Day 3. Sunday Dec. 15. Mountain. (and Saturday Dec. 14, rest day)

Saturday, Dec. 13.  Hosted our Saturday Quaker meeting. Made dinner for when Chrissy gets home (Wednesday) so I can devote Sun, Mon, Tues, Wed to hikeathon. Hung winter lights in house to welcome her (and me!) home. (We go from 9 hrs 50 min of daylight in Santa Barbara to 8 hrs 18 min here - so we lose 1 hr 32 min of daylight just like that, without months of gradual change to adjust.  So our winter lights are an important part of welcoming ourselves at home here. 

Sunday, Dec. 14. Hiked 19.11 mile. Ascended 3642 ft. I hiked up Mt Constitution (the tower) from Cascade Lake on the Cold Spring Trail, then went down to Twin Lakes and to Mountain Lake, then up to Little Summit and back to the Mt Constitution tower, then down by the road to cascade falls, then the trail back to Cascade Lake. 

Dear Trail Friends,

I started at 5:45am today anticipating a long day. So most of my hike up the mountain was in darkness though I was grateful for the waning (but still fairly full) moon. I missed the side trail to the gold mine but spent a lot of the hike wondering about the prospectors who came for the Orcas gold rush. What were their lives like? What about the women who worked at the brothel? What was it like chiseling the rock out to build the mine? Did they walk or ride mules to get to the mine? What happened to all the rock they dug out? What happened to them when there turned out to be no gold? And then I think about my other excursion to the stone circle and wonder about the people, Lummi I assume, who built the circle and honored the spirits there. What were their lives like and how were they being changed by the influx of strangers? I wish I had the time and energy to immerse myself in the history and write a historical novel about relationships between these people. There is so little distance -and so much - between the gold mine and the stone circle. I find myself shaking my head, thinking about human greed and restlessness and how the best and the worst in us are both in conflict and deeply related. 

I was really pleased when I got beyond Cold Spring and began to see snow. I know this hikeathon is a little early for a winter hikeathon, so even a light dusting of snow made it seem for valid. I was also pleased to have some openings through the mist where I could see into the distance. 

Then there was Mountain Lake with the dawn sky reflected in it (botttom right in collage below). Later, I would see white clouds and a little bit of blue sky reflected in Mountain Lake when I walked beside it (top photo on collage). And still later when I climbed the mountain again I’d see a gray lake under a gray sky (bottom right in collage). I love how the day kept changing and surprising me. Views opening up and disappearing. Almost as if the sky was flirting with me. 

I kept thinking about how inadequate photos are to convey the beauty of falls and streams - which consists of their sound and motion. I decided the only successful photo of a falls would be one that made the viewer hear/imagine the sound of moving water. So I took a whole bunch of photos and none of them made me hear the sound of water. But I think they helped me imagine what it would be like to lol at a photo and spontaneously heat water. 

This time of year that sound is a big part of the walk so I hope you can hear it a little as you imagine walking with me. 

Okay - I do a lot of pouting in my blog but now I want to brag a little. Yesterday at my Wiaker meeting my friend Linda was speaking very beautifully about Chris and her passion for teaching. I loved hearing her describe it - only I didn’t think Linda had ever seen her teach. “How do you know all this Linda?” I asked. “From your blogs!” Linda said. 

Then today on Mt Constitution I ran into two lovely women, Dee and Shannon, and Dee’s dog Lola. Dee reminded me that we had met on the trail a few years ago and she had admired my Purple Rain hiking skirt. Since then she and a friend had both gone on line and bought them, and loved them. We had a wonderful conversation and I talked about my hikeathon. I added that my dream had been that I would “curate” these hikes and that others seeking solitary wilderness adventures but maybe not having the time or money or health for long distance backpacking might create their own hikeathon/pilgrimages, perhaps using some of the hikes I assembled. Dee was very exciting about the idea and said she was sure that she would do it. 

There is so much more I want to talk about from today’s hike but it’s late and I did not sleep well at all last night and I’m tired. 

I lay in bed being scared I wouldn’t be able to sleep and I wouldn’t be able to hike and the hikeathon wouldn’t happen. I also cried a lot. After hanging the winter lights I tried to hang a very old and delicate piece of folk art thst Chris and I hang every year in the dining room. But the string got tangled and the delicate structure broke and I worked a long long time trying to fix it - part of aging is being even more confused by tangled things than I used to be, which was already a lot, and fumbling with my fingers). When I finally succeeded I went to hang it and it promptly fell on the floor, more tangled and broken than before. I couldn’t even attempt to work on it. Here it is in all its beautiful fragile brokenness. 

I was crying because I had broken something old and full of memories of Chris’s that she loved - and that I loved. Because I wouldn’t get to hang it every Christmas again. Because of my diminishing abilities. Because of all the beautiful fragile things in life I am going to have to say goodbye to. I sobbed and sobbed and then our kitty Magic came and snuggled at my feet. It was the first time since we got home Tuesday that she had come to be with me on the bed. 

The weather was so labile today. When I began to see sunshine I got excited. I didn’t realize it but I hadn’t seen sun since I’d arrived and since rain has originally been predicted all week I hadn’t expected to see any. And there it was, as welcome and consoling as Magic snuggled up with my feet. 

I’m sitting here in the living room surrounded by winter lights and their reflections in the windows. I’m glad they I found the energy to put them up, though at the time I was struggling with trying to get them up, having them fall down, my own precarious balance, and wondering if this might be the last time or near the last time I’d be able to put them up. 

I was crying about that too. All this stuff in my life that is somehow associated with the people and animals and places I love. While I was hanging the outdoor lights the kitties snuck outside and I was afraid they would run off fearlessly in the dark and get lost. That too. 

Okay. I know this is fairly incoherent. I am going to trust you ( and myself as I lie in bed tonight mulling over the hike and the blog) to make something meaningful and beautiful of it. If not now, eventually. Thank you so much for walking with me. 

Tomorrow we will do the hike I call the “bouquet” because I “pluck” a lot of small hikes from all over our island - Lake Killebrew, Deer Harbor, Orcas Village, Coho Preserve, and Obstruction Pass State Park - and put them together into a long day’s hike.  I hope you will want to join me. 

Let’s end with a photo of Summit Lake. In Tuesday’s hike where we will walk along streams and near lakes and East Sound, we won’t get to visit this lake at near the top of My Constitution. I like this photo because it is confusing. There’s a thin layer of ice and the trees reflections seem suspended from the edge of that ice. Then there’s a strange shape of the ground, and reflections that make it hard to tell what is real and what is reflected. I e found that true all my life.