End Of The Trail

Day 162: At last I can say that I have been to the very end of the South Swofford Trail, to the point where Cowlitz Wildlife management ends and private property begins. As many times as I've hiked this little-known path, I hadn't been willing to sacrifice skin to salmonberries and other brush in order to gain the last tenth of a mile or so. As with most trails which see limited maintenance, spring is the best time to attempt thicket penetration, and as it turned out, it was more open than I'd expected. I passed through without even realizing I'd done so, and when the trail debouched into open grassland, it took me entirely by surprise. I did attempt to go a bit further on a couple of game trails, but since I did not want to trespass on private land, I turned around after a hundred feet or so. The "meadow" was quite soggy despite its angle, so I did not go all the way out to the lake, but I did visit a second lovely Skunk Cabbage bog at great risk of filling my boots with water. Combustion boat motors are not allowed on Swofford Pond, so the quietness of this location was restorative. I heard to flocks of ducks lifting from the water, the occasional distant bark of a dog or fisherman's voice carrying from the far shore, and was not troubled by human contact until halfway back to the car when I met a group of three women hikers. Once they determined the purpose of my presence, they held me captive for ten minutes, asking me to identify this plant and that, and then graciously thanked me for sharing my knowledge before they went on. Although I'd have preferred to have the trail to myself, I came away feeling that this one brief encounter was a fair price to pay for the time I'd had in much-needed solitude.