I love this picture. Seattle’s winter weather starts to grate, sometimes. The clouds are so deep, the light is so grey — it’s just a leaden landscape. The mountains are hidden, and it’s dark too early to see the huge pine trees on the side of the road on the way home. But then they moved daylight savings time up this year, and I’ve been able to see the summer coming a few wonderful weeks early — we have warm weather and light evenings, so I’ve started ditching the car and walking home from work. The way home is easy and lovely — four miles, nearly all downhill. Reversing in the morning is a little tougher. 🙂
It figures, though that the day I bring the camera, the typical thick winter gray would return. Here’s the view from the 405 pedestrian overpass at eight in the morning. It’s a straight uphill walk from the lake, and then you climb up a two- or three-storey ramp to get to this point, so it’s just way, way above everything. The clouds are practically at eye-level. You can just barely see the Olympic mountains peeking through at the horizon to the right of the pine trees. Gorgeous. The favour of a glimpse of the mountains is worth the gray to me.
From way up high on the ramp, I also got to see the upper limbs of the massive tree alongside it. The branches were budding, but the impressive sight was that they are covered with a thick moss. When you consider that this tree is totally open to the sky in four directions, it really throws into relief what a dark, wet climate this is during the winter months.
The walk is interesting. Rather than 520 or the back way that’s recently been slow due to construction, the “road” looked like this.
The public trail cuts in between backyard fences, and for a long portion, it cuts past all of the horse pastures in Bridle Trails. The path is a bit muddy, and so the hoof prints are very easy to pick out. I haven’t come across any riders yet, just the tracks.
