusting to the brutal heat as it hit 100, your shadow black and hard as granite against the rock, encountering a bear (Tom), very close by as I tiptoed round a corner downwind to find what looked like a young one on its hind legs feeding on the lower branches of a tree.
But the Lake is a destination, boats making their way back and forth in the midst of the day, lots of marveling, before the dusk winds gather and calm settles once again. And after a chunk of time when you have no idea what the next corner will bring, when the small gang of the family is alone in the wild, to find yourself amongst humans is to notice the odd colours that we choose, the ceaselessness of our noise (a motor boat, chatter), the way we don’t leave space for the wind to fill, our vulnerability/fragility, how ill at ease we are in our environments, be it a bank with heavy duty stress and alopecia, or where rattlesnakes also bask, the astonishing fact that we don’t believe that swimming in the crystal of a never-ending lake will clean us, that we talk of ancestors, 3 brothers who left Sutherland in 1775 bound west, but we have no true sense of our past, we lie thin and fragile on the surface of Place, and we like to believe we are far from death.
So, after three days of some indecision, a
little lost, half-planning to hike out along the lake to Stehikan, a boat ride south, a hitch back to somewhere near our car, the kids not sleeping at night it was so hot, we got the bit between our teeth again, that edge, Becs as so often the inspiration – if we’ve hiked into this place, more to the point if the kids have managed to hike into this spot, why the hell not hike out again, across one of the other, lower passes, supposedly impassable but surely not after what we’d seen at Horsehead.
And that’s what we did! We hitched a thumping boat-ride with Dick Gordon (!) the ranger to Lucerne, were fatted and feasted by Bob and Sue, the lovely volunteer couple who look after that wee harbourage, and the party camped there, sent on our way with a box of goodies, fresh eggs and the sort of essentials that folk who hike know fit well in a pack, trail mix and a couple of tins of herring. Then a short ride on a loud ferry to Stehikan, an ice-cream, and at last free again on the trail, climbing, heading for the snow way above, the
good old solid weight of our rucksacks on our backs and the space widening about our shoulders.
It took us five days to hike out, up and over South Pass. We could have knocked a day off that, but a scratch of a path to the north-east as we rise from MacAllister Lake (there are Scots’ bones scattered in the folds of the American north-west) is an opening, and I hike up alone to a secret place where the heart bursts from opening.
Hidden Meadow
This place is one where wizards once
made magic, flung themselves
upon the ground, arms wide as
ravens’ wings. They were naked
and against their eardrums
across their open hearts
moths would flutter. Close they got
to earth, close enough to feel
the tremble as the waters of the meadow rose.
Late I climb the hill above
to where the wizards once looked out.
And wondered. There’s a rock
at the very tip, it’s just the
way they left it, skewed
as if it were a rusty key
thick ended, jagged as a sawtooth
ridge. A rock.
How does one hold
an opening? Where
can it possibly sit, what
corner of the heart is safe?
It’s as fragile as a breath,
don’t hold it tight, it will
snap, like a fingernail.
We spent a night in that sacred spot, ring upon ring of mountains holding us still. You could feel the weight of the world tipping it, night gathering behind us like fingers through our hair. And the following day we crossed over the Sawtooth ridge for the second time, far north, 9 days on. Our looping circle closing as we headed for the Twisp River and the Methow Valley. The path was
untraveled, overgrown, with one set of human prints and lots of fresh bear shit. So we held the kids back from their normal horse-galloping twig-mounting downward technique and made noise. At last we found a good spot to camp, all pretty shattered, got all set up, gathering water, pitching the tent, getting the fire going and that dreaded pasta cooking yet again, and just when we’re beginning to relax I go to pick up some more wood and find the freshest, corking-est pile of bear shit yet, steaming merrily beside our tent. Then of course we begin to actually look about and notice the way in which the bear has ripped off great chunks of the bark from the dead trees all around us, and even delved a good old hole in the stump standing beside our fire. All those nice bugs! So I sleep out that night beside the ring of stones and our little fire, and feed the flames from time to time. And in the morning Becs finds fresh bear tracks along the path past our clearing.
