Grudgingly, we left Shady Lane and Lake Cushman behind. We hated to put such a remarkable place in the rear view mirror, but we were determined to move on. An entire peninsula (and hundreds of miles of coast) lay unexplored before us, and I rather suspected the best was yet to come. We hopped on the 101 heading north through Hoosdport, Liliwaup, Eldon and Brinnon; a series of picturesque little towns straddling the highway along the scenic Hood Canal.

By chance we strayed from the 101 and wandered up the Dosewallips river road until it came to an unceremonious end, where it had been washed out by a flood some years prior. A sign led us to a nearby trailhead and we started up a steep footpath through a stand of second growth Douglas Fir and Red Cedar. This place felt positively open and airy when compared to the close old growth of Shady Lane. Moreover, the greens were much lighter here, lending the place a feeling of spring. Just as it had at Shady Lane, life proliferated everywhere, occupying every niche.


A new generation springing from the old.


Purple Trillium...

The trail led us up, and then down a set of switch-backs to the old road beyond the washout. We followed the road, and the river for a maybe a couple miles through an increasingly old and forbidding forest.


Heather, Shredder, Killer and Aprillia.




Heather, Jeffery, me (Sterling).


Shauna.


Soon, the light was waning. The thought of making our way back through the dark in Black Bear, Mountain Lion, and most disturbingly, Sasquatch country (with three very tasty looking Yorkshire Terriers in tow) inspired us to hump it back to the truck in a fraction of the time it took us to get there.


Heather and Shredder in the half-light.

We were starving when we got to the truck. Fortunately there was the Geoduck (a little bar and grill that serves the best clam chowder in the free world) a few miles down the 101 in Brinnon. We hung there for an hour or two, eating and listening to live bluegrass. In the end, we were just procrastinating the 30 mile drive back to Shelton, and our rooms at the Super 8. Finally, we rolled out of Brinnon and down the road.