Wonderstruck

Wonderstruck The musings of Methow Valley writer and editor Greg Wright.

because the universe wants us to be surprised, to be in awe of what comes next… eschewing the snarky, the witty, and the partisan to celebrate all the wonders I encounter.

The morning after our recent visit to Machu Picchu, Misuk and I walked through our hotel’s garden and talked about the e...
01/03/2025

The morning after our recent visit to Machu Picchu, Misuk and I walked through our hotel’s garden and talked about the experience.

There are a handful of places on Earth that are widely accepted as magically spiritual — and Machu Picchu is one of them. Not surprisingly, a reputation like that isn’t achieved without millions of people having visited.

So my takeaway was: Wow, what a paradox. Flight to Cusco; ninety-minute guide-van to a remote hotel; another ninety-minute ride in the morning to the train station; an hour in the waiting room; a street procession to board for the two-hour train ride to Machu Picchu village (reminiscent of Namche Bazaar, the jumping-off point for Everest expeditions); and no, you’re not “there yet” as a harrowing half-hour bus ride remains, scaling countless steep switchbacks up the Old Mountain’s flank. And, of course, once you’re at Machu Picchu you’re jostling with about six or seven other busloads of tourists aiming for the same magically spiritual experience that you are.

But experiences are what you make of them. I saw the paradox; Misuk’s take was more profound: “I learned this. Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t make your vision come true.”

Point taken. Whoever first saw a jungle-covered saddle between the Old Mountain — Machu Picchu — and the Young Mountain across from it and thought, “Oh, yes, I can see a city housing eight hundred people here, and temples for both the sun and the moon,” and then went about persuading his fellows to help build it… well, “undaunted” doesn’t really provide an adequate description for that sturdy soul.

The same applies to the archaeologists who over four years once again cleared the jungle from that saddle after a local boy led Yale scholar Hiram Bingham to the site in 1911 — and to the Peruvians themselves, who in 1981 established the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu around the site and turned it into the tourist attraction it now is, drawing up to two million visitors a year… while carefully preserving the actual site itself. Once you enter the sanctuary, there are no modern conveniences whatsoever. You can stay until you have to use the facilities outside, but no longer than that.

The mountain citadel and worship center truly is in as pristine condition as one could imagine after several hundred years of jungle encroachment. And unlike other cultural heritage sites like the Parthenon or the Great Pyramids of Egypt, the stones of Machu Picchu have never been scavenged for other buildings. Remarkable.

The invading sixteenth-century Spaniards also missed sacking the site as it had already been abandoned by the Inca. When you tour other locales throughout South America, your guides will invariably point to certain places, as in Cusco, and tell you what indigenous structures used to be hither and yon… but usually, all that is left is the odd wall or two. Here, all the stone elements remain as they were.

The era of the conquistador was nonetheless pretty ruthless, lethal, and thorough. When perpetual agonists Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, they understood that they could gain tremendous economic advantage over competitors like the French, English, and Dutch if they collaborated to get the Pope’s blessing and formally carve up the parts of the New World where they had already established outposts.

And advantage they did indeed gain, pillaging what is now the central and south Americas to the tune of more than 180 tons of gold, and a staggering 16,000 tons of silver. At current market prices, that amounts to something like $20B. And that doesn’t count other goods of the day, such as slaves. Or the cost in human life, estimated in the millions. This is what happens when the powerful meld religious zeal with greed — and a highly effective public relations campaign about the supposed “good” they are doing.

Today, of course, we also have perpetual enemies cozying up to one another in order to carve up new frontiers — including cryptocurrency, AI tech, developing energy markets, and Mars. Not everyone realizes it, but global technological objectives cannot be achieved if one or more superpowers are cut out of the deal. If the West tries to go Mars without Russia or China, the project will fail due to complexity, cost, and risk. Earth cannot endure a competitive race to plant flags on another planet, and the mineral wealth is too valuable to leave unexploited.

Elon Musk understands this full well, of course. Just take a look at the two seasons of the TV series Mars, produced by National Geographic — which features “historical” interviews “from the past” with visionary Elon Musk. In the series, the sci-fi 2033 mission to Mars is accomplished through the ruthless vision of Ed Grann, “CEO of the Mars Missions Corporation, a consortium of private aerospace companies preparing Mars expeditions.” Global governments find themselves complicit in his morally corrupt schemes.