Morning dawns. I go to retrieve our food-bag from the tree where it hangs on the other side of the river. There’s not much left. Becs cooks up the last of the oats, and the kids pace down the last three and a half miles to the South Creek Trail head, twenty rough miles up-river from Twisp, pretending to be a red steam train/fire engine called Stanley and a blue one called Thomas, living in world where everything is (respectively) red and blue including the buns in the shops and the colours of folks’ poo.
We were three full days’ hike into the North Cascades. We hadn’t seen a soul. Two days earlier we had crossed over Horsehead Pass, 7,600’, through the last of the snow, out of the Methow Watershed and west, down toward Lake Chelan far below, sixty miles long and as thin as a snake. We hadn’t even half planned to be here, having being told by the rangers in the know that the passes even 1000’ short of that were still impassable. But what we had thought of as a few days up and around the wilds of the Eagle Lakes, on the East flanks of the Sawtooth ridges, above the Methow, had gathered adventure like a rolling stone when, pitched for our first night on a rocky outcrop, tea brewing, Becs spotted the pass above on our crude map. No-one had even mentioned it as a way through. That night as light faded I (Tom) climbed higher to see how the pass was looking, through broad spreads of snow, past Upper Eagle Lake still iced over. And the raven was there once again, at home below Raven’s Ridge, close enough I could feel his heat, the drive of the air about him. I returned, marking out the route with a stick, the fire a welcoming through the pine, one of his broad feathers behind my ear (a goodnight story for Freya and Kai tucked behind the other). And I had other company though I didn’t know it. We decided that
night that we’d give the pass a go. And when we re-traced my steps the following morning, the four of us in a line, there clear behind my bootprints in the snow were those of a wolf. All the way up they were with us, as watchful as the mountains.In fact the pass itself was no big deal. Quite a bit of scrambling, and a couple of deep snowshute sections were we dug in with our boots and carried Kai across. Freya’s now sussed using a stick for support, making sure to keep it uphill. And what a feeling to be there at this crossing, a place of wolves and ancient footsteps, the jagged Sawtooths arching off on either side, and knowing that away down below, even though we couldn’t begin to see it, were the cool deep waters of Lake Chelan. Hauling those packs on our backs, setting Freya and Kai loose on the downward
path, was stepping into mystery.We camped that night by Cub Lake, with lots of fresh bear shit and prints on the last stretches of the tight, overgrown path. There were old signs of horses, but nothing from this year, maybe longer. We were the first over the pass and down. And I caught my first (and only) trout of the hike, not even in the mouth poor thing. The kids were already in bed and Becs and I gutted and gobbled it getting increasingly anxious about how tempting the smells would be for the local bears, and how impossible it was to wash your fingers clean.
Still, we needed the food. We had brought five-six days supply with us, including a wonderful stash of magic from Annie, exotic dried tomatoes, apricots, raspberries, squash, all from past harvests on the farm. We’d used two days’ worth. And although we felt pretty confident that we had enough to get us to the Lake, arriving at Prince’s Creek two thirds’ northward along it, and then hike on up to the tip and food at the village of Stehikan (only accessible by boat, hike or waterplane), we needed to be careful.
But it should have dawned on us as we hiked down from the lake the next day that something wasn’t quite right. Early on we began to hit burnt-out tree-fall, then great stretches of it, endless tangles across the path, a criss-crossing of blackened trunks big and small. For miles. In the gathering heat as we descended. The kids were absolutely astonishing, just to write about it now gets me glowing. Without any complaint, in fact almost with springs of adrenalin and youth and life-force in their short legs like pistons. We dunked them in streams running off the canyon side, and they would climb and crawl over and under, charcoal across their faces, steaming. And they developed a game of choosing whether a given trunk across our path was an ‘underly’ or an ‘overly’ or a ‘roundy’, and enjoying how we adults would struggle across one balanced under all the weight of our teetering packs while they slipped beneath and away light as elves. But we should have paused and caught breath and got thinking rather than striding stumbling on, forward driven. Why was the path so wild and unused? Why had it not been cleared for some number of years? As the sun edged down, and we at last dropped steeply down the canyon side to the roaring river, Princes Creek, and I saw Becs ahead arms wide face up and open, heavenward, shouting something my way, I knew even if I couldn’t hear her – the bridge was out.
