From Tower Hill

Day 250: You don't get many scenic views in Pack Forest. Managed by the University of Washington's forestry college, its full name is "Charles L. Pack Experimental Forest." In other words, it's all about trees: types of tree, growing methods, thinning methods, designing better ways to produce the quantity of lumber-on-the-hoof humans demand. Yes, there are a few spots where they've clear-cut, scalped a hillside right down to the soil, creating an environment where the first colonizers will be foxglove, tansy and other nasty weeds. Overlooking one of those and its incumbent stump field, you may have a small and unappealing window on Eatonville, but more likely, you'll be looking out across more forest...second growth, third growth...because forest products are what Washington grows best. Rarely, as you round a bend on one of Pack's roads, you'll get a glimpse of mountains in the distance (the Olympics, most likely), and even more rarely, a shoulder of the Mountain...you know, the one we talk about with a capital letter. I only know one spot (and believe me, I have hiked all of Pack's trails and roads) where you have a clear line of sight to Mount Rainier, and it's not from the very peak of the cell-phone tower hill, no. You have to slope off down its east shoulder a tenth of a mile or so in order to have an unobstructed view. No one goes down here. No one comes up either, even though a rudimentary horse trail attains the ridge from the north side, thick with brush which is nearly impenetrable. This was my goal on Wednesday: a nice spot to enjoy a handful of chocolate-chip cookies before plodding back to my car, but as it turned out, this finger ridge was the only place where I was pestered by flies during the nine-mile hike. I snapped the picture hastily and beat a retreat to a cooler, shadier spot to enjoy my little lunch.