September 25th
It's September 25th. It's officially fall. Most of which you already knew. Work has been wild, I've been chained to the desk. That's okay—good, even, because mortgages must be paid and brainpower must not go unused, lest it be lost for good under a pile of dust somewhere.
Seasons-wise, I'm down for fall. Then again, I'm down for all the seasons (excepting the month of February, which you can have cuz I just don't want it).
I've been trying hard to adjust to the fall stuff this year, though. The rain and the darkness. Calibration has been a little bumpy. I feel blah. Like I'm not getting out. The darkness comes swiftly and catches me unawares. "I was gonna go skate tonight!" I think. "I was gonna go wander!" I've got to reset the schedule, retune the frequency. Plug into the dark fall vibrations and start feeling the tremulous energy that they bring...
A Word About Capes
On Sunday I hiked from Short Sands beach to a precipice overlooking the cold Pacific. This precipice had the regal name of Cape Falcon. Now, sometimes when I hike alone I'll listen to music, or WTF by Marc Maron. Sometimes it's better not to, though. Then you can do all that thinking that walking seems to induce. Range around on such far-flung topics as what you're going to eat for lunch and the state of your spiritual well being. Foggy sunlight, like juice, runs through the trees. The views come and go. And finally, out at the "cape," where you're dripping in sweat, the skyline's all hidden in mist. The only thing to do now is look down at the craggy coastline and think about more immediate things, like the fact that you're standing at the very edge of the continent with nothing between you and Japan but a few million whitecaps. Whoa.
2 Things
R.I.P. Junk Spot: As stated elsewhere, our friend Nick and some other guys had this rad, renegade skate spot in New Jersey going. It was there, now it's gone. Plowed by a landowner-hired thug the other day. I was lucky enough to slash it in May when I went through NYC ... The streets really are ever changing—don't take anything for granted.
Bye, Summer: Last Saturday was like summer's last stand. 85 in the shade. We all went to the beach, even the babies and dogs, and sent off the warm months with a beer and a swim.
This Time Last Year
This September isn't last September. It's different in ways and better in ways. For some reason, though, I found myself looking through photos from last September. It was nice seeing all the faces and the places and the way the light was soft and gold, angular, like it is today.
This is the old Bracewell mini ramp. It wasn't much to look at, but I loved it dearly.
Watched one of my bests get married in the old fashioned way—outside in the fresh air in front of a bunch of good people under the high-country Colorado sun. During their vows, a wind whispering of fall set the aspen leaves a'clicking. Hooray for love!
On the way to the wedding, stopped off in Denver to see nephew Pat and Rocket the puppy—who gnawed on my knuckle with pin-sharp baby teeth.
Hiked up Eagle Creek Trail for the first time: Heat. Haze. Big roving rain clouds. Trails carved out of cliffsides. Waterfalls that drop loudly into deep, green pools.
Used the rest of my garden tomatoes to make a galette. Kinda like a pie, but messier and lazier and in my mind more delicious. Rolling pinned the crust, threw great foodstuffs in the center, and then wrapped it up like a lil baby. It was the oven, really, that did all the work.
Goat Lake Cold Camp
We couldn't know. We just could know that after the hottest summer on record, Labor Day weekend would be the weekend that it'd cool down 40 degrees and spit snow from the sky at high elevations. After all, we're not god. We're not omniscient. We have no power vested in us, weather-wise, destiny-wise, or other.
In other words, I need to report that I went backpacking with Mark and Jeremy in Gifford Pinchot National Forest, AKA Goat Rocks Wildneress, AKA middle-of-nowhere Washington, and it was an epic journey full of rain, sleet, wind, and deep, billowy clouds roving through the valleys; full of fierce starry skies, tear-wrenching shivers, and sweeping mountain vistas that danced in and out of the fog.
True story: we were supposed to camp two nights but only camped one. However, this did not lessen the amount of miles hiked, or more appropriately stumbled, around the Goat Lake Loop. It just means that at some point on Saturday as we traversed through the storm, someone started talking about nachos—and all was over. Our gear was wet and we were wet and our freeze-dried lunch was long, long gone, and so it was silently decided, as if by ESP, that we wouldn't, as planned, find a campsite protected by trees to wait out the weather, but that instead we'd hobble the many miles back to the car and drive all the way back to Portland—our knees, feet, backs, and wavering spirits be damned.
It was an adventure in the truest sense, entailing unplanned hijinks and great feats of strength. I wouldn't take it back for anything—it has, in fact, already become legendary in my mind. The wildnerness is beautiful, even at its most savage—actually, more so at its most savage. Now, here, I can sit back at my desk and feel lucky to have been really out in it. And maybe, just maybe, I might do it all over again. Sorry, though, only if it's sunny!
