Into the Storm
I arrive at Ricketts Glenn around 4:00 in the afternoon. The sky has turned dark and an ominous wind is kicking up. I have been on the bike for about six hours zig-zagging my way across the state. My plan of spending the last few hours of the day hiking is in danger of being rained out.
I am going to need a room for the night so I suppose I could skip the hike and go in search of a motel, but my phone has no signal here and something tells me there is nothing close by. Besides, getting back on the road under that sky would be crazier than setting out on a hike. Taking shelter under the pavilion at the edge of parking lot is the wisest move.
I stretch out muscles cramped from the hours on the bike and intend to wait out the storm, but the trail looks so inviting that I can’t resist starting down the path, telling myself I won’t go far. The forest is deep and dark and has an energy that I want to absorb. Or maybe it is absorbing me as I keep getting pulled in, further and further. I pass a family of five rushing in the opposite direction. “There’s a storm blowing in,” the father says to me. “You’re going to want to turn around and get back to the parking lot.”
While that is probably what I should do, it is the last thing I want to do. So I keep going…
Every time I am about to turn around, I come to another stunning waterfall or a picture I can’t resist walking into. This is one of the most beautiful parks I have ever been to and I am absolutely high on the splendor of it.
A tremendous crack of thunder echoes through the dark woods. I hear the rain hitting the leaves overhead before I feel it and then it is hissing all around me, drenching me along with everything else. Getting wet isn’t the bad part though. The bad part is that the rocks that line the often steep slopes were once in the creek bed and in the rain, they become very slippery.
I find a huge overhanging rock and take shelter there. Watching the storm, I fish out the notebook that I always carry in my back pocket and write down notes from the day.
Occasionally, a small group of hikers braving the rain come by, slipping and sliding, scaling up the trail, their clothes hanging heavy and wet, their hair, plastered to their heads. For the most part, they seem to take it in stride, accepting it as part of the experience. Most don’t notice me sitting cross-legged under the over-hang, out of the rain, writing in my notebook. The ones that do sort of startle and then pretend they saw me all along. I usually wave and they usually wave back. One girl, college-aged, shouts, “Are you drawing in that book?”
“Writing,” I shout back.
She smiles and nods. “Perfect place to do it.”
After about a half-hour, the rain stops and I continue on the trail, seeing one waterfall after the other. The late afternoon sun returns then making everything shimmer.
