The Undiscovered Dreams

An ATV road leads into Bird Creek Vally, along the creek, along bluffs, and through hemlock forest, slowly narrowing five miles in. The track is filled with large smookth rocks, broken rocks, and mud ruts. At the end of this machine route the trail up into the higher reaches of Bird Creek Valley begins. The day was overcast but fairly dry except for a few sprinkles of rain from the gray dull sky. But I wanted to see what the road and trail looked like further in. However, I didn't want to walk the ATV track for five miles. After all, the evening approached too soon to walk the distance. Instead, I pulled out a street bike I had in my garage and placed in it into my station wagon. "Good," I thought, " After work I'll peddle up to the trail and walk a few miles in on the trail." 4:30 PM came and I quickly left work, drove down the highway south, arriving a little after 5 PM. No one was there at the beginning of the ATV track. I dragged the bike out and put on my pack and shotgun. The valley is a bear corridor to the fishing grounds of Bird Creek. At first the road is wide and a bit bumpy, but as I peddled further on, beyond the first bridge, the track became bumpy with stones and puddles. Soon, the thought of a comfortable ride vanished as I found more and more stretches of rough road. To insure my insides weren't too bumped around, the bike was maneuvered around the rocks which meant more time to get the five miles into the valley. The Hemlock Forest and Alder Fringes were filled in with bright ferns, Cow Parsnips, and Plants with bright flowers. The smell of Azalea Shrubbery was strong in places. Deeper within, the foilage and trees and jungle of ferns closed out more light, producing a hemmed in feeling of danger around each hidden turn. The ATV trail ended in a open space of camping ground enlarged with fire pits. A wood marker and sign had been blasted by shotgun pellets. From here on the trail lead away from the machine world that encroached along the edges of the forest. Still, a rocky path dropped down and over a stream and back up over several hills before passing into Hemlock, Spruce, and Birch areas. The trail narrowed and filled with thick shrubs--a veritable choke point where visibility shrunk as the trail wound its way deeper into the valley. Above the valley, the ridges revealed themselves through spaces in the foilage. The sound of gushing water sounded in a hidden ravine below. I was now six miles from the road, from other people, by myself in the silent reaches of Bird Valley. But the trail went on for many more miles until it reached a Pass deeper still within the ranges, where it opened finally into North Fork Ship Creek. To me the indistinct outlines of far off places serve as glimmers of dreams and hopes, of things that someday shall reveal themselves, becoming new doorways for ideas to gather in the gardens of experience. I am attracted to places where others find only malignant surprise by the robust and untrameled forces of nature; the margins where human activity fades. Here the indistinct outlines, the shapes of unseen things, would have to wait another day. The fading light and clinging grey clouds hover above while the throat of a hidden catarct rumbles below. Time returns...and the mind reengages for the five mile bike trip back to the road.