Behind Avalanche campground a trail leads back toward Lake McDonald
Lodge. I decided to follow it one June evening, to experience the
sensation of the deep forest changing into night. With the nearby
mountain wall intercepting the sun, dusk comes early to this valley. On
the prairie, night passes across the landscape in an even line,
forthright as a waxing tide; you can almost feel the globe in its
turning from the sun. There is reassurance in the night’s coming, its
steady purple doming over the sky.
But here darkness seems to sprout from the earth. It collects beneath
the hemlock clumps, bridges the creekbottoms. It seems to flit from
place to place. You look about, uneasy, trying to catch it here or
there, but always miss its infiltrations. It captures the narrow
clearings when you look away; pockets of tree-darkness join together,
forcing the light upward until the tree-tops seem impossibly bright and
distant.
Through the trees I could see a dozen fires dance in the growing shadow,
wood-smoke and camp sounds filling the air. Turning uptrail, I felt a
reluctance to leave the presence of those fires—a senseless feeling, but
strong. A growing forest-dread impelled me almost physically backward to
those circles of firelight. I felt the need to be near a fire, to be
reassured by heat and light. Fire was our greatest friend, our greatest
weapon. With it we beat the long ages of ice and held the forest gloom
away. There was no harm here, only silence; yet the longer I walked,
with beard-moss hanging down like daggers all around, the more I craved
the comradeship of fire.
_Continued on p. 104_