Different lives will throw up these moments different numbers of time. Usually (at least in the West, if you’re as lucky as most of us are) I guess a couple of times. Maybe a small handful. Moments when you really feel it, the small weight of your child’s existence in your hands. As eternal as a pebble. And here we were. It was a big, thick-limbed, broad-backed good-old corker of a wooden bridge, and it had been torn open by the river and all that it carried, sometime way back. Now the river just thudded and jostled around its cracked ends. And on. Steeply down. Heading its own way, utterly unbothered.
I think we both felt pretty calm. We knew very clearly that we were in a spot where it was crucial that we made the right decisions. And once we’d triple-checked that there was n
o way that the river could be forded, there were only two basic options – to climb back the way we’d come, across all that timber, up 5,000’ plus, over the pass and down all the way back to our car. 3 to 4 days with not quite enough food. A really tough challenge for us all. Awful but doable. Or, the cottonwood tree we found fallen three hundred yards downriver, its long trunk reaching out from the other side. A crossing. But one where if we got it wrong and either of the kids, and probably either of the adults, went in, the chances of survival were low.The crossing with Kai, in my emptied rucksack, that’s where I felt the weight. The first ‘runs’ were different – a test go without anything, then the heavy loads of the rucksacks one by one. Very sure. Very focussed. Absolutely intent on remaining sure. Faithful. Knowing that if I let any doubt slip between my laces it would topple me. But on those I didn’t carry the weight of life. The tactileness of it. As I set out with the little man I could feel it heavy in my hand. Like a balance. Like the startling yellow of the swallowtail butterfly, the weight of weightlessness. A magical weight. And after those first few steps with Kai I teetered, Becs on the bank but I don’t think she was looking. Lost my cool, unsure, the only time. It was always more difficult going out than back, the shape and slope of the trunk, it started narrow, rose, up and down a couple of times, a knobbly bit, then broader, safer as you approached the far bank. It would move beneath you early on. And there as I wavered I felt the weight of death and life most keenly, and the very heaviness in my hand, the absoluteness, the identity of it, of Kai as a breathing living sprit of life, solid in my palm, rounded, almost like a stone shaped long ago, righted me. We crossed OK.
Then back for Freya, and once again for Shootarocket (Kai’s dog, doesn’t really eat anything, stupid, he’s not real) and odds and ends, light-footed, Becs sure too, smooth as a bum-shuffle. Euphoric. Buzzing in the aftermath. And so high and exhausted that as we climbed back up and along the north face of the canyon, cliff-edged tight-pathed, driving forward at speed, Becs and Freya ahead, searching for a camp spot, telling Kai a tale to keep his wee legs pumping, still somehow pumping, the two of us little and large completely lost our sense of direction and the path and doubled back on ourselves thinking we were on a switchback. Mad! With fear rising afresh out of that water as I shouted loud for B and F and got no reply, fallen petals on the ground, our first rattlesnake watching on a rock beside the path, Kai’s tight brave little hand in mine.The final couple of hours of that day were half dream, the sun behind the steep slopes. We were so caught within the bundle of our adventure by then, seesawing about in the tale end of a story. Skipping about as we at last heard each others’ shouts along the trail, but a moment later really fearful as a long rattlesnake hurtled at Becs off a rock beside the path. Freya was a few feet back, so Becs had the space to jump back else she would surely have been bitten. And then the creature wouldn’t budge, coiled in the centre of the path, head high, fear concentrated in that rattle. We lobbed a couple of stones at it, tried to persuade it with a long stick, but it wouldn’t budge. These things are meant to budge! Everyone says that they just want to get out of your way. This one didn’t. We reckoned in the end that it was protecting a nest, and gingerly climbed up and around on the steep slope above the path.
There were others, it seemed like they were stacked up on energy from the hot day, and out on the hunt as other creatures headed back to their nooks and crannies. We could have taken the hint from the map, with ‘Rattlesnake Creek’ running adjacent to the north. And for the only time on what eventually turned out to be a 12 days in the mountains, I took Kai on my shoulders for a stretch. We tucked Freya in between the two of us, and stomped on.
