They say the only constant is change. You’d think after 70 years in this life and on this planet, not to mention a childhood in the Armed Forces moving every year or two, I’d be able to handle change with equanimity. Not so. After learning today, rather abruptly, that I would no longer have the assistance of my trusty garden helper to manage two large garden properties, I was, as they say, “thrown for a loop”. My inner 2 year old felt abandoned and my senior self was rattled enough to not be able to settle down or focus on anything. So I tossed the dog into the car and blindly headed up the highway to my ‘peaceful place’, the Horseshoe Bend Trail.
For 4 or 5 decades I’ve walked that trail and in the past 20 years it has been the place I go, 6 or 8 times a year, to refresh my soul and commune with nature. A fairly easy trail following the Nooksack River for a number of miles, it was well-maintained by the Forest Service. Handicap accessible for the first ½ mile, it was packed and polished smooth by decades of hikers, with wood walkways over the swampy areas. The initial riverside walk ended with 30 or so steps leading up to the high trail, which climbed and dipped along the riverbank, wandering through beautiful vistas of forest and rapids, accompanied by the white noise of the Nooksack rushing over boulders through fairly narrow channels.
The trail led through masses of fern and devil’s club, and stands of tall cedar and fir interspersed by vine maples, who offered dappled backlit visions of spring green and then autumn rusts. Salmonberry, thimbleberry and huckleberry bushes seasonally offered sustenance to the first lucky hikers, while trillium and other wildflowers decorated the ground around ancient nurse logs with their offspring’s roots decorating their sides. The trail hopscotched over a seasonal creek and eventually to a rocky amphitheater where a bench was perfectly situated to watch the salmon spawn in the fall and to gaze over the pounding rapids.
This is the spot my Mother called her ‘Meditation Place’ and where my parents’ ashes blended with the Nooksack after a final hike up the trail. A bit beyond was the beach area, a backwater sheltered by big rocks and fallen tree trunks where my dogs could safely play in the river.
Sadly, today’s journey was a big mistake if my goal was to outdistance change. The floods of November have scoured the trail from the banks. Parts of the trail are still there but undercut by half. The top 3 steps of the stairs are hanging over the edge of the steep new bank. The riverside is strewn with fallen trees, giant rootballs torn from the earth, piles and snags of tree and flood debris everywhere. To go past the first section requires bushwhacking up the hill where the steps were. Given hiking alone with a senior dog who is not trail-tested, I declined to go further but returning hikers told me that parts of the trail are still there, albeit very narrow and undercut in many places. Apparently the whole arena around the bench by the rapids is completely gone. The river herself is changed: given the new wider bed, she is shallower and the white noise more subdued. It may be that the only constant is change, but that change is awfully hard to take when it rips up the beautiful and leaves such destruction. It occurs to me that I simply expected that the trail that has offered me so much solace over the years would always be there. What else am I taking for granted?
After the initial shock, as I looked past the rubble, I noticed that the river is still flowing green and beautiful, still bouncing over rocks on her way to the ocean. The tall trees are still there, just a bit further up the hill from the new banks. Those that fell will eventually replace the nurse logs that were washed away downstream and the rubble will eventually break down into new soil. And it’s obvious that younger legs are bushwhacking their way upriver, creating a new trail. Perhaps this is a metaphor for aging … and for life on this planet in these challenging times. Change is inevitable yet, if you look, the beauty is still there; you just have to navigate ever-changing new challenges. It also reminds me to treasure that which offers ease and beauty, for it might be gone tomorrow.
The Forest Service tells me that they will be applying for grants to repair the trail; really to build it anew, following the new banks. But that may be years away. I recognize that the loss of a trail is small potatoes compared to what others suffered in the flooding: damage to their homes, gardens, livestock and even livelihoods. But, today, I for one am shedding a few tears over the loss of this place that offered beauty and peace to so many. The Horseshoe Bend Trail, as it was, is now but a treasured memory.
Bellingham, WA 2022
Comments