I leave California, cross Oregon. The number of state highways is announced with black figures within a white shield. But as soon as I leave Oregon behind, the number appears inscribed on the silhouette of the country’s first president. I just entered Washington State, where the days are classified as rainy days and days that it rains. On the west side of Mount Olympus, which faces the Pacific Ocean, up to 4,100 mm of rain is recorded annually, the highest rainfall in the continental United States. And it is on that slope, at the Forks campsite, where I set up my tent. When I go to sleep, I fear whether I will get up in the morning or whether I will have drowned.
I wake up uneventfully and approach Lake Ozette. The route I have chosen begins there. It promises a walk through the temperate humid forest, and just a few steps are enough to understand what it is. Under impressive cedars, the undergrowth closes. I enter a gallery where hardly any light enters. Mosses and lichens with all the greens in the universe stick to soils, trunks and branches. The quagmire covers the ground, soaked, dark and soft like an old sponge.
The path would be impassable without the wooden walkway that extends for three miles, and as I walk along it, I feel the verdigris take over my boots and penetrate my joints. The forest enters my core and takes over my thoughts. So powerful is its magic, a magic that could perfectly be accompanied by a continuous bass of those in an intrigue movie that warns of the terror hidden behind the next log, or in that even darker shadow, or right behind the protagonist. I might be stunned, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a goblin, a goblin, orcs, dwarves or trolls appeared.
And suddenly the plot takes a turn, which could be announced with a cavalcade of Wagnerian valkyries to culminate in that brass fanfare that Richard Strauss arranged to open Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Because the curtain is drawn, the weeds move aside, the plant gallery opens and the ocean appears, or what should be the Pacific, because the waters have receded. What remains is the low tide, a field of rocks covered by algae, with cliffs that rise silhouetted against that misty nothingness. The roar of the waves comes from beyond that depth of fog, which could hide the very abyss of the end of the world.
Between that ocean that comes and goes and the screen of vegetation stretches a thread of beach, a strangled border that has become a cemetery for monstrous bones. Like remains of arcane shipwrecks, the bleached trunks of trees uprooted in the middle of a storm and peeled by the waves pile up.
A couple of playful raccoons chase each other among these remains. Some black-tailed deer flee. I see some squirrels. This is also the kingdom of seals and the long-tailed puffin. A crow takes advantage of the low tide to hunt snails. He takes flight vertically with a prey and lets it fall. Thus he breaks its shell and eats the meat. Will you remember that one of your ancestors gave the Sun to the world, and also the Moon and the stars? It was told by the Makahs, who here fished for hake, halibut and salmon, and hunted whales and seals. His memory remains inscribed in the rocks, where they sculpted faces, fish, and a whale.