That night we got to Lake Chelan. The bonny banks. It’s an incredible geography, sunk in a great twisting wedge between 9,000’ mountains, 1,500’ deep. And we had no idea what we would find at Prince’s Creek as we spilled out of the mountains, until we took a look for bears through the binoculars and saw instead crude colours. It turned out that there was one other party camped there, a father and his two kids, they’d boated in, really friendly. But our fourth night in, with only wild creatures and ourselves and the space for company, it jarred.
As did the three days that followed. The father (Sean) kindly re-stocked our food supplies when he made an overnight trip back to the south end of the lake, and we stayed put, taking a couple of solo day hikes, adjusting to the brutal heat as it hit 100, your shadow black and hard as granite against the rock, encountering a bear (Tom), very close by as I tiptoed round a corner downwind to find what looked like a young one on its hind legs feeding on the lower branches of a tree.
But the Lake is a destination, boats making their way back and forth in the midst of the day, lots of marveling, before the dusk winds gather and calm settles once again. And after a chunk of time when you have no idea what the next corner will bring, when the small gang of the family is alone in the wild, to find yourself amongst humans is to notice the odd colours that we choose, the ceaselessness of our noise (a motor boat, chatter), the way we don’t leave space for the wind to fill, our vulnerability/fragility, how ill at ease we are in our environments, be it a bank with heavy duty stress and alopecia, or where rattlesnakes also bask, the astonishing fact that we don’t believe that swimming in the crystal of a never-ending lake will clean us, that we talk of ancestors, 3 brothers who left Sutherland in 1775 bound west, but we have no true sense of our past, we lie thin and fragile on the surface of Place, and we like to believe we are far from death.
So, after three days of some indecision, a
little lost, half-planning to hike out along the lake to Stehikan, a boat ride south, a hitch back to somewhere near our car, the kids not sleeping at night it was so hot, we got the bit between our teeth again, that edge, Becs as so often the inspiration – if we’ve hiked into this place, more to the point if the kids have managed to hike into this spot, why the hell not hike out again, across one of the other, lower passes, supposedly impassable but surely not after what we’d seen at Horsehead.And that’s what we did! We hitched a thumping boat-ride with Dick Gordon (!) the ranger to Lucerne, were fatted and feasted by Bob and Sue, the lovely volunteer couple who look after that wee harbourage, and the party camped there, sent on our way with a box of goodies, fresh eggs and the sort of essentials that folk who hike know fit well in a pack, trail mix and a couple of tins of herring. Then a short ride on a loud ferry to Stehikan, an ice-cream, and at last free again on the trail, climbing, heading for the snow way above, the
good old solid weight of our rucksacks on our backs and the space widening about our shoulders.It took us five days to hike out, up and over South Pass. We could have knocked a day off that, but a scratch of a path to the north-east as we rise from MacAllister Lake (there are Scots’ bones scattered in the folds of the American north-west) is an opening, and I hike up alone to a secret place where the heart bursts from opening.
Hidden Meadow
This place is one where wizards once
made magic, flung themselves
upon the ground, arms wide as
ravens’ wings. They were naked
and against their eardrums
across their open hearts
moths would flutter. Close they got
to earth, close enough to feel
the tremble as the waters of the meadow rose.
Late I climb the hill above
to where the wizards once looked out.
And wondered. There’s a rock
at the very tip, it’s just the
way they left it, skewed
as if it were a rusty key
thick ended, jagged as a sawtooth
ridge. A rock.
How does one hold
an opening? Where
can it possibly sit, what
corner of the heart is safe?
It’s as fragile as a breath,
don’t hold it tight, it will
snap, like a fingernail.
We spent a night in that sacred spot, ring upon ring of mountains holding us still. You could feel the weight of the world tipping it, night gathering behind us like fingers through our hair. And the following day we crossed over the Sawtooth ridge for the second time, far north, 9 days on. Our looping circle closing as we headed for the Twisp River and the Methow Valley. The path was
untraveled, overgrown, with one set of human prints and lots of fresh bear shit. So we held the kids back from their normal horse-galloping twig-mounting downward technique and made noise. At last we found a good spot to camp, all pretty shattered, got all set up, gathering water, pitching the tent, getting the fire going and that dreaded pasta cooking yet again, and just when we’re beginning to relax I go to pick up some more wood and find the freshest, corking-est pile of bear shit yet, steaming merrily beside our tent. Then of course we begin to actually look about and notice the way in which the bear has ripped off great chunks of the bark from the dead trees all around us, and even delved a good old hole in the stump standing beside our fire. All those nice bugs! So I sleep out that night beside the ring of stones and our little fire, and feed the flames from time to time. And in the morning Becs finds fresh bear tracks along the path past our clearing.Morning dawns. I go to retrieve our food-bag from the tree where it hangs on the other side of the river. There’s not much left. Becs cooks up the last of the oats, and the kids pace down the last three and a half miles to the South Creek Trail head, twenty rough miles up-river from Twisp, pretending to be a red steam train/fire engine called Stanley and a blue one called Thomas, living in world where everything is (respectively) red and blue including the buns in the shops and the colours of folks’ poo.
