Omnipotent Olympic

Look what I found! Olympic National Park, where I just recently spent three glorious days camping, hiking, and basking with my boyfriend, was featured today in the article "The Top Ten Best National Parks You Don't Know About." Well, in fact, I do know about it and... sigh... will forever reflect back nostalgically on the peace and majesty that I found there.

Never in my life have I witnessed such rapidly changing topography within a day's travel. We spent our first night camping in an old-growth forest on the edge of the Pacific coast, and woke up within a 5 minue walk of the ocean. From there we hiked through a temporate rain forest, cooled off in a glacial river, hugged some of the tallest sitka spruce and cedar trees in the world, walked over a powerful waterfall, and rode along the edge of a deep mountain lake which offered generous vistas to delight any soul. We finished our day with 17-mile climb in our budget rental up the side of a mountain, to witness the sunset over hurricane ridge. It was silent as we watched the sun disappear over the ridges of the Olympic mountains, with no one nearby but grazing deer in moutaintop meadows to keep us company. The two of us communicated in the quiet air over the shadowy peaks, the sleeping giants whos pride and majesty filled the valleys like water rushing into a pool, bathing us and overcoming us with their power.

This is a place where nature still reigns, and the sheer size of it all- nearly a million acres- is at the same time both inspiring and daunting to any single person on foot. It was a humbling experience for me to be amongst the ancient roots and ecosystems; being my tiny self in such a big world. Now I'm back in New York again, and the steel, branchless frames loom over my head in place of the proud sitkas- but I'm happy still, because I retain the peace that I gained from what I now recognize as a spiritual retreat, and anticipate eagerly when I will again be emersed in my natural world- to bask in wonder at the beauty of the earth.

I'm so happy that I saw this article this morning! For the rest of the day, my soul and my mind will have drifted across the continent and are back on the left coast, dozing peacefully in the crsip fresh air of the Pacific Northwest. mmm...