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The Twelve Month Series

 

Twelve months of visits to a mountain lake tells more than twelve tales. The solitude found during a Wednesday in the winter is completely different from the chaos found on a Saturday in the summer. The seasons make one set of changes. We make the other. The combination produces a much more interesting set of experiences that can not be revealed in one visit or in a page of some guidebook.

 

 

Nature's residents range from rodents to raptors, and from delicate flowers to massive pine forests. Most of us drop by for peacefulness, exercise, fishing, or adventure, but some build campfires while forests burn, or fire guns during busy weekends. Get to know the fuller, richer story that so few of us take the opportunity

to experience.

 

 

Lake Valhalla is perched along the high, rugged crest of the Cascade Mountains. It is wrapped within the Glacier Peak Wilderness and sits along the Pacific Crest Trail. Getting there in the summer can be as easy as a walk. Getting there in the winter can be adventurous and dangerous.

 

The lake sits along a series of borders: wilderness and civilization, open alpine meadows and thick forests, the wet Puget Sound region and the dry half of Washington state. Dayhiking families and thousand-mile through-hikers visit, mix, and tell different stories.

 

 

 

What started out as one person's bike ride to lose some weight became the story of a slice of America from the Pacific Northwest to the Florida Keys. There were big cities, rural towns and great stretches of open land. Heroes and villains are out there too, but mostly it's fine people living day-to-day and unknowingly impressing strangers. The weather wasn't left out either. From the first winter storm in the mountains of Washington through the tailwinds in Idaho to the heat and storms of the South, weather kept things from getting boring. Seeing America at ten miles an hour without the protective shell of a car allows all of the senses to get to know the country. It was an interesting ride with insights into culture and sore muscles. And then there was the awesome chocolate sundae in a ranch town in Utah.

 

This personal narrative also has an appendix that acts as a guide for others that might want to try their own adventure. There are details on gear, route selection, and expenses and most of all encouragement. You don't know what you'll find out there on the road until you get there.

 

 

 

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