The challenge: one observation for every day of July. 31 days, 31 observations. Day 1 took me to Cape Meares and the Three Capes Scenic Route along the Oregon Coast. It’s one of my favorite spots in Oregon, thanks in no small part to the Octopus Tree and Big Spruce. Observation after the photo!
Cape Meares boasts woods that whisper, and the only path in has found our feet. A fallen Sitka spruce leaves a dry canyon to our right, its spider roots reaching skyward. Life is already hatching from its corpse; moss and ferns find the vein. It’s less a walk than a stop and whoa, as we move around marvels that have crafted themselves into scare-trees to banish some and call others in. News of our arrival is traded from branch to leaf, through circle roots and stacked limbs. The tallest spruce in Oregon winks through the cover of neighboring trees, offering a peak at dinosaur skin. She knows we’re coming. One final turn and there: what 800 years of living can do. Reverence. I wonder if I should have brought such an elder a gift. Her knuckled base moans: bring only yourself, and leave with exactly this. She is thunder dug deep, and with a touch to root she relieves me.
