The Barlow Trail
The mountains are calling, and I must go.
—John Muir
On Monday, I have the pleasure of heading up to Mt Hood with my dear friend and client to find the perfect slice of land for her family’s forever home. She and her husband come from California’s Sierra Nevadas—translated as the “snowy mountains”—and after raising their kids in a bedroom community of the Portland metro with only sporadic snow, it’s time for them to find their way home, safely tucked into the shadow of a mountain, where they will be able to shovel snow once more.
After all this containment, I’m excited to spend my day winding through the Cascades on the flank of a volcano. Quick pause here to note that I actually live within an hour of a volcano. Every time this Southern California ex-pat thinks of that, it feels just as magical as when I was a child and volcanoes were found in a land that had pools of chocolate, trees bearing gumdrops, and unicorns casually chewing on mint-flavored blades of grass. On most days, I’m reasonably certain that unicorns are not real (but seriously, if a narwhal is real, can’t we admit it’s not ridiculous?), but living in constant sight of Mt Hood will always feel a little bit magical to me.
“Don’t tell me to smile.” —The Cascades
I’ll wear my rubber boots and be ready for tromping through property that features woods and streams and moss and ferns; the mountains may boast a moody beauty or they may offer the clear-hearted lightness that only mountains in sunshine can offer; either way, my decidedly not-fancy rubber boots will be just right for the task.
I’ve been up there many times before, but most notable was a family vacation over a long summer weekend a few years back in a cabin not far from Trillium Lake. We made a right off Hwy 26, our backs to Mt Hood, and burrowed into the woods. We stayed near the Barlow Trail, a site chosen specifically because we wanted to hike a portion of Oregon history and see some of sites in the area. The cabin was humble but sweet and they had framed posters full of history about the Barlow Road. It was a great trip and our little family had a wonderful time there, but years later, what rises to the top of my memory about that trip is, well, just how very haunted that whole area is by non-physical energy.
”Completed” (a generous word) in 1846 by Sam Barlow on a businessman’s gamble, the Barlow Road was opened for business as the best (and only) road that would deliver pioneers from the East side of the Cascades to the West. Travelers sacrificed $5, a dear and precious sum, to risk and often lose their lives in an effort to get through to the Willamette Valley, a land of veritable milk and honey.
No thank you.
In addition to the obvious dangers pioneers experienced on the long, arduous journey, facing down disease, injury, infection, hunger, dehydration, malnutrition, childbirth, all with little more than prayer and alcohol-laden elixirs to save them, the Barlow Trail revealed a special level of treachery with its steep and twisting ways. It was at its most dangerous on Laurel Hill, a stretch so terrifying that the pioneers’ anger and fear alone would have been powerful enough to create a psychic imprint to last for centuries. At one point, the only way down was through a rocky, narrow, and very steep chute. Pioneers would tie a rope to their wagon, wrap the rope around a nearby tree, and then delicately lower the wagons down, foot by perilous foot.
It was not uncommon for the rope to fail, for strength to flag, or for any multitude of things to go wrong. The wagons, containing all of a family’s worldly possessions and perhaps the family itself, would often break free and fly downhill like wingless birds toward a final nest of splinters, blood, and death below. Such a long journey, meeting such an abrupt and incomplete end.
Hiking along, minding your own beeswax, and then this. No wonder the pioneers pressed on when the journey grew difficult.
While on that weekend trip, we hiked a portion of the Barlow Trail, a stretch where the ruts of wagon wheels are still vaguely visible. In seeing it, it’s a wonder this area was ever settled at all. But what an incredible journey it must have been—rugged and treacherous, yet punctuated by breath stealing views of the majesty of Mt Hood, suddenly revealed by a clearing of boughs as with the drop of a magician’s cape. I wonder what it must have felt like; did they curse the fearsome beauty, or were they inspired to press on? My son and I were slightly ahead of my wife and daughter on the trail; we both heard a male voice, a female voice, and a dog and we almost certainly saw them, or at least caught a glimpse of them, the sense of them, just ahead of us. Yet as we came around the curve on the trail and our view opened wide, there was no one. We were alone in the woods, left to ask each other if we just heard that; yes, we had definitely both just heard that. All four of us had the distinct and unsettling feeling of being watched by eyes we could not see.
“In truth, we are all just spirits at different stages of our journey home.”
As we walked back to the car, tired and sweaty, we stopped at the Grave of the Pioneer Woman. Among the many who succumbed to the Barlow Trail was a mother of two who died from illness and was buried beside the trail. In 1936, she was found as construction workers carved a proper highway beside the old road. They moved her resting place to the shoulder and reburied under a mound of rocks, a great opportunity for smiling selfies over a century later. But for us, the air around the mound was heavy with the sadness of dying before the journey was complete, of being left behind as her husband and children continued on to make a new life in the valley without her.
The deep divots and hump that you can see in the shaded portion are the scars of wagon wheels. Yes, really!
At the cabin, just a few hundred yards from the graves of three pioneer children, the site was shared with an old cabin slowly being reclaimed by the Earth. Again, we felt that we were not alone. My son, daughter, and I peered into the deteriorating cabin through an open door and, thoroughly spooked but without anything specific to point to, we quickly beat feet back to the safety of our well-lit, modern cabin with no interest in a second look. That old cabin was clearly being used by someone we couldn’t see, but oh, you could feel it, heavy on your chest like a dog who has pounced on you, intentions not yet made clear. I remember feeling like we were moving in and out of something that weekend, like alternating between sun and shade.
Maybe it’s the angst of the pioneers, maybe it’s the echo of the indigenous people who used to forage in those mountains for wild huckleberries, jewels of the forest; maybe it’s the graceful and gracious trees, known in the Shamanic tradition as The Standing Nation, and the rocks, known as The Wise Nation. I’ve read some fascinating studies in recent years about the communication of trees, about their extensive network of intertwining roots beneath the forest floor, like children holding hands under a blanket. I’ve also read some interesting work about the concept of “forest bathing”—walking through the forest to reap the benefits of being among trees. It turns out that being in a forest can lift depression and reduce feelings of isolation. It makes a tremendous amount of sense that the woods would have a powerful energy all of their own since, in the forest, we’re basically moving through a giant “group hug”. Being in the woods, smelling warm pine needles and wood smoke, hearing the tempered roar of the river expanding and contracting with the seasons, it is a complex and profound balm to the soul, all of its layered energy speaking to us in a voice beneath our hearing.
Fortunately, my friend is the perfect company for this journey, as she embraces all the benign mysteries of our physical and non-physical world, guarding herself carefully against the less friendly forces. She hears beneath our hearing, sees with the mind and heart, not just her eyes. There is so much more than this physical world; it only makes sense to embrace it and learn what we can along the way. To be fair, the Mt Hood National Forest is expansive. For all the places rich in heavy energy, there are 10 more that are light and free, offering the ease and comfort that comes from knowing you are in a sacred space. I can’t wait to head up and help them find their forever home, spirits and all.
In truth, we are all just spirits at different stages of our journey home.