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The Outskirts of Leavenworth, WA
May. 9th, 2010 05:23 pmLet's see. The Leavenworth writing weekend went swimmingly: I wrote somewhere between 1500 and 2000 words (a good weekend's work, for me), mostly on the Pigeon Novel, partly on a short story.
But what I want to talk about was the location.
First, the drive there, where we went over Stevens Pass and through towns with names like Sultan, Gold Bar, Startup and Index. We kept coming around bends and seeing, above the omnipresent dark dark green of the evergreen forest, sudden immense mountain peaks. At one point I saw a large bird circling very high up, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
morganlf and I realized that it was a bald eagle. Then on the way up to the lodge itself, we saw a coyote slip across the road.
The Mountain Home Lodge is an amazing place: it's about a ten minute drive outside Leavenworth, Washington, and it's another thousand feet up the mountain. The lodge sits at the top of a big grassy meadow, which teemed with small birds. I imagine there were also mice, voles and groundsquirrels; certainly the hawks were out in force over the meadow.morganlf and I watched hawks circle, circle, and then suddenly dive. She used to be heavily into birdwatching, and told me that they were red-tailed hawks. The small birds, well, there were a bunch of them and I've forgotten most of the names, but I do remember she said some of them were a particular kind of grosbeak. And there were hummingbird feeders and the air absolutely buzzed and swarmed with hummingbirds.
Farther up the slope grew big clumps of bright-yellow wildflowers that looked to me like big daisies, only with yellow petals instead of white. And ringing the meadow were deciduous trees: a big stand of birches at the bottom of the meadow, with their slender swaying white trunks and bright-green leaves, and a clump of some kind of fruit trees—gnarled and lovely as my grandmother's hands, with white blossoms still on the branches.
Past those, in all directions, was deep evergreen forest.
On our midday break on Saturday, in between writing sessions, we hiked up to the lodge lookout. On the way we saw all kinds of small plants—the kind that flourish along the edges of trails, where enough light gets through the bough-cover. And on the path itself, which was wet from the night's rainfall, we saw hoofprints: deer and dog, possibly coyote, possibly elk, and the big deep prints of bear.
I am sorry we didn't see any deer, but I'm grateful we didn't see the bear, I'll be honest.
At the peak we could see the whole valley: the high snow-streaked blued mountains, the lower green hills, the town in the cup of the valley, and the river all through it. When we walked back, it started to rain, and while I wasn't thrilled about being out without a jacket in the rain, the specific sound of rain hitting tree-boughs and leaves and soil (rather than a roof or pavement) was marvelous to enjoy.
The birds sang constantly, and we left the window cracked when we were in the room, so that we could hear it.
All in all, an excellent trip. Very... rejuvenating, yes.
But what I want to talk about was the location.
First, the drive there, where we went over Stevens Pass and through towns with names like Sultan, Gold Bar, Startup and Index. We kept coming around bends and seeing, above the omnipresent dark dark green of the evergreen forest, sudden immense mountain peaks. At one point I saw a large bird circling very high up, and
morganlf and I realized that it was a bald eagle. Then on the way up to the lodge itself, we saw a coyote slip across the road.The Mountain Home Lodge is an amazing place: it's about a ten minute drive outside Leavenworth, Washington, and it's another thousand feet up the mountain. The lodge sits at the top of a big grassy meadow, which teemed with small birds. I imagine there were also mice, voles and groundsquirrels; certainly the hawks were out in force over the meadow.
morganlf and I watched hawks circle, circle, and then suddenly dive. She used to be heavily into birdwatching, and told me that they were red-tailed hawks. The small birds, well, there were a bunch of them and I've forgotten most of the names, but I do remember she said some of them were a particular kind of grosbeak. And there were hummingbird feeders and the air absolutely buzzed and swarmed with hummingbirds.Farther up the slope grew big clumps of bright-yellow wildflowers that looked to me like big daisies, only with yellow petals instead of white. And ringing the meadow were deciduous trees: a big stand of birches at the bottom of the meadow, with their slender swaying white trunks and bright-green leaves, and a clump of some kind of fruit trees—gnarled and lovely as my grandmother's hands, with white blossoms still on the branches.
Past those, in all directions, was deep evergreen forest.
On our midday break on Saturday, in between writing sessions, we hiked up to the lodge lookout. On the way we saw all kinds of small plants—the kind that flourish along the edges of trails, where enough light gets through the bough-cover. And on the path itself, which was wet from the night's rainfall, we saw hoofprints: deer and dog, possibly coyote, possibly elk, and the big deep prints of bear.
I am sorry we didn't see any deer, but I'm grateful we didn't see the bear, I'll be honest.
At the peak we could see the whole valley: the high snow-streaked blued mountains, the lower green hills, the town in the cup of the valley, and the river all through it. When we walked back, it started to rain, and while I wasn't thrilled about being out without a jacket in the rain, the specific sound of rain hitting tree-boughs and leaves and soil (rather than a roof or pavement) was marvelous to enjoy.
The birds sang constantly, and we left the window cracked when we were in the room, so that we could hear it.
All in all, an excellent trip. Very... rejuvenating, yes.
