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My first task this morning, after breakfast, is to ford the river back to the Queets Trail. It's not so hairy as yesterday, but much colder than I remember! On the Queets River Trail, I soon notice that no human footprints are visible anymore. It appears to be just me and the elk, who leave prints everywhere. While traveling through a moss-laden grove of trees just past Bob Creek, I scare a large bird from a nearby patch of bushes. A beautiful owl flies from the bushes and settles on a branch thirty feet in front of me. As it turns its head to stare, I notice distinctive gold flecks along its back and the characteristically rounded head of the Northern Spotted Owl, that famously threatened species that survives only in old-growth forests like these. I shed my pack and frantically (but quietly!) search for my camera, but before I can produce a picture, the owl flies off quietly into the forest, as if evaporating in a dream. After Bob Creek, the trail becomes faint, often disappearing completely in meadows. At one point after steeply bushwhacking around a riverside washout, I give up the official trail altogether (who needs ya'!), and make the last few miles along game trails, laid here by resident herds of Roosevelt Elk. |