Who does that fictional character sound like? Well, Musk, of course. “Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t make your vision come true,” indeed.

Curiously, on the train back from Machu Picchu, I sat across a table from a young Colombian sales rep for a global tech company. I asked her about Musk, and what she thinks of his shouldering into global politics.

She paused for almost half a minute before replying.

“I think he’s doing what he needs to do. He has a thing that he wants to accomplish, and he’s going to do what he wants.”

I asked her if that concerned her.

“No. Nobody in the industry is worried about it.”

Really? Why not? Isn’t it dangerous for corporations to be making global political policy?

“It’s the future,” she replied quite simply.

As a career technologist, I am afraid I must reluctantly agree with her. I could go on at length about why she’s right; suffice to say that history does pivot on technological advances. And the future is often made as history repeats itself.

But I am not at all comforted by this eventuality, with which politics simply cannot keep pace. How many people will have to die so that America, China, and Russia can carve up Mars for exploitation?

But back to Misuk’s answer about Machu Picchu. “Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t make your vision come true.”

“And what’s your vision?” I asked.

Without hesitation she replied, “To find out what God’s will is for me in this world, and do it.”

Amen. That’s always the best we can do, and for the best possible future.

Wonderstruck.

Originally published at Medium. Reprinted with permission.

Bingsu, where have you been all my life?In Korea, apparently, and in other Korean communities springing up along the Pac...
26/02/2025

Bingsu, where have you been all my life?

In Korea, apparently, and in other Korean communities springing up along the Pacific Rim.

Bingsu is an iced dairy confection of uniquely Korean origin. Similar to American “Shaved Iced” — yes, “Shaved,” not “Shave” — bingsu consists of a condensed milk-based solution poured slowly over a rotating sub-freezing drum from which the flash-frozen concoction is shaved with a broad blade and deposited into a waiting receptacle below. The bingsu, being freshly shaved and not compacted, is served in a dish.

Got it?

Toppings of various sorts can then be added, much as we do with froyo.

But here’s a huge difference: bingsu is made fresh with every sering, unlike ice cream, which can sit for quite a long time before an ice cream scoop — or your tongue — hits it. Even with frozen yogurt (or other softserve products) you never know how long the mixer has been cranking.

I had bingsu — twice — while visiting Lima, Peru. I knew that Misuk’s childhood friend Hee-sook had opened a Korean-style food counter in a college-neighborhood food court — a stand featuring Korean standards like tteokbokki and chapagetti. When we stopped by the shop late one morning to help Hee-sook make a delivery of fresh rice cakes, I paused to look at the visual menu (at right in the accompanying photo) — and quickly exclaimed, “What’s that?!?!?”

Hee-sook’s shop, K-Food Comida Coreana, offers four bingsu toppings: fresh mango (and you don’t better mango than Peruvian mango), fresh strawberries, chocolate sauce with brownie bits, and red beans. (The latter is a very, very Korean thing.)

I had never seen such a thing before, and immediately ordered a cup. And of course didn’t have to pay a Sol for it. Thanks, Hee-sook!

Bingsu is lighter in flavor than either ice cream or froyo. “Brighter” might be a good word for it. I can tell you, with great honesty, I enjoyed that cup of bingsu as much as I have enjoyed any cup of ice cream or froyo, ever.

How Hee-suk came to open K-Food CC is quite a story, too. Several decades ago she came to Peru with her husband Jae-min to invest in an off-shore fisheries opportunity… which shortly afterward collapsed completely thanks to international politics and how the fisheries were divvied up between countries.

Left virtually penniless, with two children to raise and no way to afford a return to Korea, Hee-suk and Jae-min got creative. The latter started a tour guide business (he’s been to Machu Picchu over one hundred times!) while Hee-suk began producing rice cakes on a commercial scale.

Twenty-five years ago, you couldn’t buy fresh rice cake in Lima. Or much in the way of fresh Korean staples, for that matter. But the Korean community here (fifty of whom I had lunch with today, incidentally) has a way of supporting each other. When one of them comes up with a business idea, they crowdfund it amongst themselves the old-fashioned way. So Hee-sook’s friends all helped buy the necessary equipment to scale up her kitchen production to a factory — still housed in her garage! — and instantly became her first customers. Today, Hee-suk makes regular deliveries to Korean restaurants all over Lima.

