Dewey Lake: An 8 mile Hike to Around Naches Peak

It was a Big Chill kind of Sunday. The Rolling Stones and their choir had kept me company all week, and they were still at it, singing in the dark, on the drive up through Chinook Pass. I’d been hearing the song as a lesson in settling for less, and I wasn’t sure I agreed with it. I carried it to Dewey Lake, where the air was cool enough to feel on every breath and the sun was still waiting behind the ridges, and started the Naches Peak Loop clockwise, the way other hikers had told me to, with a plan to drop down to Dewey Lake and climb back out.

Dewey Lake

The drive had been dark and still, the kind of road where my thoughts go wherever they like. This morning they went home, to two dogs, one built for speed and one built short and stocky, and to how much of the house they manage to fill. Gratitude didn’t take long to find. I’d left most of it at home.

The trail opened like an old friend, then dropped through switchbacks to two lakes shining in the early light and made me earn every foot back. Mount Rainier kept showing up on the return. So did the mosquitoes. By the trailhead the song hadn’t gone anywhere, but I was hearing a different line, and a soda, flavor cherry red, was starting to sound like a good idea.

Sunrise light on a ridge above a still tarn along the Naches Peak Loop, on the way to Dewey Lake

The Journey…

I laced up at Tipsoo Lake before the sun had cleared the ridges, the air crisp after the drive through Chinook Pass and everything around me still hushed, as if the morning was holding onto something it hadn’t decided to share yet. I went clockwise, on the advice of hikers who had walked it before me and promised the views would be worth it. That advice felt like a small kindness passed down the trail. The first half mile was calm and steady, the kind of stretch that welcomes you in without asking much. Then it started to climb, a quick 500 feet that woke my legs up. The meadows were full of wildflowers, and the air smelled like a flower shop right after the morning watering.

Over the next mile and a half, the trail dropped 700 feet to the Dewey Lakes, winding down through switchbacks and small rises that felt a little like a slow roller coaster. Little Dewey Lake appeared first, then Big Dewey, both shining in the morning light and ringed with meadows in full bloom. I like to think the scene was laid out just for me, and I stopped long enough to take it in. Of course, every foot I dropped was a foot I’d have to climb back, and over the next couple of miles I reclaimed all 700 of them on the way to rejoining the Naches Peak Loop. The work paid off. The views opened up, and Mount Rainier stood in the background for the rest of the way. A soft breeze moved through the wildflowers and carried their scent with it as I made my way back to the trailhead.

Gratitude…

My headlights and the hum of the engine were my only company on the road this morning, the same road I’d driven a week earlier for my last hike in this corner of the mountains. Gratitude has a standing spot on these early drives, and the quiet gives my thoughts room to wander before the day starts asking anything of me. This morning they went to Leo and Stella, our dogs, who have shared in the heartache of losing Kelly. She was their person. She was the one who showered them with the attention they lived for, and now that role is mine. I try to fill it the way she would have wanted, making sure they get the love and care she always gave them.

Leo, our whippet, is a study in speed and stillness. He can take the stairs like a gazelle, then spend an afternoon stretched out in a patch of sun without moving an inch. That same speed gets him into trouble, usually in the form of a treat lifted off the kitchen counter with a thief’s precision, and I usually end up laughing about it. Behind the mischief there’s a lot of love, and his steady gaze says more than he ever could. Stella, our smooth-coat fox terrier, is short and stocky and all energy, a little powerhouse always springing up to see what’s happening at counter level. I can almost see the gears turning as she plans her next move. Between the two of them, nothing on that counter is ever entirely safe. Stella stays cheerful through all of it, as if happiness were simply her default setting.

On that dark road, I realized how much I rely on the two of them. They fill spaces in the house that sometimes feel empty, especially on the days my heart feels heavy. Leo’s stillness and Stella’s enthusiasm don’t ask anything of me in return, and they don’t wait for me to have a good day before they show up for it. As the first light started to reach the horizon, I was grateful for what they teach me without trying. Life will keep handing me hard days, and they’ll keep meeting each one the same way, with the same love and the same bounce. I found some peace in that. Love doesn’t demand perfection. It simply shows up, steady and constant, and even on the toughest days, theirs is still there.

Reflections…

My trail-thought this morning came from a song that had been stuck in my head for a week, the Rolling Stones “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” It rode along with the rhythm of my boots, and every small misstep seemed to bring the chorus back, right as I was catching myself. The mosquitoes kept time with it too, making more than a few unwelcome appearances, though they couldn’t take much away from the lakes and the meadows. What stayed with me most wasn’t the title. It was the line Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote to follow it, the one about getting what you need if you keep trying. At first I wondered whether the song was just a gentler way of saying settle for less, an idea I’ve wrestled with before and never liked.

As I climbed out of the lakes, it started to sound like something else. It sounded like gratitude, the most useful thing I carry in my pack. Gratitude doesn’t pretend the disappointment isn’t there. It moves my attention from what I missed to what’s in front of me, and this morning that was a hillside of wildflowers. Another song came to mind with a similar idea, Sheryl Crow’s “Soak Up the Sun,” and her point that happiness has less to do with having what you want than with wanting what you already have. Every time I head out on a hike, I take a moment to name what I’m grateful for. It has become a ritual, and it keeps the week’s setbacks from outweighing everything else.

I stopped among the wildflowers and thought about what that ritual actually does for me. It gives my mind somewhere steady to stand when the small stuff piles up, whether that’s mosquitoes on the trail or the stress of the week behind me, and it makes the ups and downs easier to carry. It also brings me back to the present. Out here that’s easier than most places, with birds calling, the trees moving, and the lakes rippling below, but the practice travels. Taking a minute to be grateful clears out the regrets I tend to carry from the past and the worries I borrow from a future that hasn’t happened yet. What’s left is whatever is actually around me, which usually turns out to be plenty.

In the last meadow, I thought about what gratitude does for my relationships, and that one landed hardest. Losing Kelly taught me how fragile all of this is, and how much I don’t want to leave appreciation unsaid, trusting that people already know. Saying it in the moment builds something between people that assuming never will. Then the trail turned toward the Mount Rainier viewpoints, and the mountain stopped me for a while. Like the trails I walked today, life is full of turns I didn’t plan for. With gratitude to steer by, I think I can walk them with a lighter heart. It isn’t about always getting what I want. It’s about finding the riches in what I already have. Back at the trailhead, I decided I just might have that soda after all, cherry red. The path continues.

-Ken