Flowery Trail Road

I crossed Chewelah Mountain on Flowery Trail Road. There were flowers at the beginning, many of them, and lush pastures too. After that it was simply a steep climb through a dark and heavily managed forest. Mismanaged would perhaps be a better term. The mountains were brutally cut and with the even aged management style. Scarred from clear cuts in other words.

I did sympathize. It was a deep dark forest. The kind that nurtured the old fears. Cutting it wasn't just money, it was mastering the dark. They didn't know this about their psychology of place, nor how much fear ran in their veins. This is the old fear inherited from long ago. In slaughtering the forest then, they soothed their souls. Their art even glorified the desecration. I thought about the long mural in Priest River that played like a movie beside me as I pedaled up the steep hill. It was painted on a long wall that bordered the highway and showed the joy they took in scalping the landscape. It was their identity.

How much better their world would be if on every acre, fifty trees were left to grow tall? The other five hundred trees, and an acre can grow that many trees, would be managed commercially and equally as profitably as the clear cuts. That's what I thought about as I rode along.

On a flowery trail. I can't dismiss the idea that taking this route has meaningful metaphoric connotations. What am I on the flowery path towards? Whatever it is could only be good.

The route itself was hard. One stretch was so steep that I had to push. I climbed way up to a high rise which dropped off and then I of course had to climb back up even higher to get to the real pass which I eventually reached.

On a flowery trail. Does it really matter that it lead to something? The path itself could then become the destination.

The other side of Flowery Trail Pass was virginal. Of course the forest had at one time been cut but now it was mature and filled a large bowl. I barely looked around though. The descent was long and steep. The warning sign had promised an eight mile descent and the mountain delivered. I was on a smooth, gradually curved road flying along at top speed. The drop was all of 2,500 feet and my smile was likely that wide too. I literally rolled into Chewelah and immediately wanted to do it again and again.