One evening when we were served tteokbokki at a nearby restaurant, I asked if the rice cakes were Hee-sook’s. Sure enough, they were! Delicious. The difference between H-Mart rice cake and Hee-sook’s is remarkable.

And now I’ve also had Jae-min’s secret bingsu recipe, too! Yum.

If you have a Korean community near you, you might Google bingsu. Odds are you’ll find a place which serves it. Try some!

Originally published at Medium. Reprinted with permission.

“Did you fall down a lot when you were a little boy, too?”To clear the record, I don’t fall down a lot now.But Misuk’s q...
21/02/2025

“Did you fall down a lot when you were a little boy, too?”

To clear the record, I don’t fall down a lot now.

But Misuk’s question was at least relevant. For the second time this year, I had just taken a hard fall, tripping over a poorly-marked boardwalk hazard at a slightly decrepit national park, skinning my knee pretty badly and bruising my left palm. After I got the wounds cleaned up we were chatting a bit.

“You do need to look out for yourself better,” she continued.

“Yes, that’s probably true,” I conceded. Both times I have fallen this year, I have been trying to look out for Misuk, who was some dozens of yards away, while taking care of other business at the same time — trying to find us a place for us to sit in a crowded public place, drying my hands after using a restroom. As I counsel when I guide friends on remote and rugged mountain trails, “Gawk or walk. One or the other. Don’t walk and gawk. You’re asking for trouble.”

And, of course, when in the mountains I take my own advice, and take it very seriously. The last time I took a fall in the woods was 1983, and I spend a lot of time in rugged backcountry.

In more domestic situations, though, I find myself trying to do three or four things at once… and Misuk is right. When I’m navigating unfamiliar places, I should focus on one thing at a time. If I’m looking for Misuk, I should stop walking and look. When I’m done looking, concentrate on the walking!

The concession chafes me, though, particularly as a pastor and reformed self-centerist. When you live in survival mode, as I did for the first half of my life, you learn very well how to look out for number one — “Greg first,” as you might say. When you train as a pastor, as I started doing thirty years ago, you flip all that on its head. “Consider others more important than yourself,” Scripture says in more than one place. Jesus and his disciples were most certainly not looking out for number one, were not of the “Israel First” or “Make Israel Great Again” school. We might not like hearing that today — but it’s nonetheless true. Do your own research, and see if what I learned in pastor school rings true to you.

And yet… there’s a certain logic to what Misuk says. In times when looking out for others is particularly important, looking out for oneself is also crucial. As they remind you when doing safety briefings on airline flights, “Make sure your own oxygen mask is secure before helping others with theirs.” You can’t be much help to Bucky or Gramps when you’re oxygen-deprived yourself.

So, point taken. Whenever you’re wondering, “How can I best help others?” also be sure to look to yourself.

As Misuk told me, “I need you to be healthy.”

Originally published at Medium. Reprinted with permission.

I should already have been in Peru.During a recent ill-fated trip abroad, our little party of three sat stranded in Tom ...
12/02/2025

I should already have been in Peru.

During a recent ill-fated trip abroad, our little party of three sat stranded in Tom Bradley Terminal at LAX. The trip itself certainly felt terminal at that point. “What is the point of all this?” Misuk asked. “Should we just cancel the trip and go home?”

The previous day had certainly started out well enough. We had risen on schedule at 5 AM and made our final arrangements for departure. Shortly after 6 AM, we left Twin Lakes a little ahead of schedule to pick up Youngme Lehman on our way out of Methow Valley. She was ready and waiting for us outside her garage off East County Road.

The trip from Twisp to SeaTac was smooth and uneventful. We checked in early for our appointed time at the WallyPark garage, found what appeared to be the last open spot in the building, and caught the next shuttle bus to the terminal. We arrived for our pre-booked TSA appointment almost exactly on schedule — and, as the load was light at Checkpoint 2, we were through security by noon for our 1:30 PM flight to LAX.

We had deliberately scheduled a long layover at LAX prior to departure on our connecting flight for Lima. It was a good plan. The route from our AlaskaAir arrival gate to Tom Bradley — the international departures terminal — was long. Very long. Four or five connecting tunnels under the vast LAX complex.

And then, as it turned out, our departure gate was literally at the very farthest possible point at TB. By the time we scouted it out, we were all too ready to backtrack to the food court for a dinner and rest before returning to the departure gate for our 8:45 PM flight.

