The Sentinels of Tillamook Forest
In the innocence and curiosity of my
youth, my family took drives from Tillamook, Oregon, to what locals called "The
Valley," but what was more formally known as the greater Portland
metropolitan area. We lived west of a vast mountain range that severed Portland
from the coastal range and kept us separated from our relatives. This was
primarily what brought us to the valley. If it wasn’t a family function, then
it was gift shopping or child bearing since my parents trusted the Tillamook
hospital about as far as they could lift it off its foundation. Regardless of
reason, I found a trip to the valley was always cause for celebration; it
wasn't the destination I longed for, it was the journey itself; the sort of
drive that's root of that tired old "are we there yet?" cliché.
Most children develop a test of
growth—a fool-proof indicator of time passed; pencil markings on the wall or
what have you. My indicator was the ability to gaze out the window in order to
take in all of my favorite mountains and spectacular sights along the drive. It
all began when I was bound to a car-seat. My eyes were transfixed on the
passing details outside the car window as I took in the subtle nuances of each
new mile travelled. My parents were too engulfed in mindless chatter to
appreciate my fascination, but these sprawling misty mountains became my
friends and associates. I came to know and expect them with breathless anticipation
and reverence. I noted where clearings began and ended, subtle rises and
declines in elevation as rivers weaved along the highway and the subtle
differences in the rough, weather-battered banks. Etched into my memory were
fallen trees and large inclines that looked as if Mother Nature took a pencil
and drew delicate, winding curves through the sand and straight into the water.
With each drive the picture became more vivid.
As time went on I grew out of the
car-seat. Therefore I was dependent on desperate memory, looking up toward the
window that I was still too small to gaze out; the test of time had begun. On
overcast days I was more or less lost, lest we hit a spot of clear sky, and I
regained my sense of place. Often my parents let me lay down in the back seat,
unbuckled (not to discredit them as safety-concerned-parents, I wouldn't have
had the same experiences otherwise); this gave me a slightly wider scope, especially
nearer to my favorite portion of the drive—The Saddle Mountain region. I should
say, it's not officially known as
"Saddle Mountain," but my Grandfather knew it as such because that's
exactly what it looked like. It became something of a legendary mountain for me.
It was always visible from the valley floor in all its massive grandeur; those
two fantastic humps that rose above the rest of the western mountains like a
camel's back. I would ask my parents to stop the car so we could take pictures
of it with a small and cheap disposable camera. I begged them to get the
pictures developed before the drive
home so I could do my best to track our whereabouts on our drive back to
Tillamook. It sadly never really worked out since Saddle Mountain is only visible
for a mere thirty-seconds from the very highest point of the Tillamook Forest
drive. I never managed to get any closer than that thirty-second glimpse.
The journey was unique in that it
involved every single one of my senses to complete its portrait. The sounds of
Creedence Clearwater Revival were chiseled into my eardrums. "Ramble
Tamble" (Creedence) was always my favorite—the way it just built
intensity, layer upon layer; I would request it just before we started climbing
in elevation. It was and will forever be my mountain song. Then there were the
smells; the nose pinching pine as we left the rot of Portland's Valley, and the
dizzying, verily vile smell of cow manure we had forgotten but always
reacquainted with as we left the forest and entered the rural farmland.
The western threshold of Tillamook
forest was guarded by what I thought to be its gatekeepers—two great sentinels
that stood tall and proud. One mountain, a fat base dotted with massively
expensive homes. Its peak reached up a good fifteen-hundred feet, thinning out
in proportion as it rose. The peak was an obvious head, cocked forward and
looking grimly straight ahead. It wore a badge; a very small "T" for
Tillamook and with that it had all the authority the world could ever know. To
his right ran the highway into Tillamook Forest and the opposite gatekeeper;
the real muscle. He was even fatter at the base, and he forbade all but one
house near his bottom. He stood about seven-hundred feet over his counterpart
and where his partner lacked in upward proportion, he epically made up for in
gluttonous gusto and forbiddance. A peculiar and fantastic hairline (of trees)
formed a mohawk on his uppermost peak and disappeared down his back. It was my
mission to observe these two God-like masses from another vantage point and
complete the picture.