That night, three hitches later, we’re back in the warm welcome of Annie and Mike’s, a homecoming, high on the magic of the small wild corners of our world, gulping milkshake and spilling excitement and wonder at all that the little people have managed to achieve over 12 days, aged 3 and 5 (‘and two thirds’).
And the following morning we say farewell to our fiends, are packed on our way with a huge bag of more dried magic, promise to be back for the tale end of harvest, stroke good old Granny-White-Dragon’s dash (like a tash), and head north for the border. British Columbia and the mysterious Lasqueti Island (no-one, not even the smugglers – perhaps not the tides – has ever heard of it) with its Mystic Ridge Farm, we’re on our way.
Feather touch
Out late last night to scout the path,
a scratch in snow
beneath a ridge where someone looked about,
named it, hollow on a map. A rock
juts out like landfall.
A raven passed so close I felt
his heat. Here
there are no windows, no doors flung open
on the world. They are
in tatters, spindrift on the wind. Here within
my heart is open
and the mountains burn.
Three times he passed still closer, the weight
of the world is tipping
his wings. I fear
he’ll strike me, eye black as an arrowhead
the wind he stirs. My arms
outstretched
in the depth
in the age of his eye.
He’s gone. Night has gathered like a lover’s fingers.
There’s something
in my right hand, and I look –
A long, strong raven’s feather. I stick it
behind my ear. Later
I give it to Kai, he has it still.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Annie
Annie
She'd had enough, this afternoon
survival cracked her in the middle
bent she shuffled off
back-stage from market, hidden in the dust
as if a ghost already
troubles in a sack.
Yet this morning she was
braids and awkward angles, with a hat
that didn't fit, eyes wide
as the seeking moon.
Where does your heart sit
in this restless living
It celebrates, she would tell us
as she carves out niches in a valley
of belief, and the earth
of belief, and the earth
bursts about her
gorged upon her marrow.
Peas grow fat as thumbs.
She works all but the sky
between her fingers
Tonight she glows
She cannot cry but tears
have worn her smooth.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Mid-summer in the Methow Valley
We're a week into our first farm placement, the King's Garden, Methow Valley, on the east fringe of the Cascade Mountains in Washington State. Half American dream, half reminder of the cracks. 
Annie and Mike, hard grafters, green fingers, have spent their entire lives in toil, Annie bringing up six kids on her own with no money, shifting here and there as chances opened then snapped shut, Mike working his way through a series of addictions, last stop Morphine for a good decade, now just the booze and a broken back.
But all the way, certainly for Annie, surrounded by incredible growth, making endless stands in fresh scraps of land borrowed from some dodgy landlord, legs apart, back bent, getting rooted into that soil, planting, weeding, working, working, as peppers, tomaties, corn, berries, peas, growth and fruit and the sheer energy of life pours up. It leaves you gasping. A miracle! In one sense they're on the fringes, broke, ancient Fergie tractor that won't start, stints in the county jail, but they're also truly in the heart of things. The house in which we sit is full of animals and stuff, piled to the rafters with jars of strawberry and rhubarb sauce, hot red pepper jelly, heirloom tomato juice, dill pickels, green salsa, herbs and herbal remedies, all organic. The harvest before last they were picking two tonnes of tomatoes every couple of days...last year they lost the lot to deer...
We're reckoning on being here for maybe another ten days, then looking to head into the hills for a good stint of wild camping and 
some calm. And hopefully not too much rain. We got away on Saturday evening and Sunday, afdter the local farmer's market, heading high up the Twisp river valley to an isolated spot, but totally unseasonally for this neck of the woods, where it's usually well up toward 100 and dry as a bone, water streamed from the sky ....
