Day 5 – Friday, October 2nd, 2020 I awoke at my campsite on the bluff to the sound of foghorns from the slowly passing ferries. The view from the bluff was a blanket of fog, obscuring the islands and disappearing the boats. It was clammy and chilly, a real autumn morning. By the time I’d made breakfast and broke camp the fog was lifting, but it wouldn’t fully burn off until late morning. The…
Day 4 – Thursday, October 1st, 2020 This morning was, if anything, even foggier than the day before. The sun red through the morning fog, the long descent out of Moran State Park clammy. I was making my leave of Orcas Island today, but apart from the required retracing of steps, I would at least take at least one variant. You always end up on Orcas Road for some part of the trek from Eastsound…
Day 3 – Wednesday, September 30th, 2020 This morning dawned very foggy and from my campsite I watched the sun come up red and hazy as if through smoke. But it seemed to just be fog, and the mornings would be increasingly foggy for the rest of the tour. Autumn in the islands. I left mid-morning and backtracked to Eastsound. There I picked up a supplemental coffee and visited the Brown Bear bakery for…
Day 2 – Tuesday, September 29th, 2020 Two yellow orioles fill kingfisher-green willows with song. Egrets climb away into crystalline skies, lone trail of white. At my window: thousand-autumn snows on western peaks. At my gate: boats bound ten thousand miles to eastern seas. – Du Fu, translated by David Hinton San Juan Island has the largest amount of available forest riding with three separate wooded areas that are all in roughly the same region.…
Introduction To go out on pilgrimage, to wander unencumbered by our daily burdens, this I felt was essential, but how to do so in these times was the question. Times being what they are I didn’t feel that extensive touring was appropriate and the ideal trip would be more in the backcountry where there are few people and lots of space. This led to my summer backpacking trip on Washingtons Wilderness Coast. At the…
I was really up for a weekend of camping in the North Cascades over Labor Day weekend, but I knew that there would just be too many people out. All of the last few holiday weekends have led to careless behavior and surges in the pandemic. The responsible thing was to stay away from the throngs. So I hoped that on Labor Day itself, people would be heading home and I could get in a…
Day 6 – Cedar Creek to Yellow Banks It rained all night and was still steadily coming down when I arose. I packed up and cooked breakfast in the rain. I slipped and slide my way down the bluff in the rain. I began my return journey up the beach in the rain. The tide was well out at this point and since this was to be the longest days hike, over what I knew…
Day 3 – Yellow Banks to Norwegian Memorial I awoke to a sunny morning high on the Yellow Banks. The soothing sound of the sea in its continuous restless motion had brought on a good nights sleep. This would prove to be of great value as this was the most difficult day of hiking of this trip. I broke camp and loaded up my backpack finally really getting everything optimally sorted with my pack. I…
In the long summer days my thoughts often turn to the mountains, the forests, the waters and the solitude and immediacy such places reveal. Traveling day after day under one’s own power, truly being in these places and seeing the surroundings at a pace that you can absorb them, following a schedule of one’s own inclinations, and being able to respond to the inscrutable exhortations of your soul. This year everything of course is uncertain,…
I only have evening duties at the monastery on Mondays so I often try to get out for most of the day. Primarily I have been doing day hikes on Fidalgo and Whidbey Islands, but every so often, if I leave early enough, I drive to the edge of the North Cascades. On this Monday I did a popular hike up Sauk Mountain which is pretty much the Westernmost peak of the North Cascades. Getting…