Spring at 3300 feet in the Cascade Mountains is a brilliant experience. Starting around May, the mountains started living up to their name, and cascades of water started springing up from every nook and cranny. When a spring appeared in the middle of the dirt road in front of my chalet, I found myself pondering the triple meaning of spring. Did someone first notice some water springing out of the ground and then later say that something else sprung up just like water? Or did things generally spring before water springing up out of the ground was a spring? I don’t know. But seeing the water coming up so longed sealed as layer upon layer of snow and ice is fantastic.
Reaching Hart Lake for the first time since the melt began, I saw cascades of water pouring down Mount Bonanza. Having lived in these mountains for nine months, I’m noticing a lot of strange, primal things coming out. Seeing those cascades was one of them. Like seeing the green grass down at Lake Chelan, seeing all that water just filled me with a sense of euphoria. And not the sort of mild euphoria I’d been accustomed to in my mostly city-dwelling life, but something rich and deep welling up within me, a knowledge that after all that winter, life was definitely returning to Railroad Creek Valley.
Now the springs are quieting down, and summer is, if not here, just around the corner.