Right up until boarding time, the day had gone like clockwork… and then the wheels fell off.

Shortly after the schedule boarding time, the podium announced a flight delay due to mechanical issues. The new departure time would be 11 PM.

When Misuk started texting our hosts in Lima to let them know we would be late, I advised holding off on the text for a while. Intuition told that this would not be the final announcement from the podium.

Sadly, I was correct. Over the next five hours, a non-comedy of errors ensued at TB’s gate 136. Twice the gate crew attempted to quell the restless natives of our flight with bribes of meal vouchers… as if anyone but Hobbits can use bonus dinners after midnight, and as if the food court establishments were staying open just for our little disaster.

Once the actual flight crew showed up to board the plane, even the lone competent LATAM Air staffer — apparently the LAX manager for LATAM — disappeared, thinking that most of the damage had been done. But that was just wishful thinking. Over and over again Misuk and I would slowly filter to the front of the line at the podium to seek some kind of insight into the status of the flight.

At one point I pointedly asked, “Is this flight headed for cancellation?”

“Oh, no,” the gate agent replied. “We’re definitely flying tonight.” She checked her watch. “Today.”

I did not get warm fuzzies.

Finally my patience wore thin. Only minutes after I had left the podium I returned once more during a lull in activity — many passengers having gone a second time in search of a bonus meal — and decided to press the point about a serious lack of information throughout the ordeal. For the last four hours, most of the information we had all gleaned about the status of the flight had come from other passengers rather than from official announcements from the podium, broadcast in full in Spanish and in much-abbreviated form in English.

Many of the passengers had started to get to know each other quite well — like the two teenaged girls flying unaccompanied to Lima, and who, though never having met previously, were now fast friends; like the two young gentlemen from the Yukon, one of whose laptops had been hacked with a virus while connected to the LAX free WiFi, and who now swore he’d never travel again once he got back to the Yukon; like Betty from Chilliwack, who was making her first solo trip of her life to join a Macchu Picchu tour group, but was now feeling like the trip was just another episode in a life on meltdown; or like the numerous other Senior couples who were attempting to navigate the whole episode with something like good humor while gleaning bits of information, wishful thinking, and outright falsehood from fellow underinformed passengers like us.

“You last made an announcement 45 minutes ago,” I pointed out to the trio of gate agents in front of me, “telling us that you expected to start boarding in 10 minutes.

“You haven’t announced anything since. Passengers have lost their confidence in you. I’d like to speak to your boss, whom we haven’t seen since the flight crew arrived.”

As if like magic, the very LATAM manager of whom I spoke appeared from down the concourse, and a bustle arrived with him. The gate crew abruptly abandoned me for a quick confab with the manager. While they were gone, I looked at the paperwork left in plain sight on the counter. At the bottom of the sheet: “MAINTENANCE: Bird Strike.”

Almost immediately, the gate trio returned and started flipping frantically through a binder of boilerplate announcements, all in red print and ALL CAPS. This was not a good sign.

Shortly, they settled on a Spanish-language script, pulling it and its sheet protector from the blue three-ring binder — how appropriate for this little circus — but seemimg unable to locate the companion English-language script. Once the lead agent started reading from the Spanish script over the PA, I understood enough to guess what was happening.

The gentleman next to me held a Brazilian passport. I turned to speak to him.

“I imagine that you speak English and Spanish as well as Portuguese.”

He nodded, and confirmed that the announcement made formal what I had suspected would happen all along. Our flight was cancelled, and we would all have to await seat assignments on an alternate flight later in the day.

In the mean time, the bustle accompanying the LATAM manager onto the concourse turned out to be the distribution of paperwork, a task which would have to be accomplished for the varying classes of passengers: hotel vouchers and instruction sheets, to be distributed by this already organizationally-challenged gate crew, in order to funnel 360 or so passengers out of Tom Bradley and into neighboring hotels for the next dozen hours or so.

That I happened to be standing at the counter when all of this came down, and as a result was first in line for the pitiful dole saved us a couple of wee hours for a mid-morning nap, was exceedingly fortuitous.

But here was the thing: Being at the counter at just the right time was not entirely random. If Misuk hadn’t prodded me to be more proactive in seeking out up-to-date info, I wouldn’t have been up there six times, much less right when it counted.

If you aren’t engaged with the process, you won’t be at the counter at all, and certainly never at the most propitious time.

