This is the deep woods, where you won’t ever hear a train in the distance, a far off truck engine or a dog bark as it walks with its owner. Instead a light breeze talks through the ancient tree tops, a hundred feet above. As the needles and branches shiver, the sun spots on the forest floor quiver and slide about. This is the only sunlight the ferns receive, but it’s all they want. The knee high ferns make another small forest on top of the thick, carpet moss. Their arms look years and years to grow. They grow like cacti.

When you’re here, you don’t listen to the nightly news or read internet headlines. The stories are in this deer trail cutting diagonally uphill through the ferns. The deer travel it to the creek at the bottom of this gully and then up to the top of the ridge. The giant trunk lying on its side here shows how many thousands of years this forest has been growing. The overripe huckleberries growing on a bush on top of the trunk tell a mystery. Why did the animals leave this bush? Was it too high and they felt lazy? Both cougars and coyotes left sign along the trail. Deer aren’t the only ones that use them.

The day isn’t 24 hours here. It’s timeless… until the sun begins to set.