Annie and Mike, hard grafters, green fingers, have spent their entire lives in toil, Annie bringing up six kids on her own with no money, shifting here and there as chances opened then snapped shut, Mike working his way through a series of addictions, last stop Morphine for a good decade, now just the booze and a broken back.
But all the way, certainly for Annie, surrounded by incredible growth, making endless stands in fresh scraps of land borrowed from some dodgy landlord, legs apart, back bent, getting rooted into that soil, planting, weeding, working, working, as peppers, tomaties, corn, berries, peas, growth and fruit and the sheer energy of life pours up. It leaves you gasping. A miracle! In one sense they're on the fringes, broke, ancient Fergie tractor that won't start, stints in the county jail, but they're also truly in the heart of things. The house in which we sit is full of animals and stuff, piled to the rafters with jars of strawberry and rhubarb sauce, hot red pepper jelly, heirloom tomato juice, dill pickels, green salsa, herbs and herbal remedies, all organic. The harvest before last they were picking two tonnes of tomatoes every couple of days...last year they lost the lot to deer...And that's where we fit in! They found a new plot of land just a month ago, having been booted off the last by the old woman who owned it, and a gun, but no teeth. There's the greenhouse up, 4 acres ploughed, Annie piling in seeds and shoots, in long thin strips, mixing it up, putting friendly veg together, with lists on scraps of paper in the tumble-down caravan in the corner, all shaped within her dream. Yet the white-tailed deer, the mule deer, maybe even some elk lukr, and this year they're not having it - we've been here a week and our chief mission is to get a good deer fence up - 7.5 foot tall, 3 feet in the ground, using great stobs that Mike's cut from the forest, mainly lodgepole. And we're getting there. After 4 or 5 days of working digging out the holes and balancing in the logs, we're back today feeling grand after getting 28 of the posts fixed in, pretty solid and true, with Tamarack larches sitting there for the gate that will open to draw you into the King's Garden - the sign's already hanging on the roadside.
It's great to be feeling that we're really helping these guys to see their farm begin to take shape, to go back a couple of days after weeding, feeding and mulching strawberries to see them begin to reach out, heavy with fruit. But under the burning sun it would all be pretty backbreaking of spirit as well as of spine were it not for the fact that Becs really sensibly asked for an arrangement that we work our socks off between 8.30 and 1.30, then gather kids, cheetahs, shootarocket (Kai's wee toy dog) from the mud and stumble into the Granny White Dragon to make off for a bit of family time.
And the kids are just being so amazing with it all, happily digging about as we work, rescuing voles and beetles from post holes, spending half an hour studying bundles of baby spiders hanging like grapes, carefully avoiding the killdeer nest scraped beside the raspberries with its four speckled eggs, helping Annie plant or simply sitting, floppy hat, grimy face, against a lodge pole in the sun. But also grateful for the time we get away, to swim, or eat ice-cream, or look after the two litters of kittens at Annie's house (their passion).
We're reckoning on being here for maybe another ten days, then looking to head into the hills for a good stint of wild camping and 
some calm. And hopefully not too much rain. We got away on Saturday evening and Sunday, afdter the local farmer's market, heading high up the Twisp river valley to an isolated spot, but totally unseasonally for this neck of the woods, where it's usually well up toward 100 and dry as a bone, water streamed from the sky ....storm
Wind wrenched from stones and
tossed, a spinning javelin open
the earth, rich river of wind
broad as the giant canyon
yawning, roaring, rough-shouldered
sigh across the land,
carried in your curls, love's voice amidst the storm.
We couldn't even figure out whether the great pile of bear poo close to our camp was steaming from freshness or from the rain. And when we managed to get the fire going and sat in what felt like the middle of a river to eat our pasta, pools of water gathered in the bottom of our bowls. Yum.