I developed a habit of classifying
mountains by their height and shape. As hard as I tried, I didn't have the
vocabulary to give them proper names, but I drew out a damn well detailed
mountain guide. As it grew thicker with pages, I grew inch by inch and with
every trip I gained a better perspective through that car window. I was, again,
able to track the rivers that weaved through the lush green mountains and the
balding jagged daggers of the Saddle Mountain range, slicing and dicing the
heavens. As years crept betwixt the car window and I, my enhanced scope
provided an increasingly sad view to very subtle changes in the landscape. My
old colleagues, now sad, balding and damaged. Pillaged by loggers. And river
beds larger with new debris from storms long-passed. Clear-cuts that provided
for roadside houses. These mountains were my sun dial—a fool-proof indicator
for time gone by. With so much change, my mountain guide surely grew.
I begged my parents to drive me
around the countryside so that I could know my surroundings and classify,
classify, classify! My mother never quite indulged me, save for a couple drives
North and South along the coastal highway. It was my father, coming from a long
line of loggers, who understood. Hunting was in his blood. He knew the lay of
the land, where the logging roads began, and how to conquer the treacherous,
narrow roads with impunity.
One glorious morning I awoke to my
father, fully dressed, prodding me. I could hear the chugging of his blue Chevy
outside and his slight smirk was telling. My head was swimming as we hit the
road, which started in familiarity. As he steered closer to the gatekeepers, we
took an unexpected right-turn and the rougher road shook me straight down to my
foundation. My eyes danced at all of the unfamiliar sights--my brain processing
and mapping as we continued on.
We veered onto a dirt road that led
straight up a jagged and bald mountainside; this was precisely what I had been
waiting for. At last I was to perform a reconnaissance of a higher order; my reconnaissance. Survey the land and
complete my exploratory mountain journal! As we gained in altitude, my heart
clawed its way steadily up my throat, but good God it was worth it. We rolled
to a stop, where it seemed no through-traffic would interfere with my sudden discombobulation
as I gazed out, in awe. My body felt weightless as I peered over a cliff,
careful not to kick rocks over for fear of disturbing nature's perfect order of
things. There were several adjacent boulders dotting the cliff side. Never mind
natures perfect order of things, we decided (against our better judgment) to
roll a boulder, twice my size, over the bank. Not another living soul for tens
of miles, who would know?
It took all of our man and child
strength to dislodge it, but when it shook loose, good Lord did it go! We
quietly observed the crashing and rumbling for a good solid two minutes with
devilish smirks. Our boyish mission of mischief accomplished, we jumped back
into the Chevy and kept climbing. I would almost classify the mountain's
landscape a high desert as we gained in elevation, the difference a thousand
feet made astounded me. Greens turned to browns, lush green fern dissipated to
dry shrubbery. The jagged tops of mountains around us, all dust bitten, hard
and raw.
There they were; the gatekeepers!
They stood as I knew them, at their
posts like duteous servants of the wild—their backsides balding, flea-bitten
and barren. My main concern was observing the mohawked hairline of the
right-sided keeper. It ran the backside like a two-mile long triangle peaking
at the summit. I hadn't fathomed ever being in a position to look down upon
them. I wasn't worthy of their greatness.
We continued, up and up, while the
Chevy choked and chugged. Finally, he had to call it—any further and his engine
would have been done for. We parked the truck on some very steep, awkward
ground to let her cool off. Meanwhile, we took in the massive scope of our
surroundings. My mind was reeling. We could have turned around half way into
this trip and I would have been completely satisfied. My brain was processing;
like some super-computer (for that time) spinning 3D models, places, rock
types, landscapes; so much that I didn't want to crawl back down the mountain. These
sentinels became all-the-more personal to me. I almost pitied them; mighty and
yet, stationary without defense, and exposed to the violent earth. It was so
that whenever we drove past them I felt a deep swelling in my heart. I couldn't
explain why. Nevertheless, my sentinels were always at the forefront of my
mountain guide.
With so much time passed in my now,
adult age of twenty-seven and having not witnessed my old chums of Tillamook
Forest in more than twenty years, I felt it necessary to return in hope of
recovering some old vital part of myself. Instead, I found my forest in an
especially sad estate. Mist curled through its trees and clouded my vision. My
mountains were plagued by scabs and balding wounds—the very wounds I voted to
put a stop to in the 2004 elections. It was a sad affair like old friends
returned from a long tour of war—disfigured and utterly changed.
It left me longing for my mountain
guide and simpler times. Where has my guide gone, since? I wish I could say. I
think that it holds some essential key to who I am today. Not to say I should
look into becoming an Orologist or Geologist, but more so regarding my
character—always searching, thinking; never at rest. A strength as well as a
weakness. I won’t give up on my friends, I am glad to revisit and hope for
their return to greatness and beauty.
Creedence
Clearwater Revival. "Ramble Tamble." Cosmo's Factory: 40th Anniversary Edition. Concord Music, 2008. CD.
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