The retreat from Gate 136 through a shuttered Tom Bradley, traversing customs backward toward baggage claim carousel 31, and then onto hotel shuttles at 3 AM was disastrous. LATAM had no agents on hand to guide us through all this. At one point we ended up in an outdoor maintenace-worker smoking lounge because the normal route to baggage claim had been barricaded for after-hours restrictions. Some very kind literally blue-collared worked guided our small pioneering party to customs. Along the way, it was up to us to inform various security personnel that a very slow procession of 300 others would be following us.

We finally settled into our hotel around 3:30 AM. The hotel staff courteously extended checkout time to noon, which afforded us a little sleep before we returned to LAX to begin the departure ordeal anew.

After we cleared security yet again, we settled into comfy furniture near the terminals high-end retailers while we waited for boarding. As our fellow LATAM flight alumni filtered past, we caught up with one another. The two teenaged girls sat near us, chatting happily.

When we rose and headed to the gate, we passed a little knot of fellow information hawks at the food court. “Did you get the email?” one called out. “Departure is delayed!”

“No…” I faltered. I checked email. Yup. There it was. The announcement had just come in.

Rather than return to the roost we had just left, Youngme, Misuk, and I wandered on to the lounge benches we had occupied for hours the night previously.

After a brief silence, Misuk spoke out in frustration. “What is the point of all this?” Misuk asked. “What are we supposed to learn? Should we just cancel the trip and go home?”

I knew Misuk was asking a Big Question — trying to figure where God was moving in all of this, not just trying to decipher an alternate itinerary.

She had been hinting at this question throughout the previous 12 hours. And so I had already been pondering that very issue. But I was silent when she explicitly voiced the question. I didn’t have an answer. Go big or go home? I had no clue.

But the theologically-correct answer came readily to hand. In Kingdom values, answers are very often found in the still, small voice, rather than in the whirlwhine or the earthquack.

“Well,” I slowly began, “I can say this much.

“There are around 350 of us whose very busy lives have been interrupted. None of us, right now, are where we expected to be at this time on this day. Instead, we have all been cast in with one another with a whole lot of extra time on our hands. And we have been kind with one another. We have helped one another. We have entered into the lives of strangers. And, I expect, one or more of us have spoken words to a fellow traveler that have made some kind of impact — an impact we probably have no idea of, perhaps even an impact that will only be manifest months or years down the line.”

Youngme and Misuk immediately turned to one another and said, “Betty.”

The solo traveler from Chilliwack had, at one point, settled in next to Youngme for a long chat while I was engaged at the podium.

“She said like she felt like her life was falling apart,” Youngme explained. “We need to find her.”

And off we went to the gate in search of Betty. And found her. And spent the remainder of the time at Gate 135, Tom Bradley Terminal, keeping her company and learning a little bit more about her life.

This, friends, is what we are here for. Always. The still, small voice that God speaks to us, through one another in times of trial.

We need to be engaged. We need to be checking in at the podium while we wait for “what’s next.”

And while we wait, look out for one another.

“To the extent that you did it for one of the least of these, my children, you have done it for me.”

Previously published at Medium. Reprinted with permission.

"The wind puffed out. The leaves hung silently again on stiff branches. There was another burst of song, and then sudden...
23/10/2024

"The wind puffed out. The leaves hung silently again on stiff branches. There was another burst of song, and then suddenly, hopping and dancing along the path, there appeared above the reeds an old battered hat with a tall crown and a long blue feather stuck in the band. With another hop and a bound there came into view a man, or so it seemed. At any rate he was too large and heavy for a Hobbit, if not quite tall enough for one of the Big People, though he made noise enough for one, slumping along with great yellow boots on his thick legs, and charging through grass and rushes like a cow going down to drink. He had a blue coat and a long brown beard; his eyes were blue and bright, and his face was red as a ripe apple but creased into a hundred wrinkles of laughter."

No, I did not write that. The words are Tolkien’s description of Frodo and Sam’s first encounter with Tom Bombadil in The Lord of the Rings.

Who (or what) is Tom Bombadil? That’s not the subject of this essay, but in short he’s an otherwordly creature who is neither overly concerned with or controlled by the events and conditions of the physical world. He simply occupies it. Once you encounter Tom Bombadil, you know you’ve been in the presence of something extraordinary — something the likes of which you shall not likely encounter again.

