From Chapter 2 of version 1, A technicolor Lightning Storm: This had started out to be a much more pleasant day. It had begun with a beautiful mid-summer sunrise, clear and bright. She had gotten an early start and arrived at the trailhead around 8:30 in the morning. Dana Duncan was dressed comfortably in her favorite denim jeans, leather belt, a tee shirt, blue plaid long sleeve shirt, wool socks and sturdy hiking boots. She wore a well ventilated hat with a wide brim and carried a sturdy walking stick that she had made herself years ago from a redwood branch she had found. She had stripped the bark, trimmed the ends and wrapped the hand-hold area repeatedly with a twenty foot long nylon cord which made it easy to grip and more comfortable to hold for long periods of time. She even added some beads and leather for decoration. While the weather forecast had called for highs in the mid to upper eighties in the Willamette Valley, the temperature in the mountains would be a bit cooler; in the upper seventies and quite pleasant. There had been some thunderclouds the day before up over the east side of the Cascade Mountains, but they hadn’t amounted to much and there was no sign of anything so far today. Just before noon, Dana was nearing Marion Lake. It was only a two hour hike but she had been traveling at a leisurely pace, enjoying her surroundings, the huge trees and the sunlight dappling the ferns on forest floor beneath them. Occasionally she stopped for short periods and sat by a tree a few yards off the trail just listening and watching. She sometimes saw small animals or even a deer but usually it was other hikers, who would pass by oblivious to their surroundings, talking loudly, focused on the trail ahead and never even noticing that she was there. Marion Lake was in sight when she had veered to the left and started climbing the rise to the northeast. There was no real trail here but it was an area she had been to several times in the past. Once she made the top of the rise, she walked a while longer and arrived at a relatively level area where there was a small pond several yards to the south in the trees. Ahead of her between the trees, there was a steep drop off and an amazingly close view of Mt. Jefferson which was just across a broad canyon. Today there were some small puffy clouds just to the south-east of the peak but nothing that looked troublesome. Dana stopped here, set her pack down, took off her hat, and sat in the shade with her back against a tree. There would be plenty of time to set up camp later. She pulled out the sandwich she had brought for her lunch and the book she wanted to study and ate quietly while she thumbed through the pages to the section she wanted. She read for a while, refreshing her memory of what she was about to try. Then she moved off to the pond, approaching carefully so as not to step on anything important and began searching for tracks and any signs of animals being here to drink. She wasn’t disappointed. She discovered deer tracks, more than one animal judging from the different sizes. And what looked like elk tracks too, also probably more than one. Raccoons had been here too. And possibly squirrels, there were tiny little tracks. And small bird tracks. She had spent quite some time attempting to determine how old some of the tracks were. That was considerably harder than just identifying them. Time had passed quickly and it suddenly seemed to be less bright than it had been. But according to her watch it was still early afternoon. She looked up to see the sun was just an hour or so west of being directly over her head. But there were clouds building, darkening the sky. Then there was an ominous rumble, very loud and very close. This was not a good sign…
Posted on: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 13:40:18 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015