I'd been wanting to get out of
town for the sake of getting out of town so when Azur asked if we (sarah
and i) wanted to go up to his family's cabin in Skitur Valley (aka Gold Creek)
sarah and i both said yes.
Azur drove his minivan through the striping shadows of evergreens east along
I-90.
My ears popped with elevation gain and it was then i noticed we were up above
the snow line--going 120 fps, no less!
We parked within earshot of the freeway just past Snoqualmie Summit. We could
have been anywhere for I all know. Next time I'll occupy myself studying
a map.
The back road up to cabin was buried under several feet of snow, but it was
all packed down and easy walking--Sarah in street shoes and I in 16 year
old LL Bean duck boots with nubby sole grips. Even that was overkill.
Still, every other "hiker" we saw was sporting snow shoes and poles, a testimony
to effective marketing. On the ride home I saw a truck with Recreational
Equipment, Inc. painted on its side. Until that moment I'd never considered
what
REI stood
for.
The cabin was lovely, interlocking logs, tons of snow sliding down its roof
like a frozen ocean curl--per design, Azur explained.
It was cold inside. I hung up my itchy wool shirt on a broken branch stuck
into log post. How rustic! Then we all went outside and sat in the snow where
it was warmer, the sun glittering off the shallow running creek. There was
no other sound. We ate a picnic and promptly fell asleep.
When we woke up from the collective dream, Azur and Kate went off for a walk.
I continued reading my book, Mysteries by Knut Hamsun which has made
me laugh out loud three times in 120 pages--which for me is a lot. What was
Sarah doing? I forget. Ask her.
Then we got up and joined them in the bed of the snowbanked creek. We crunched
through thin surface ice--sometimes dry, sometimes wet underneath--delighting
in the sound, the feel of the world giving way under our feet. Kate declared
a particularly scenic ice patch a
UNESCO
site and overtourism promptly destroyed it.
But before that happened, I got
this picture,
which is only slightly less ephemeral.... |
|
|
| highlight text for easy
reading |
 |