On Friday, September 13, I met Kate and Cary Therriault at the Lone Fir Campground for a guided tour of the historic Early Winters Trail. Earlier in the summer, Kate had placed the winning bid for the tour at the Public School Funding Alliance silent auction fundraiser hosted by Arrowleaf Bistro. After several false starts, Kate and I finally managed to coordinate our schedules so I could make good on the winning bid. Kate and Cary brought Jane Gilbertsen along for the hike.

At one time, the Early Winters Trail followed Early Winters Creek from what is now Freestone Inn up and over Washington Pass and down to Rainy Pass. The trail was essentially built and maintained by Jack Wilson for his personal use as a trapper, to ferry backcountry clients via pack train, and to serve as access for his contracts to construct trail for the Cascade Crest and Pacific Crest trails.

Once Wilson’s campaign to use that essential route for construction of the North Cascades Highway came to fruition, the trail fell into disuse. Miles of the trail disappeared under SR 20’s asphalt, and the trail’s original purpose simply ceased to be. By the 1990s, only a couple of trail sections were still maintained by the USFS — one piece accessed from Klipchuck Campground, and the other at Lone Fir.

The Lone Fir section was turned into a loop trail, with the access link between the campground and the bottom of the loop paved and lined with interpretive signage designed by Laura Bitzes Thomas during her time with the USFS. Two log bridges were put across Early Winters, and numerous smaller bridges and boardwalks were constructed to span flooding spring tributaries and troublesome marshes.

A years-long closure of Lone Fir, however, due to a pine bark beetle infestation, led to neglect of the loop trail. Many of the boardwalks and bridges fell into disrepair. At the present time, two of the major bridges have been entirely dismantled and removed by the USFS, and while the trail is not officially closed it is certainly not accessible in the way that it was designed. 200 yards from the trailhead, the paved path tumbles into a 50-foot spring-runoff chasm.

So the trail is less-frequented now than it usually is. Already a well-kept secret featuring an old-growth forest full of multi-season wildflowers and fungi, it’s the last place you would expect to simply bump into an acquaintance.

Though you wouldn’t be surprised to bump into Tom Bombadil. It’s that kind of place.

During the outward leg of our trail tour, in conversation with Kate, Jane mentioned having bumped into local legend and naturalist Dana Visalli on a trail up at Harts Pass. I wasn’t part of that conversation, so I waited until we were straddling Early Winters Creek on the loop trail’s upper bridge to follow up on Jane’s mention of Dana.

I was delighted to learn that Kate and Cary were already familiar with the Methow Valley Authors Library at Casia Lodge, and that they had already visited. I shared with Jane that the Library holds a complete collection of Dana’s Methow Naturalist, a quarterly journal which includes the writing of dozens of local outdoors enthusiasts.

We all lamented that Dana intends to sunset the publication in the not-too-distant future.

On our return to our cars, we stopped to chat at the junction of the loop trail with the paved interpretive trail, and I took a couple group photos.

As we were preparing to depart, the wind puffed out. And then suddenly, hopping and dancing along the path, there came into view a man, or so it seemed. At any rate he was too large and heavy for a Hobbit, if not quite tall enough for one of the Big People, though he made noise enough for one, clumping along with great brown boots on his thick, bare legs, and charging down the path like a cow elk going down to drink. He wore a thin, well-worn t-shirt and drab shorts; his eyes were blue and bright, and his grizzled face was red as a ripe apple but creased into a hundred wrinkles of laughter.

It was not Tom Bombadil… but it was Dana Visalli.

“It’s as if we conjured him by speaking his name!” whispered Kate.

Jane and Dana, of course, knew each other — and Jane introduced Cary and Kate. Dana explained that he was conducting his annual survey of valley fungi, and we offered that he would certainly find plenty of samples once he left the asphalt and entered the loop trail.

“Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “I’ve never been on this trail before.”

Astounding. How could it possibly be that Dana Visalli, of all people, had never been on the Lone Fir leg of the Early Winters Trail? A well-kept secret indeed!

And how strange and fitting that the first local person I should encounter on the Early Winters Trail — over five years, dozens of visits, and hundreds of hours — should be Dana Visalli, on his first visit to the trail!

It might as well have been Tom Bombadil.

Wonderstruck.

Originally published at Medium. Reprinted by permission.

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