A Letter to Ashland

Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument - Hobart Bluff/PCT trail

 Siskiyou Mountain Park - White Rabbit Trail

Lithia Park

 Ashland Book Exchange

Moment of stillness on the trail

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Four days, three nights.
Ashland, Oregon.

Ages ago, a dear friend (Zoe, if you're reading this, thank you) told me about Ashland, Oregon.  She spoke about autumn there.  About how the leaves turn heart-wrenching shades of autumnal red, orange, and yellow.  About how their delicate forms dance off tree branches and descend upon you in a glorious cascade.  I kept Ashland in mind for the past few years, and told myself October will be the month in which to visit.  After missing my opportunity last year, I found myself driving north on Interstate 5 fourteen days ago, imposing another ~750 miles (round-trip) on my twelve-year-old hatchback.  Two weeks prior, I had been on a similar journey en route to Jedediah Smith Redwoods.

The thing is, I knew I wanted to see Ashland.  I wanted to experience it.  Even if it wasn't in autumn.  Even if it wasn't in October.  I just wanted to be there.  To be surrounded by mountains, trees, creeks, and people whose intentions in life weren't . . . material.  And especially after having finished reading Wild just days earlier, in which Cheryl Strayed crowned the Oregonian town with a sort of halo . . . a sanctuary for the wanderer, seeker, those looking for something [of meaning] . . .

So I went.  Loaded my hatchback with what I needed and headed northbound.  If the drive itself was any indication of my stay in Ashland, a drive that included extended views of Mount Shasta and moments where I was convinced I was traveling through Spaniard landscapes, I was in for a life-altering few days.

From an autumn preview in Lithia Park to finding a first edition of George Orwell's Dickens, Dali, and Others at a local used bookshop; from striking up a conversation with an Ashland resident who had moved there from Los Gatos twelve years ago to a white-knuckle drive along the side of a steep mountain in order to reach my hiking destination in Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument via Soda Mountain Road; from having a near panic attack when I was certain I had gotten myself into an inescapable situation to reaching Hobart Bluff trailhead and hiking a segment of the PCT (THE PCT!); from fearing I was lost all alone on an unfamiliar mountain with no one around to help to retracing my steps and reaching the viewpoint and being overwhelmed by the beauty of what I was not only seeing externally but feeling internally . . . My short trip to Ashland was an experience I cannot repay in words.

Because of Ashland, I not only crossed a couple of things off my bucket list, but found myself adding some new ones in return.  And it was the second time in four weeks that I felt I was finally living.  Living.  That is two times more than I have felt in years.

I have found a place in the mountains, among the trees, dispersed across endless acreage of wilderness.  A place of belonging.

And I'd like to call this place my own Wild.

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