A Hike To Lodi Creek

Day 324: This collage has been on hold for the last two weeks due to the Alder Lake Fire. The photos were taken on the day of the Volunteer picnic at Sunrise, at the turnaround point of a hike I seem to take every year on picnic day. Why the same hike? Because little Lodi Creek holds a special spot in my heart as one of the most cheering rivulets on the Mountain. Even in late season (and this year, dry), it can be counted on to provide a selection of wildflowers, particularly Lewis' Monkeyflower (Mimulus lewisii) which grows in abundance all along the stream's passage through Berkeley Park and down to Berkeley Camp.

Backpackers will know what I mean when I say that each stream has its own voice. Some babble, some whisper, some laugh. Lodi chuckles. Every rock in the creek bed has some amusing secret to impart to the water and Lodi chuckles at every one it discovers. Perhaps the mosses tickle it, or it finds the pink faces of the Monkeyflowers funny. Perhaps it finds floating fallen petals droll, or the shapes of roots straggling over its banks absurd. Whatever sportive expressions Lodi encounters as it rambles on, it obviously believes them very humorous indeed because they keep it chuckling until this merry stream eventually pours into the roar and rumble of White River's grand guffaw. I hike each year to Lodi to share in its delicious jokes, and when on rare occasion, I have more time, I will continue on past Berkeley Camp to visit another old friend, an unnamed tributary I call Giggly Creek. I think it knows something it's not telling Lodi. You can hear it in its whimsical titter.