June 19, Day 4. Bouquet.

Wednesday, June 19. Day 4. A bouquet of short hikes all over the island:

Coho Preserve (Toward south end of east wing of Island). .82mi, 167ft

Obstruction Pass State Park (South tip of east wing of island). 2.38mi, 406 ft

Eastsound Village (middle of island), 6.56mi, 186ft

Killebrew Lake (near southeast tip of west wing of island). 2.56mi, 85ft

Deer Harbor Preserve & Frank Richardson Wildfowl Preserve (near Southwest tip of west wing of island). 5.14mi, 225ft

For the day’s total, I hiked 17.46mi, and climbed 1076ft. (Also drove quite a few miles!)

Dear Trail Friends, 

I am alas writing these blogs days later because I got very exhausted during the hikeathon. So here goes for Tuesday and the bouquet of small trails. 

I don’t have any photo for the first short hike at Coho Preserve because it was too dark for photos. So let’s start with one of my favorite spots at Obstruction Pass (Photo 1). I love the way Madrona trees seem to love  being near the water and to lean their sensually curved trunks into the light and perhaps the salt air as well. They express my own yearning to lean into the sun and the sea. 

I also want to give those of you who don’t know Orcas Island a sense of the island’s shape and size. Photo 2 shows the overall island with the tracks for Wednesday’s “bouquet” of hikes in blue. 

Just to give you a sense of how much rest time I got while driving (which, along with mostly flat trails made this a much easier day than the first three), the drive from my house to the Coho Preserve is 4.3 miles (9 minutes), from there to Obstruction Pass park is 2.2 miles (6 minutes), from there to Eastsound Village 10 miles (22 min), to Killebrew 9.5 miles (19 min), to Deer Harbor 7.8 miles (16 min), back to my house 12.7 miles (25 minutes). In fact with parking time and a little more complicated logistics I actually spent a lot more time in the car, but that shows the minimum would be over an hour and a half. 

It really is amazing to drive to so many trails in different parts of the island and walk through so much diverse beauty on one little island in one little day. It really makes me feel awe for the beauty of this island, and it makes me want to formulate this hikeathon and find a way to put it “out there” so that others can have a similar experience. While I was walking (I’m not sure which day) it occurred to me I could write an article for backpacker magazine and talk about my backpacking experience, my foot injury, and how it led to the hikeathon idea. I could have a website where people could download the tracks and directions for each hike. So the dream has a bit more shape than before. 

Killebrew Lake is a short hike but I was really struck again by its beauty and how different it is from the other lakes I hike around. Photo 3 is the play of the morning light with all the beautiful green life. Photo 4 is the light again and also the water. Photo 5 is a collage of a detour I made searching for a new trail in what turned out to be private property. I was mesmerized by the way the old discarded cars and equipment were becoming part of the green world around them. 

And photo 6 is a “sea of nettles.”

From Killebrew I headed for Deer Harbor. Photo 7 is just because I loved the flowers - the lush pink peonies (or whatever they are - some kind of ruffled petalled daisy) flaunted their stuff in front of the fire engine red trucks. (Do you think they turned red out of alarm at the peonies being so “out there”?

Then I saw a silhouette raven sculpture that caught my eye because the raven’s eye was a hole - through which the blue of the sky was visible. I kept thinking about what it would mean to have the sky in one’s eye - and somehow that felt connected to the theme of summer. (Photo 7)

Now I’m going to break all my own blogging rules. Since I’m writing this all in the afterwards I don’t really need to keep my days separate. So photo 8 is a selfie I took on Thursday after resting awhile in the inverted pose - instead of looking at the camera, I looked past it into the sky. I like to think I have a little of the sky in my eye quality in it. 

In Deer Harbor I walked around behind the Frank Richardson Waterfowl Preserve only to discover the trail starting to disappear. So if I’m serious about this hikeathon - and including that trail - I’m going to have to learn a thing or two about trail maintenance. (I can already see myself googling “best ultralight trail maintenance tools”). Photo 8 is the Preserve from the just discovered (during last year’s hikeathon), now vanishing trail.  

Then I walked to the little shoreline Preserve in Deer Harbor and I loved breathing the sea air. But far more exciting was the friendly goat I met hanging out with a bunch of big boats. (Photo 9)  It seemed deeply meaningful that “goat” and “boat” rhyme. The goat stated unequivocally that even though b precedes g in the alphabet, goats were here before boats. (I'm not so sure of that, but he was.)

Photo 10 is so you can smell the sea air. So you’d better smell it, if you want to be a good trail friend. I notice I left the harbor water out of the photo so you’ll really have to use your imagination. 

So, finally, I began to hike the village of Eastsound. I was planning to walk the labyrinth at the Episcopal Church (like the Medicine Wheels, it helps focus the pilgrimage aspect of the hikeathon), but found it full of young women dancing and beating drums. What on earth, I thought, is our priest Berto doing letting these pagans dance on the Episcopal labyrinth? Now mind you, I respect and admire Berto’s support of other traditions, and normally I do not use “pagan” as a term of derision, but the moment somebody gets in the way of my plans it’s amazing how intolerant I can become. 

On the other hand, unpleasant as I find surprises that create obstacles to my plans, the best parts of the hikeathon are the unexpected opportunities. As I passed the episcopal church I noticed that Indian Island was accessible (this happens very rarely at low tides, the combination full moon and approaching solstice were probably responsible) and I walked right on out to the island. Photo 10 is the island with people walking the narrow spot of sand exposed by the low tide.  Photo  11 shows me on the island. 

Fortunately a young woman volunteer was there as a host and for “crowd control.” I was about to dawdle when she told me the tide was coming back in - fast. I ran splashing through the returning water and was amazed that my waterproof shoes (of which I was skeptical) while outwardly soaked stayed inwardly dry (and dried quickly afterward). 

As I walked down the beach I saw a family at play and remembered how much joy I got watching families at play on my Oregon Coast Trail hike (or for that matter on the Oregon PCT. ) I love it when I can get the “you are so beautiful” feeling about human beings. For some reason it comes to me easily when walking in response to sky, earth, trees, birds, butterflies - for me to feel that “wow” in response to a human family happily at play in the midst of summer on the beach is a special treat. 

Just moments after I left the beach, looking back, I could see that Indian Island was pretty much an island again. (Photo 12). Tides are like seasons - great teachers about transience. 

There’s a footpath between the post office and the airport that is part of my village of Eastsound walk. It used to be through trees (or maybe high shrubbery? Not sure). but they were all cut down on one side and now it is open meadow. I grumpily resisted the change for a long time (all change is bad unless I initiate it),  but during this hike I noticed that I appreciated the open space - how it’s way of feeling open was very different from a mountaintop - reminding me more of the Midwest and the prairie. (Photo 13). 

Okay. Time to stop this one. Thank you for walking me. Now you can join me in one of the best parts of each day’s walk - coming home, and being welcomed by Magic and Mystery in the window, waiting for me. I can’t exactly say “see  you on the trail tomorrow” since tomorrow from the point of view of this blog is yesterday from the point of view of when I’m writing. But we aren’t going to get stuck in some old fashioned linear notion of time, are we? See you tomorrow on the trail - we’ll be walking around lakes and along water ways.