The Big Trees/On The Way To The Sea

Gravel crunched underfoot amid the soggy remnants of maple leaves that had fallen months earlier, while my breath made big clouds into the winter morning air. The towering, thin firs and hemlocks of the tree plantation had been allowed to grow quite tall in this section, framing in the road tightly, while a dark, densely-planted forest lay just beyond the road’s edge. 

Cold air wafted out from these dark woods, even in the heat of summer, like fingers curling and unfurling, reaching out toward you as you pass, calling you into the darkness. 

I peer in as I pass, gazing down into the ravine, where sword fern lay battered against the earth after a winter of wet, heavy snow, rains, and wind. 

It’s dark in there.

It feels mysterious, like it’s offering you the promise of some knowledge you probably shouldn’t possess. 

Growing up on the Oregon coast, I know these forests and their energy well. There’s something about these landscapes that feels gently haunting. 

A few weeks earlier, I had been way up the canyon of a different river, when I encountered an old local who told me some of his favorite big trees were up this road here. We talked for the better part of an hour and after we parted ways I had removed a small notebook from the glove compartment of my car and began furiously scribbling notes, hoping to retain every last bit of what he had told me- forest secrets! 

Finally having enough free time to execute on this knowledge, I piloted my car way out into the woods first chance I’d got. Parking at the gate near the bottom of the hill, I swigged on the last of my coffee. Pulling my hood up, I stepped out of the car into the pouring rain, instantly surrounded by the gentle chorus of water falling. Drops began to pelt me at once, dancing across the fabric of my jacket, and streaming down my face. Looking up towards the grey, glowing sky, I straightened my layers and donned my backpack. Slamming the door, I started up the hill.

I dislike being both hot or cold, so I use my pace when hiking to regulate my body temperature, rather than deciding I need to hike some arbitrary speed of 3.2 miles per hour, or whatever. The pace is what the pace needs to be; it is not a reflection of our skill or experience, and using it as an outlet for external validation is foolish, especially in unfavorable conditions. 

There is a deeply entrenched tendency to see part of the purpose of time spent outdoors as exercise; that part of the point of hiking is to maintain a brisk pace and get your heart rate up. This isn’t always appropriate, depending on your goals or circumstances in any given situation and it’s worth examining how these underlying assumptions about the value of a given activity can become obstacles to your experience in the outdoors. Put more simply- as the old saying goes, “If you sweat, you die”. Make sure you’re maintaining awareness around the amount of heat you are generating and not creating a problem for yourself to fix by hiking too fast. (This is why hiking alone is best, but we’ll talk more about that later…)

I moved up the hill swiftly at first to generate more warmth, and then I slowed my pace once I felt comfortable in my jacket and settled in. This part of the forest was new to me, and I was delighting with all the little details that made it unique from the neighboring ridges and ravines of the coast range. A well-spaced planting of Doug firs grew on the uphill slope, while below me a creek ran along through a meadow-y open forest, where moss gardens formed beside thick walls of salmonberry and false lily of the valley carpeted the understory. 

I could see why the old man liked this place. I bet the elk herds like it, too. The energy here was watchful, but not unwelcoming. I could feel that big animals liked moving through here, I imagined the elk and deer felt safer in this steep, difficult terrain. 

The road flattened out and then began to climb again and as it did, the forest around me began to change. The creek fell away below me and darker, taller trees grew up on both sides of the road, broken up by the bright green, leafy explosions of creekside riparian areas that burst forth from the stoic, plantation woods as smaller creeks crossed under the road in their way downhill toward the river. Soon, the water washing under my feet would join the Wilson river, and then the Tillamook Bay, where the tides would push and pull it until it reached the Pacific Ocean. 

I wondered how long the journey would take for a single drop of water, and then I wondered what a “drop” of water even is when it all mixes together. I imagined a little cartoon drop of water and thought for a long time about the way we anthropomorphize things like water or trees in order to tell a story about the landscape, but pretending like human characteristics are some kind of standard for all things is just one more layer in the narrative that centers humanity and human experiences. 

I let all these thoughts ramble on and on, because when you’re in the woods, you’ve got time to let your mind wander, you’ve got time to think about anything you please. 

When I reached the top of the hill climb, the road took a sharp curve to the right, but an old route continued straight into the trees a short distance before petering out against a wall of densely planted trees. 

A dark energy radiated out from the forest all around this road. Here, the hillside sloped downward into a small swamp, and everything was covered in thick moss and lichen. 

I wandered down the spooky little road, noticing a pile of trash someone had discarded amid the moss and ferns beside the path. Disintegrating cardboard, CDs, black plastic bag, empty malt liquor bottles made me feel like crimes had been committed here and added to the uneasiness that began to swell within my chest.

I followed the road to its short end, and then turned back to look at the way I’d come. A slow, creeping fog was descending through the trees. Tendrils of mist came down through the crowns of the conifers and wrapped themselves around their trunks, sliding over the wet ground. I watched, breathing slowly and deeply as the forest darkened beneath the clouds and the falling rain began to slow. 

Looking to my left and right, I took a moment to take it all in- the smell of the damp forest, the creeping fog, the sound of rain falling on wet leaves, the feeling of my shoes sinking into a bit of mud there on the edge of the road, the billowing clouds that form with my every breath. 

From the canyon below, I heard an elk call out. Elk like the spooky forests, too, places where they can just disappear. I smile to myself as water drops off my hood and runs across my face. I know it’s time to walk back now. 

I imagined myself transforming into an ethereal mist- one that clings to the faces of cliffs and pours like liquid water into the spaces between the tall trees in forests like this one. 

The shroud that cloaks the elk herds from view. 

A fog that rolls in and obscures the landscape.

 A wisp of vapor that rests between the tops of trees, high on the hillside. 

A single drop of water, on its way to the sea.