Journal blue trane's Journal: Lake West camp 3
2011-05-20
Camped overnight by a lake (Lake West, http://www.panoramio.com/photo/48954114). Warm night, clear. The previous day, I parked at a sign saying 3 miles to "wire bridge" and walked to it; it was a high bridge with spectacular views over the canyon below through which the South Fork of the Skokomish river flowed. On the far end of the bridge I ignored warning signs and scrambled a little ways down a trail, without incident. I stopped when it began getting really steep and trees to grab started running out.
I had missed the path to the campsite and lake on the way to the bridge; on the way back there was a car parked next to it. I followed the path 400 feet or so to the lake shore and saw a couple bare-chested guys fishing in an inflatable raft. I left, walked back to the car, drove further into the forest (past a few ugly clearcuts scarring the land) on another road. I found a stream and ate and washed up there. I also hiked up a hill for a mile or so.
It was getting towards sunset and I wanted to see if the guys at the lake had left, so I drove back there. They had gone, so I decided to make camp. There were mosquitos so I put up the tent. Since I hadn't brought my inflatable sleeping pad, I used an Indian technique I'd read about on interpretive trails, gathering sword fern fronds to place under the tent. I tried to take a maximum of four from any one plant, and thanked the plants for letting me use their leaves.
I heard frogs throughout the night; one in particular was very loud. I would wak up and listen, not hearing anything, thinking he'd gone to sleep; then he would start his croak routine again. I also heard birds calling throughout the night. Sounded like geese, gulls, some small birds too.
In keeping with the practice of usufruct, I cleaned up the camp as much as I could. There was a lot of glass! Also shell casings, as if people had been shooting bottles.
I saw a large black bird fly over the camp in the morning as I was tending a fire I'd made. It must have had a wingspan of at least two or three feet. A raven? It didn't make a sound, gliding silently...
Emulating Thales calculating the height of the Great Pyramid, I used the principle of similar triangles to estimate how tall some trees were. The method: pace off the length of my shadow, then the length of the tree's shadow. My shadow divided by my height equals the tree's shadow divided by the tree's height, so the tree's height = the tree's shadow times the quotient of my height divided by my shadow. I calculated that one tree was about 90 feet (plus or minus 10 feet), another 75, a snag in the middle of the camp about 45 (again plus or minus 10 feet). I tried to get a sense of how fast my shadow's length was changing as the sun moved through the sky...
The lake was warm, so I took a bried dip. A couple fish watched me, seeming curious and playfully chasing each other through the eelgrass. I thought of a dream I'd had the night before, which might have been triggered by the fishermen I'd seen; in it I was on a boat with a guy who had a fish on the end of his line, and was swinging the pole around in a big circle. I was watching the fish on the end of the hook and felt empathy for it. The guy swinging the pole seemed to me mean, unnecessarily cruel. I wanted to leave, to get away from his sadism, and somehow even though I was on a boat was able to do so. I wanted to apologize to the fish watching me wade into the lake for my fellow-humans, so needlessly cruel and predatory.
As I write this the camp looks much cleaner than when I first came. The fire has died out. I've packed up all but my wet swimsuit and water shoes, drying slowly. The sun for the first time is behind some hazy clouds. A small bird chirps in a nearby tree. It is quiet except for the sound of a light wind rustling through the leaves. Ants scurry endlessly at my feet. I feel good, calm, ready to go back to civilization and do some programming. I would like to come back here when I get an inflatable canoe, see how clean the camp is...
No clickable links in diaries now? (Score:2)
What is the world coming to?!? http://www.panoramio.com/photo/48954114 [panoramio.com]
Re: (Score:2)
nevermind i guess, suddenly now the link is clickable in the diary text? Tags still get erased every time I edit the journal though :(
Re: (Score:2)
Are you using the new and unimproved journal posting screen?
Bookmark http://slashdot.org/journal.pl?op=edit [slashdot.org]
Some screens have stylesheets that don't underline links unless you're hovering over it, and the link color is allllmost the same color as the text, so some people (ok, one person [slashdot.org]) have taken to marking their links so that people can see that there is a link there.