I freely admit it, I can’t make big mileages hiking if I stop to do these paintings. I’m fast, but not THAT fast, so, I’ve learned to shorten my goals, keep it realistic – and enjoy myself. For this, I get art to take home, my old body thanks me for slowing down, and by taking care I get to come back again and again to do this. And one more perk that is the difference between hiking and making art. I get to actually LOOK at the landscape, see how it’s built and has evolved. I see and understand how the flowers grow beside that dainty little brook where it spills out of the lake. Or how the trail crews have built a little path of rocks hauled over from a scree pile possibly 50 years ago. Putting in mileage sure doesn’t get you this close connection – but making trail art does.
These paintings represent places that moved me enough to stop and draw. On this trip, fourth of the season, I didn’t take my paints, but instead just a pencil, long point pencil sharpener and some water color paper. The color was added back in my studio, and I loved reliving the trip in this way. It took less art-making time on the trail, yet provided a ‘second adventure’ for me here at home reliving the same places again. I recommend it, really!
In this painting, I liked the way the soft light from distant fires softened up the sky, made companion colors in the willows fit perfectly as they yellowed for fall. The fleabane flowers beside the creek were about spent, with only a few yellow and white petals remaining – but it was a beautiful little place with water gurgling by. Willows, their leaves chomped on here and there by the black-tailed deer, were sporting galls and little caterpillar cocoons awaiting first freeze so they could spend their winter safe under snow on the ground. The place looked felt very soft and settled. Both these paintings were created at places where I was also tired of walking, so it was good timing to take time, calm down, make some art.
As I hiked along and came into a big meadow, the vertical peaks of the Olympics really contrasted my view. Flat and stable, then vertical and jagged, rising fast and steep. That’s what these Olympic Mountains are, really steep. The Dungeness River starts up here and drops 7600 feet in only 28 miles to the Pacific Ocean, one of the steepest watersheds in the country. Ah, but those first dozen miles at the top, they’re just pure magic. One of the side secondary rivers begins here in this valley, surrounded by snowy peaks and a chain of lakes. Not a single lowland trail comes here, they’re all high subalpine or high-elevation trails that drop down into this magic place, giving it a Shangri-La feeling bounded by barriers on all sides.
Gentian : gen shen Gentians are fall-blooming plants of subalpine wet meadows. They’re one of my favorite flowers because they start blooming as summer is fading, being downright gutsy about their timing. They grow in clusters from a solitary root, and are at first tightly zipped up, a dark midnight blue that is truly rare in color. I don’t know another alpine flower with this amazingly vibrant blue. As they open, the insides begin to show lighter shades of cobalt, and again this is color not often seen in the wild, anywhere. They’re spectacular, to say the least I can about a plant that’s learned to flower just before first frost. What timing!
On the other side of the color spectrum, a nose-up look at these plants that were upslope and out in the open from the gentians showed an orange mixed with white, just a tad of white to tone it down. And a little bee getting a meal. This was an upclose and personal painting – the flowers are only two inches wide, max. Orange mountain-dandelion has a hyphen, meaning it’s not a real dandelion, but one that looks similar to it’s backyard relatives. I found these in a much drier place than the gentian but still beside the trail. Both give great color to a drying meadow in late August.
My Six Moon Designs Lunar Duo was a bit too spacious for just me, but I luxuriously lounged in it, spread my stuff all over the place like I lived there. I guess I did. It’s an amazingly big tent for its 45 ounces of weight. This tent, and the other ultralight gear is what’s getting me into these places these days, and allowing me to do it in comfort.
At this campsite, an outcropping of boulders provided some really good reflections in the little lake, and so a painting was needed. Oh, I could have just turned the paper upside down and drawn it a second time, but that’s cheating, and not very accurate. Beside me while I drew, this Olympic chipmunk joined me. The Olympic Peninsula has several endemic mammals that live only here. This is one, and possibly my favorite. It’s small, even looks small with its short nose. This moment, with the chippy and me, my pencil and paper, are what makes my hiking complete – close connections with nature that will remain in my mind throughout the winter.
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Larry Eifert
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