MIKE MacFERRIN'S OLYMPIC SOLO TREK....August 8, 2004
Despite the festivities last night, I awake early, an hour before dawn. Crossing a log to the extensive sandbar at
Five-Mile-Island,
I sit quietly for hours, watching the sun rise
over the Hoh River Valley as night slowly fades into day. In the city, I rarely take the time to see the sun rise...
out here, it is the best alarm clock I have ever known.
Today, our group packs up over a friendly breakfast and heads the last five miles of flat trail to the Hoh Rainforest
Visitors' Center. It is an easy walk, and we pass legions of happy tourists and dayhikers enjoying the forest for a
day or two. Emotions and memories surge through me at unexpected times. I look down at the wedding band on my left
hand, remembering the moment I collapsed above Upper Service Falls. I doubt I should ever forget it. "I'm coming home
to you, baby" I whisper silently to my wife as I force back tears from deep inside me. The fear, the jubilation, the
many conflicting emotions of this trip are surfacing at once as we head down the trail, and I struggle to keep
them contained.
Within an hour or two, we reach the trailhead sign. Just beyond it is the Hoh Visitors' Center and adjoining parking
lot. Taking an obligatory "after" shot, I chuckle lightly, wondering how different I must look than the bright-eyed
hiker I was when I started this trip.
|
In the parking lot, we load up our gear, and Fogduo graciously offers to chaperone me. Several miles down the road we
stop at the Hard Rain Cafe, a hardy little grill outside the entrance of the Hoh Rainforst. For the occasion, OlyHiker
raffles off a small Quinault Indian painting he has made (he works seasonally for the Quinault Indian Nation), which
goes to Cody (foggy's nephew). My eyes are as big as saucer-plates at the counter, and I order a large BBQ
Bacon Cheeseburger, double the onion-rings, and an orange cream soda. It is difficult to wait patiently as the
orders cook, and once served, I engulf mine like a small rowboat in a hurricane. Dicentra finished only half her
salmon-burger, and offers the rest to me. I swallow it without thinking. Pixie gives me the rest of her onion
rings, as does Jay, OlyHiker and Cody. It becomes something of a small spectacle... long after everyone else has
finished, a half-dozen trays are stacked before me as I devour the scraps of every meal left uneaten. No calorie is
spared. ( For the next two days, I eat almost constantly, never feeling full. Having lost 12 pounds of bodyweight
[and not having been fat even then], I calculate later that I went on a nearly 45,000 calorie deficit this trip...
that is a lot of fries! )
After a round of hugs and cheerful goodbyes, I begin my journey home. Fogduo kindly drives me to a nearby truck stop
in the defunct little town of Queets, WA. I enjoy a lengthy shower and scrape off a shaggy month's beard with a
disposable razor, while she and Cody wait patiently in the car (thanks, Foggy!). Several hours later, I sit at a
Greyhound Bus station in downtown Olympia, donning a flannel shirt and an oddly smooth face, waiting for a ride back
to Portland. In-between customers, the desk clerk calls the police for an elderly woman. Her car was just stolen
from the curb outside, and shirtless bums stare with shifty eyes from across the park, as an officer takes down a
report. Everyone here seems noticeably tense and cautious, subconsciously wary of the world around them. I keep an
eye on my backpack in the station, and have to ask the attendant for a key to use the restroom (Customers Only!).
The LED sign warns that my bus arrives in exactly 39 minutes... why is everybody in such a hurry? It is clear I have
long-since shed the familiar stress of the city. This feeling, experiencing it again, is oddly surreal... I am not
quite sure how to react.
It is a quiet bus ride home... folks seem strangely content to avoid eye contact and steer clear of conversation. As
the Cascade foothills roll away on the horizon, my thoughts wander from the trail to my home, and back again. A queen
sized-bed, running water, and an endless supply of food await me at home. Questions of my immediate future fill my
head as we bullet south on Interstate 5, back to the land away from the woods, a land where concrete and computerized
schedules once again rule. I fall asleep, content for the moment, feeling ready to face it all once again. At least,
for now...
|