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⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)

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06-05-21

Here are the directions to get to M Crest from my house:

Jaywalk onto the Interurban Trail. You have to get across Old Parkway all on your own. The ground is flat, smooth, and burning hot from the blacktop. Watch out for good drivers that will stop, bad drivers that stop for no one, and cops that only stop to watch you speed up when you lock eyes. It takes about eighteen steps to make it across. Use your elbows and your eyes.

Take an immediate left onto the Interurban and slow down. Mask up for the joggers and social groups. The path starts relatively narrow with a clear two-lane structure to the path, but it widens the farther on you walk. Soon, the path opens to children, bikers, and – the pinnacle of Interurban folk – children on bikes. They’re the bad drivers you like: They’ll stop for no one, and they’d better not. The gravel beneath your feet feels monotonous and uncanny. Don’t look down. Use your knees and your hips to move ahead. There were frogs here last night and there will be frogs here tonight, too.

At the fork, take a left downhill. The roar of C Drive is your guide. Unfortunately you must walk towards it for some time before you can walk away. The sk̓ʷəqiq jump alongside you, stopping occasionally to blink and observe you like you blink and observe them. They flash their tailfeathers, the white spots matching your polka-dotted socks. If you breathe slowly and move smoothly, a x̌payʔ c̓ic̓k̓əd will whizz by your nose, golden and shimmering. You are the good driver that stops for birds. Cross the road to Arroyo Park. Someone has written “Stop Lab Animal Testing” on the back of a road sign. Your gaze lingers on it for a little too long and a car beep-beeps for you to cross while they wait. Use your ears and your toes.

You will have to cross A Creek. The bridge is out. The other day you crossed the creek and you fell in, right in front of the handsome biker who was lunching and smoking downstream. You vow to yourself to never show yourself like that again. You have brought your poles for a reason. Throw your pack – containing your MP3 player, your phone, and most importantly, your lunch – across the water and onto the rocky bank before vaulting over the creek with your poles. It was much easier today. Is it because you’ve been here, and you re-acquaint yourself with the streambed stones instead of meeting them for the first time, or because it hasn’t rained since you were here last? Crawl through the tree roots and hoist yourself up onto the trail. Use your ankles and your nails. You are the creekside jaywalker who stops for the current and the depth.

Take a left upward at the trail marker. You don’t think you’ve been here before. The trail continues up into the light, up into the green, up into the tangle of roots that inform your steps. Like a beacon, the mossy boulder at the first long flat stretch, a glacial deposit older than you and those before you and those before them, welcomes you to C Mountain. You have been here before, a month ago with your best friend. Climb the boulder like they taught you (use your chest and your wingspan), and brush the dust from your boots off the moss when you reach the top. Have some water. Did you bring enough?

You know your way around here a little more, as memories come back. Greet the sɬəɬaq and recall how much they’ve grown. Earlier in the year you found frustration in not knowing who they were as they sprang up with the temperature. But now they announce themselves to you, their flowers waving in the breeze as if to say “Hello! Hello again! Do you like my new ‘do?” And you do. The last time you met sɬəɬaq it was in the Arboretum with Jamie, and the little berries just barely fit around your pinky finger, mutedly sweet and warmly inviting. It’s not time to try sɬəɬaq again quite yet. Check the map and take some photos of it. Take the Hemlock trail until Point C. The trail is wide and gravelly like the Interurban, but the trees flanking the sides are evergreen and shady over you. Count your steps on the uphill, wishing you were walking on the sides. 50 steps at a time, whisper them under your breath. Use your voice and your Achilles.

Take a right off of Point C and start on the S Trail. The trees close around you, but they don’t leer and watch. Each one brushes against your shoulders, and the groundcover tugs at your ankles as you pass. The ground is softer and less rocky. Welcome the strain on your legs, back from the gravel trudge. Even through your boots the give of the soil is tangibly bouncy. Use your knees and your toes.

From the trail marker towards the crest, the rest of the walk looks immediately and permanently uphill. Retie your boots. Use your laces and your knots.

When you make it up the incline to a long stretch of flat, narrow trail, the bright green crowds your periphery. The trail ahead is a length of brown cord that you tightrope walk. T’əqt̕qac ushers you ahead, little vining offshoots patting your calves in encouragement. Each lobe of their leaves are like fingers, all five forming hands that help you through. You are the jaywalker from the Salal Trail to the Huckleberry Trail, but you stop in the middle of the road. You intend to stash your poles, since the trail isn’t wide enough, but the moment the swish of your rain pants and slosh of your water supply hush, you are brought to a standstill. It is quiet, quieter than you have ever known. The rush of cars along C Drive are but a memory. The chatter of trail passerby is no longer a concern.

It is quiet. Use your nose and your lungs. It is not silent, there is still the breeze through the č̓uʔɬac above you, the broad leaves nudging one another and spinning seeds cascading over your shoulders. The rock face to your right buffers the sound of the road and the flies to your left drown out the passing hikers far behind you. It is quiet, quieter than you have ever felt.

As you tiptoe ever upward, you see the rock face of the overlook invite you over, and the sun feels new on your feet when you take off your socks. Trees obscure the promised mountain view, but your eyes are closed anyways.