Because my Seattle plans had changed, I suddenly had a Saturday and Sunday in the palm of my hands. Besides a brief stop at the Health Fair (which I drove to Randle for before finding out it was in Morton) I'd decided to make another observance of Yom Kippur. The trip to the city had worn me out and while I contemplated venturing up the pot-hole infested forest road that had led me to a beautiful flowing stream for Tashlich last year, I couldn't stomach the tedious drive. Instead, I decided to go see if there was some flowing water that was passable enough at Riffe Lake on my route home.
I drove far past the lake to the fishing bridge where there were way too many people for my liking. Even further along, there was no parking aloud and I could only imagine my inner anguish in response to a petty ticket at this point. I headed back to the lake and began to walk.
Riffe Lake is a giant, fluctuating reservoir formed by the Mossyrock Dam. When the water is low, odd bits and pieces of abandoned road and cement blocks are revealed. When it is high, it seeps into small inlets and snake trails, winding through tall grasses and disguising some of the constructed artifacts. Still, the atmosphere is eerily peaceful, never quite swallowing the remittance of a town or inhabitants once planted here. With the rising levels, the points of access are always changing. I'd only ever been out during the rainy season and so had never been able to venture very far. That day, the engulfed road was exposed to reach almost clear across to another edge of the lake and so I was able to venture out to a divergence, where I meandered to the left and discovered a surprisingly active section of the otherwise still, standing water. I trekked over moist, cool cracked earth and propped myself down amongst rocks, the slope in the land hiding me from any other passers by. The bank was fully in the sun, making the crystal clear water seem even more magical. I took the two small pieces of bread I'd brought and had my own Tashlich ceremony - a Jewish Yom Kippur practice of symbolically tossing away all the things you want to leave behind from the previous year - and then lay out in the sun for the next hour, opening my eyes here and there to catch giant flocks of geese congregating in the sky; a piece of sublime, surreal paradise.
Unfortunately, my highly-wound attitude came right back like a spring by the time I'd returned to Packwood and the secure feeling of appreciating the moment came back to feeling a small loss for my change of plans. Now that I was here, I deeply wanted to recapture the Yom Kippur of last year, breaking my fast with a few AmeriCorps members and a nice potluck. I'd extended a tentative invitation to people to come over for a bonfire and food but I kept wavering - a sign I should probably have let it go - but instead, down to the hour before, I decided "hell with it. I want to cook for someone" and went for it. Dean was the sole person able to join and we made a calm evening of it with a fire in the driveway, some wine and bowls of the giant batch of "curry like" root veggies and rice I'd made.
I'd appreciated it for what it was but went to bed still feeling a bit drained and flustered: why were all of my plans suddenly getting difficult to manifest?
The next day was an open terrain and I wanted to hike. My co-worker and dear friend Patrice and I had talked about going together but I could not get a hold of her so I frantically started to try and figure out who else may want to hike. I was not going to waste this day frustrated. After trying some teammates and Tim, I finally got a hold of Dann. He was down for it but as we tried to pick a route, Tim called me back and said that his boss had let him go seize the day (it was the first - and perhaps last - AMAZING day we'd had in a bit) and he wanted to come along. Then a whole mess of further miscommunication happened, resulting in Dann venturing off on his own excursion. But finally, I was going to be going on a hike. I picked up Tim and we ventured into Ranier Park, up to Sunrise Point. I'd chosen the 'Palisades Lakes' hike, an 8.5-mile round-trip trek past a few lakes, listed as a beautiful fall hike and a hot spot for wildlife.
It was absolutely beautiful. Hitting the trail from Sunrise Point parking lot, it immediately began a decent into a tree lined slope, taking us into the first valley and past a lake of vibrant Glacier blue. The trail continued to curve and drop down into more valleys and lakes until we began a climb up to the last lake: Upper Palisades (I'm actually not sure when we passed lower Palisades...)
On our hike there, we'd come to a few clearings that reveled large rocky mountainsides - prime Goat territory - and we kept pausing and squinting and hoping to spot one. No luck, we returned to enjoying the foliage and making bad jokes about lake names. The last up-tick was killer on Tim and I laughed as I reminded him we'd have a good handful more of those on the way back.
The lake was cradled snuggly by rocks and woods with small designated spots for camping along its edge. We headed down to the farthest end of it and climbed some rocks that revealed a breathtaking view of - I believe - the Cascades. We relaxed down by the lake before getting ready for our mostly uphill climb back to the start. Tim was super excited about that part (Ha.)
After some stops and goes, we finally made it to the last lake before the top. "Hey! There's the parking lot!" Tim pointed. I swept my gaze across the tree line, confused for a bit before finally spotting it. "Oh hell!" It looked like quite a climb. Nothing we couldn't do of course, but I hadn't realized how much we dipped; a few thousand feet is quite a bit, actually.
Finally back at the parking lot, we leaned against the wall, looking out to see if we could figure out where we'd been. That's when I saw a lone, bright white spot on a rocky hill in the distance. "Hey Tim, I think that's a goat." He disagreed. We stood a few more minutes before he suddenly said "Hey, Melissa. I think you were right. That dot has moved." HA! I confirmed the observation and then our gaze was drawn to the left where there had been about 25 more mountain goats hanging out that whole time.
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| The lone ranger I spotted... |
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| ...and the 25 others next-door. |
Very poetic way to end the day. : )
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