The solstice has been and gone. Three nighthawks have gathered above our heads in the last of the light, and surely it's our noise that's other-worldly, not their rattles and hums, utterly here, now, at home. Rather like Freya Storm and Kai Raven at the moment, be-wellied life-force. Like a wave. Or the music of an Aspen tree unravelling the breeze. So, as the days shorten we'll head north again in a wee while, chasing the light.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Down in Hells Canyon
We're just back in the land of lawnmowers after 9 days in the wilds of Hells Canyon, on the Oregon/Idaho border, below the snow-capped Seven Devils, our home half-way down into the depths of the Canyon, amidst the gathering roar from the Snake River below. We hiked in over Freezeout Saddle, along with Rick Bombaci, the friend we met last time we travelled here when Becs was five months pregnant with Freya. We'd originally planned to only stay for 4 nights, but bit by bit, despite more rain than they ususally get there in a whole year, 
we got sucked into the place, and as Rick needed to get back home for a couple of days anyway, we used that chance for Becs to re-stock on food at Imnaha tavern (famous for its rattlesnake stew) the nearest spot - a 12 hour round-trip hike with over an hour's driving in the middle, hole and flood-dodging in Rick's 1970 vw camper, Gus the Bus. Cor was she shattered when she returned, in pouring rain. Still, she was the one who was keen to go! And she got to eat her first ever beef burger. At each end of the trip we camped at a 'base camp', just below the saddle, but for the main chunk we were on a spur of what's called the bench area, half-way down this 8,000' plus canyon, top to bottom, and, after the first couple of days when we saw a couple of other parties of hikers/riders, completely alone in this vast wilderness. We kept an endless fire going, dragging thick-barked 
ponderosa pine out of the forest, to keep dried out, warm and fed, as endless bands of rain and respite passed through. And the kids were just amazing, both of them hiking in in their wellies, armed with stories and sun-dances to keep the legs moving, and then out in the open within all that space and mystery in their waterproofs all 
day long, making up their own ways of just being with wood and leaf and the odd poor beetle (there's a green one F made a special home for, under bark, shelter from the rain, which was still going strong when we left). I don't think we've ever seen them so shining and alive. The only day when we had to retreat to the tents was when a big storm passed through, whirling up along the canyon, bouncing off the crags. It was while Rick was away, and Tom had to sleep in his tent to stop it from taking off. While Becs sang F and K endless Scots songs in the dark night, to keep the wind at bay and the spirits entertained.
Rick has become a true friend. There have been long nights of playing tunes on the fiddle and whistle and recorder and flute, shared worries, and much joy. He is just one of those people who has sharing and caring in his bones - he
loves to make others happy (although he also has a very solitary thred, and has done many very long-running solo hikes in wild spots across north america). And he has taken the kids utterly to heart. Freya wants to marry him, though torn in allegiance given her love for Jack, up in the Highlands! He has also completely upped our camp cuisine standards. We've moved from our staples of porridge and cheese-pasta, to fancy dehydrated sauces (he has a machine), and much mustard.
So we're now back in the 'town' (pop 1000) of Enterprise, finding our feet. Both kids hiked out again under their own steam, although Tom had to carry Kai on the stretch to our little base camp, in a rucksack, all tucked up with only a tuft of hair out the top, covered with a bin-liner as protection from the passing downpours, because he was on the second day of a fever - a little nerve-racking given that we were two days from help, but he emerged fine and was full of umph climbing up to the Saddle counting as many different creatures as he was able to spot. He got to 20. And then a beautiful jet-black raven brother passed overhead to say goodbye as we sat on the saddle eating our sandwiches (more mustard), looking back down the Canyon, and forward to the alpine peaks of the Wallowa Mountains. On the way down, close to a bunch of elk prints, we saw clear, massive cougar prints. They are seriously big cats.
ponderosa pine out of the forest, to keep dried out, warm and fed, as endless bands of rain and respite passed through. And the kids were just amazing, both of them hiking in in their wellies, armed with stories and sun-dances to keep the legs moving, and then out in the open within all that space and mystery in their waterproofs all 
day long, making up their own ways of just being with wood and leaf and the odd poor beetle (there's a green one F made a special home for, under bark, shelter from the rain, which was still going strong when we left). I don't think we've ever seen them so shining and alive. The only day when we had to retreat to the tents was when a big storm passed through, whirling up along the canyon, bouncing off the crags. It was while Rick was away, and Tom had to sleep in his tent to stop it from taking off. While Becs sang F and K endless Scots songs in the dark night, to keep the wind at bay and the spirits entertained.
