March 21, 2006

The Olympic Peninsula at the Vernal Equinox

Two words: "Road Trip"


THE FIRST THING YOU LEARN IS your don't go "into" the Olympic Peninsula. You go around it. Although Seattle has the feel of being on a coast, it's really an interior city protected from the lashing storms of the Northwest Pacific by a vast up-welling of mountains, as much as it is protected from the cutting edge of our political storms by its removal to the far corner of the nation. One of the advantages of the city is that it sits at the bottom of a vast bowl of straits, lakes and mountains. When the rain clears out and you take in the western view from the top of Queen Anne Hill (the highest hill in Seattle) you see the barrier of the Olympic Mountains that seems to wrap around half the horizon. After seeing this a number of time, two words appear in the mind: Road Trip.

So it was with Spring a day away and, for once, a promising weather forecast I set out for a short trip to the Olympic Peninsula since I had had enough, for a few days at least of:

But, as I said, there is no "into" when it comes to the Olympic Peninsula, only "around."

It was not promising when, in my effort to get to the ferry that would take me out to the jumping off point, I ran afoul of three detours and two Sunday afternoon traffic jams. What should have been a fifteen minute drive to the ferry turned into an hour and a half. Enough time to take me off my original plan of staying at the Kalaloch Lodge. Instead, I only managed to make the town of Forks in time to participate in the town's annual scholarship auction. You had no choice but to participate since every sound system in every store and restaurant was tuned to the broadcast of the auction and turned up loud. I took shelter by going to the auction itself.

It was one of those small town events that puts your faith in the essential goodness of people back into your soul. Everyone in this town of some 1,300 souls had evidently donated something (From a $1600 Alaskan Fishing Trip to a plate of 6 brownies baked by the Brownies -- $22 and delicious). And everyone in the town was buying something. Furniture, art, baked goods, embroidered guest towels, exercise equipment... a hodgepodge of a town wide garage sale. The purpose? A fund to send some kids from Forks to college. And in Forks getting to college was very, very important because it meant those kids that made it had a chance to get out of Forks.

Not that it is a bad town. Not at all. It is just that it is a dying town. The curtailing of logging and fishing in the Olympic Peninsula may have gone over well in Seattle where people are concerned that they won't have any natural, unspoiled environments in which to ride their horsies and mossy woods to hike about in. In Seattle, the only thing more popular for a politician to say than "It's for the children" is "It's for the environment." Some of the brighter politicians have taken to working in the phrase, "It's for the children's environment!" This always plays to rousing ovations and cheers, especially from the childless.

Things are not so happy in Forks which has had to deal with the loss of thousands of jobs as a result of various "popular" [in the cities] measures. Forks, by any measure, is struggling to keep its head above water. You can feel it in the forced cheer and the determined pride shown at this one small auction where, against all odds, they have managed to raise more than $50,000 for the Forks Escape Fund.

One of my local correspondents, much more knowledgeable about the shameful political history that killed Forks related this small tale that pretty much sums up the relationship of city and town in Washington state:

Our US Senators, Patty Murray (D) who we rightfully detest and Slade Gorton (Republican and now defeated by Maria Cantwell) were on opposite sides of a timber debate on the floor of the senate. Listening to the floor action on the squawk box, we heard Patty nattering about how she was totally in tune with the people of Washington on timber issues, why in fact the lumbermen of Forks were some of her best sources of information and strongest supporters, The staffer turned to me and said "Seattle liberal greenies may love Patty, but not the good folks in Forks. She's cost hundreds, maybe thousands of timber people their jobs. If you handcuffed her to the stop sign in the middle of Forks at 3 AM, come morning she'd be gone and they would never be able to find her body."

True enough. I looked. And she wasn't there. There are many hungry crab pots in these waters.

After an amazingly indifferent meal, I put up at the Pacific Inn Motel to wait for dawn and pray for sun.

Which, amazingly, arrived with the dawn. I wanted to go south towards the Hoh Rain Forest, but since La Push was nearby I decided to head there. Big mistake. Even though my correspondent, who had been so prescient about Forks, declared that she "grew up hiking, camping, trying to drown myself and poaching salmon, crabs and clams off all these beaches and I love every stinking piece of seaweed on every slippery barnacle befouled rock, " I found that I could not share the love enough to find it in La Push. La Push is an indian village and like most of these sad places, seems determined not to let money from casinos work against decades of squalor. Whenever I find myself in these towns I always have to wonder where all those millions are going. Certainly not for paint or decent housing. I beat a quick retreat.


La Push, the only scenic view

About an hour later, I took a left and came to one of the roads I was looking for.

This let me know that I was well on my way to what is probably the greatest collection of moss in the Northern Hemisphere, the Hoh Rain Forest.

I stopped in a small store on the way in where the woman behind the counter had been waiting patiently for at least a week to sell something to somebody. She sold me a rain coat. "You'll probably need it seeing that you are going to a rain forest." What could I do but agree? Besides, it was lined with the holy fabric of the Pacific Northwest, fleece, and it doubled my holdings.

Correctly attired, waterproof, I pushed on up the road past local inhabitants --

--- and signage betraying local attitudes that seemed as eager to say "Goodbye" as "Howdy tourista!"

 

But it was worth it because, once beyond the mysteriously deserted entrance to the Hoh Rain Forest, --

-- I found myself alone in the location where they will shoot the Freddy Kruger epic, Nightmare in the National Parks.

