Campsite at mile 2443 to Stevens Pass (mile 2464)
I wake to low, heavy skies and the patter of light mist coating the tent. Fall in the Pacific Northwest is making another appearance. The weather has been like those whirling picture toys from childhood with a bird on one side and a cage on another which, when spun very fast trick the eye into combining the two images in to one. A bird and a cage becomes a bird in a cage. The days in Washington flash one against the other, combining into a single yet disperate image in my mind. One day the weather is cool drizzling fall, cloudy forests with rain clinging to leaves like tiny beads of glass. The next, warm with glorious sun and shimmering blue skies.
Today the weather has spun and landed on fall. We pack the tent away wet and set out in rain jackets thrown on against the cold more than the actual wet. I delight in how the world looks in this light. A light grey sky sits right down in the trees, obscuring the tops of ridges and rock faces, sending a gentle diffuse light towards the forest floor. Shadows are softened, their sharp edges all smoothed out in order to wrap sweetly around every rock, tree and drooping moss. With a sky of almost grey white the greens of the earth are all the more vibrant as though screaming we are alive! A last hurrah from the growing season perhaps.
The cool drizzle and chill wind follows us into town and into the night. Though the forecast for tomorrow calls for sun, summer is locked in a losing annual battle against the coming cold and darkness. Every step north is a step into the arms of autumn. We have migrated north, from days of unrelenting heat into days of a copycat sun who cannot completely mask the power of the breeze that pulls my body heat away during every break. Rain flies and down jackets are making their first appearances in weeks and on evenings like this one I am grateful to have a hotel around me instead of only nylon and down.
Almost there! Such a beautiful description & photo .