Rick has become a true friend. There have been long nights of playing tunes on the fiddle and whistle and recorder and flute, shared worries, and much joy. He is just one of those people who has sharing and caring in his bones - he
loves to make others happy (although he also has a very solitary thred, and has done many very long-running solo hikes in wild spots across north america). And he has taken the kids utterly to heart. Freya wants to marry him, though torn in allegiance given her love for Jack, up in the Highlands! He has also completely upped our camp cuisine standards. We've moved from our staples of porridge and cheese-pasta, to fancy dehydrated sauces (he has a machine), and much mustard.So we're now back in the 'town' (pop 1000) of Enterprise, finding our feet. Both kids hiked out again under their own steam, although Tom had to carry Kai on the stretch to our little base camp, in a rucksack, all tucked up with only a tuft of hair out the top, covered with a bin-liner as protection from the passing downpours, because he was on the second day of a fever - a little nerve-racking given that we were two days from help, but he emerged fine and was full of umph climbing up to the Saddle counting as many different creatures as he was able to spot. He got to 20. And then a beautiful jet-black raven brother passed overhead to say goodbye as we sat on the saddle eating our sandwiches (more mustard), looking back down the Canyon, and forward to the alpine peaks of the Wallowa Mountains. On the way down, close to a bunch of elk prints, we saw clear, massive cougar prints. They are seriously big cats.
And as we find our feet, get used to lots of speaking, and partying (Rick has introduced us to half the town, and the kids were up to 11 last night, in the foothills of the Wallowas, Freya in heaven surrounded by a bunch of teenagers, talking pigs, wedged between a 'very tincy' dachshund and a fat ginger cat) we need to make some decisions over the next couple of days. We returned to an email from our first farm placement, which was to be in Repubulic, Washington State from next week, to find that they've run into a big problem with the hut we were to use. So it's unlikely that we'll go there. We've pondered whether to stay here at Rick's, maybe working on a local farm, for a while longer (he will be much of the time in the mountains, as a ranger over the summer, and we could also join him up there for stints), but our hearts are tugging us north, and we feel sure we'll be linking up with Rick again in thesee times to come. So we've just put out feelers with a bunch of other farms, and checked out wild camping possibilities with Rick. And Becs is up for hitching a ride on a fishing boat to Alaska - we checked out fares on the ferry and it's too extortionate for us all to get up there ...
So, we'll see. But it really does feel that in these past 9 days, out there in Hells Canyon, beginning to feel the space, smell the pine, see the bursts of colour in all the tiny, alpine, flowers, sucking up the sun whenever it 
poked its nose out, water cascading about us, that
our adventure has begun to dig a little deeper. Enterprise
On 23 May we drive out of the tree-clad west, and head eastwards along the great Columbia River, up over the arid high desert and through the Blue Mountains. Golden-barked ponderosa pine succeeds Douglas Fir. Our hearts rise as we see the snow-caps of the high Wallowas. 
We take the small road to Enterprise. 6 years ago, when Becs was expecting Freya, we came here to explore, and we knew we would come back. One of the main reasons for returning is our friend Rick Bombaci, a lover of mountains and wild places, musician and poet-heart. And, we discover (to our relief and Freya and Kai's complete delight) he loves small children too.... It is great to see him again. 
Becs spends a few days visiting Wallowa Resources Youth Stewardship Program, and Freya and Kai have a chance to take part in an outdoor field course for 10-12 year olds at beautiful Wallowa lake, which includes wilderness survival skills and learning from animals.
Tillamook and back to the big smoke
The weather breaks and Becs spends an amazng day at Tillamook High School. Students from the 6 local schools, among many other things, have set up and are running an interpretative center, hatch out salmon for release, have created a community park on the site of an old mill, and are about to take some of their science projects to an international exposition in Amsterdam. All these projects tackle local issues and often have local economic implications - for example how to extract ethanol from discarded whey at Tillamook creamery, how to extract biodiesel from invasive Scotch broom and how to improve local water quality. Becs is very impressed.
Finally we head back to Portland to dry out and spend a few more cosy days with Kent and Jeanie before packing all our gear into the Old White Granny Dragon again and heading east. The next part of our adventure is beginning...
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