The Numbers

Decade

June 14, 2021 Comments (0) journal

Looking Downstream

You can hear it before you ever see it. The trail twists and turns, rises and falls, and with each dip and curl the sound changes, steadily getting louder with each step. With the canoe balanced on your shoulders and your head up under it as you walk, the sound sort of echoes and bounces around your ears. Louder, now.

You walk around a bend in the trail and suddenly it is right there in front of you. Fast moving water, a river in flood with all the accompanying sound and fury, seemingly trying to rise up and bust its banks, the line between shore and river blurring as the water pushes against the grasses on the bank and the boughs of overhanging trees. A river is a primal force, an undeniable power as old as time itself.

The White River portion of the Three Rivers Expedition is less than two weeks away, a journey from the east side of Mount Rainier, from glacial ice through ancient forests and into the buzz of suburbia where it runs into the waters of the Puyallup. Research and adventure, adventure and research.