Walking the Hall of Mosses trail alone on a Monday morning brings you quickly in touch with the overwhelming beauty of this carefully preserved and presented part of the forest. The signs along the way and the slow rise into deeper and deeper groves of moss obliterated trees is like walking through a live Powerpoint slide show on "the value of preserving our national parks at all costs. No matter who has to pay."

At the same time, this particular show, by the time you get to the core of it, starts to present your subconscious mind with all sorts of disturbing back chatter. For all the beauty of it, you still understand that you are also seeing a parasite run wild across a very large chunk of forest. And you see, time and again, how a very small organism such as a spore of moss can topple very large forms of life such as a 300 foot tall spruce. I've always liked moss but I have noticed that various treatments to kill it are quite popular at the local Home Depots. Perhaps, just perhaps, even a good thing can get a little out of hand.

From the Hoh Rain Forest I finally found my way to Kalaloch Lodge. I'd made this my destination since it seemed to promise all the things I need in the way of a retreat from the world, that vision of Edna St. Vincent Millay of:

.... a little shanty on the sand

In such a way that the extremest band

Of brittle seaweed shall escape my door

But by a yard or two ...

and closer still to an acceptable restaurant

serving three meals a day

compete with an adequate wine list

and a nearby store fully stocked

with a vast assortment of

classic American snack foods.

And so I was forced to hunker down with plank-grilled salmon and a few glasses of crisp Riesling. And there I sat until, as it will, the light came and got me.

It not only fetched me out of the cabin, it fetched the entire lodge as if a lodestone had, on the very cusp of the vernal equinox, of Spring, taken hold of our rain-soaked, mossy souls and dragged us out of our pastoral stupor, back into the world dimensional.

All along the cabins strung down the bluff doors opened and men, women, children and dogs came tumbling out onto the wet lawn to hover and stare as far out to sea as they could while the sun came down from beneath the curtain of cloud and lit the world and made it new.

It was only about five hours steady drive back to Seattle, but nobody was leaving. Behind us you had the impenetrable escarpment of the Olympic Peninsula.

In front of us you had the slow Pacific swell illuminated by the hand of God.

Tomorrow would be the first full day of Spring. It would rain again. It would always rain again.

For now, nobody was going anywhere.

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Posted by Vanderleun at March 21, 2006 10:38 PM | TrackBack
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AMERICAN DIGEST HOME
"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Nicely done. No where to be but where you are, and all day to be there. A vicarious trip for me.

Dan

Posted by: Dan Patterson at March 22, 2006 5:41 AM

Beautifully written; and your photographs as always are wonderfully composed, or socially astute, or both. Thank you, Gerard.

Posted by: AskMom at March 22, 2006 7:17 AM

IT's beatiful. Good report. I am a native and a resident of the SEattle area. But I don't get to the wet side of the Olympic Mountains very often.

Posted by: Ron at March 22, 2006 9:03 AM

Heh.

You ARE becoming a native.

If there is a next time, do this ...

Drive down to Olympia and hang a right.

Aberdeen is a place to stop, but I wouldn't.

It is as depressing as it gets.

Drive on.

Soak up the atmosphere on the way to Port Angeles.

Plenty of decent places to stay there.

Not on any weekend though.

Head to Deception Pass.

Photo time there.

Drive on to Bellingham and stop Gerard.

Bellinghan is a nice place.

Stay there. As close to the water as possible.

Leave at check out time and catch the back road to Anacortes. Go to La Conner for a snack.

Drive back to I5 via Conway.

Look at all those tulips.

Hit I5 again and you have just converted 3 days into a week.

And if you take the 45th Street exist, head west to Fremont and turn left, stop at the Wooden Nickel.

You will be about one mile from where you live.

Posted by: Steel Turman at March 22, 2006 1:00 PM

Truly beautiful, Gerard.
Thank you for taking me along.

Posted by: LARWYN at March 22, 2006 1:10 PM

You leftcoaster.

Sure, sure, it's nice.

But you want beautiful in Washington?

Try the Goat Rocks. Or Chinook Pass.

Posted by: Doug at March 22, 2006 5:45 PM

They're on the list. Thanks.

Posted by: Gerard Van der Leun at March 22, 2006 7:33 PM

Thanks, Gerard. A great bit of writing, and perhaps (?) a wake up call for those of us out here...

Posted by: Dan at March 22, 2006 10:23 PM

I've camped out at the Kalaloch campground. Since I'm nocturnal, I was walking along the beach at about 2:30 in the morning on a warm (Washington Coast warm anyway)summer night. The mist was heavy in the air as it caught the lonely sweeping beam of the Destruction Island lighthouse. At that moment, I was the only man on Earth.

I've been to nearly all Washington destinations in the middle of the night. Moonlight, no noise, and no one to have to share it with. They are all mine.

Posted by: Mumblix Grumph at March 24, 2006 3:33 AM

Nice to read a new perspective on places that I enjoy. Sorry that your attempt to come in contact with some coastal Native American culture didn't work out. The people who live in LaPush are the Quileute tribe. They do not have a casino. The coastal cultures, after being oppressed, and illegal(!) for many years are making a come back. And they are coming to you, Seattle, this summer, 50 canoes traveling up the ship canal to Magnuson park on July 30th to have a welcoming ceremony followed by a week of potlatching at Muckleshoot. Everyone welcome.
Curt!

Posted by: Curtis Hebron at April 2, 2006 5:37 PM
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