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When a colleague suggests a new trail to you and tells you to take a hike, you listen.
I drove to the Pilchuck Tree Farm just inside the Snohomish County line. The Pilchuck Glass School shares the same road as the trail head. In search of the Pilchuck trail, I looked at the map on All Trails, and although I was about a mile west of where I should’ve been, it looked like I could cross over on an adjoining trail.
Gratefully, nope.
I walked along old logging roads that were lined with towering pines. Their branches like rungs of a ladder dripping in vivid green moss.
I could hear the sound of a babbling brook, the rush of a steady stream of water through drainage pipes sunk below my feet.
I smelled the charred branches and burnt teen-aged-trunks that looked like black cigarettes in an oversized hollow of an ashtray.
I walked through logged fields that had stumps jutting up through brush and tangled branches. I followed narrow & muddy paths along the forest’s edge, and taking a trail that headed into the trees.
Although the trail was closed for the season for horses and mountain bikers (yay!), I met a horse named Cody, and his human mother that referred to him as a “bronco.” Cody kept trying to nudge his head closer to me and I reached out to pet his nose. My hands smelled like oranges and Cody tried to nibble at my fingers.
I watched 3 EA-18G jets fly over in formation, forming a perfect triangle with the outer tips of their wings. They cut through the clouds like a cookie cutter would through dough.
Although I never made it to the designated trail, I hiked over 6 miles in new surroundings. I went outside of my comfort zone and hiked in a place that didn’t require a pass to park.
After I got back to my car, I drove to the proper Pilchuck Trailhead and will be hiking that in the very near future.
