MIDDLE-FORK SNOQUALMIE, NORTH BEND, WA:
There’s something about leaving the house before the rest of the world has any business being awake that strips a day down to what it actually is. I was on the road by 3:15 this morning, Highway 18 completely to myself, my dashboard being the only light in the valley, and somewhere in that silence I started asking a question that would follow me up 4,300 feet and back down again. Not a dramatic question, just an honest one. The kind that shows up when you give it space.
By the time I pulled into the Mailbox Peak trailhead at 4:15, it was fifty degrees and dark enough that I could hear the mountain before I could see it, water somewhere off in the trees. I thought about my little guy, Ronin, on the drive up, how he flew a kite on the coast a couple weeks back without a single reservation about whether the wind would hold or the timing was right. He just grabbed the strings and went. I’ve been thinking about his approach ever since, wondering what it would look like to carry that instinct into the harder things. The old trail to Mailbox Peak had a way of demanding that kind of honesty too, steep and direct, no switchbacks, no grace. Just the work. And I needed exactly that.
What I didn’t expect was where the trail would take me once the effort got quiet enough to think. Somewhere between the steep ascent, the boulder field and the summit, a question that’s been on my mind finally got close enough to consider: is any of this actually working? Not the hike. Everything else. The grief I’ve been carrying since Kelly, the structures I’ve built around it, the way I keep moving without always knowing what I’m moving toward. I didn’t come down with an answer. That’s not really what Mailbox Peak offers. But I came down with something truer than I had on the way up, and today, that was enough.
The Journey…
I pulled into the Mailbox Peak trailhead at 4:15 in the morning, fifty degrees, the kind of cold that feels like a gift before a tough day. I could hear water somewhere in the dark, and I stood there for a moment just breathing it in: clean air, cool lungs, the low hum of I-90 bleeding through the trees like a slow river of its own. I knew what was ahead. Nearly 4,300 feet of elevation gain in just a few miles, most of it straight up the old trail without the mercy of switchbacks. My headlamp cut a narrow path through the darkness as I started moving, roots and rocks rising up just inside the light’s edge, my treking poles finding rhythm before my legs could. A white butterfly danced in the beam of my headlamp, a fleeting moment of beauty that reminded me of how even small things can accompany us on our journeys.
The old trail earned its reputation before I hit the first mile. My heart rate climbed above 150 and held for several hours. There’s a certain clarity that comes from knowing the only way to the other side is through. Every now and then I’d stop, not out of defeat, just to take in the quiet. The kind of quiet that isn’t empty but full of small things you only notice when you slow down. It’s easy to think about elevation gain when you’re sitting still. It’s something else to earn it step-by-step with your face close enough to the dirt to smell it. There was something clean about that scent, rock, dirt and pine mixing in a way that didn’t need explaining. Around two miles in I took a wrong turn, some unmarked spur that led nowhere I needed to go, and backtracked without recognition. Just energy I didn’t have to spend, spent. I found the white diamond markers on the trees and got back on track, a little more deliberate after that, watching the trees thin and the mountains to the south begin to open up through the canopy.
Reaching the final rock field felt like a rite of passage. A half mile of boulders stacked against the sky, no dirt, no trail to speak of, just the mountain asking one more time if I was serious about reaching the peak. The last half mile was a scramble, but the views at the top were worth every ounce of effort. The summit was its own kind of reward, not just for the views of Rainier, Adams, and Middle Fork Valley, but for the strange, beautiful energy at the top. There were a few other souls up there. I found the mailbox stuffed with the evidence of everyone who’d made the same choice, a tangible connection to others who had shared this climb. I left a note in there for whoever might need it, and donated a few stickers as others have for years. Nearby, a young woman with goggles nestled on her trucker hat, was sitting on a rock reading Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, happy and completely detached from the struggle it took to get there. It was a good reminder to not take the effort too seriously once the work is done. and I thought, there’s a version of living I haven’t fully figured out yet.
After returning down through the rock field, I took the new trail, which felt like a gift. Longer, yes, but shaded and well-graded in the way the old trail didn’t consider. My legs were rubber by then, every step needed to be intentional. I found myself passing hikers who were on their ascent, asking if they were close. I didn’t want to break their spirits with my truth, so I just confirmed they were on the right path and it was well worth it. As I dropped into the lower elevations, the birds came back, I’d passed them in the dark on the way up, but missed the whole morning chorus in the pre-sunrise hours, and now they filled the trees with song. Around mile seven I stopped on a small wooden bridge over a cascade of water coming off the mountain and just stood there for a while. A lot of rocks today, a lot of dirt, a lot of sun, and this, cool water moving fast below my feet. I’d been thinking about honesty most of the climb, not the opposite of dishonesty, but the kind that asks you to look deeper. The trail didn’t answer anything directly. It never does. But something in the effort felt like a beginning.
Gratitude…
It was still that middle-of-the-night silence when I pulled out of my driveway at 3:15 this morning. Driving toward North Bend in that space of the early hours feels like a secret few want to know about. The bar crowds have finally drifted off to sleep, and the early risers haven’t yet reached for their coffee pots, leaving Highway 18 entirely to me and the hum of my engine. It was just the dashboard lights and a familiar playlist keeping me company through the dark stretches of the valley. There is a specific kind of solitude you find before the sun shows up, a quietness that makes the world feel small and manageable. I’ve made this trip to the Middle Fork many times, but the road always feels different when you’re the only soul moving through the shadows. It gave me a lot of room to just think while the trees blurred past and the faint silhouette of mountains loomed against the deep night sky.
As the miles ticked by in the darkness, my thoughts settled on Ronin, my little buddy who’s a bit over two now. He’s all free spirit and forward motion, no checklists or second guesses, just a wholehearted jump into whatever the moment offers. I felt a special appreciation for him while the road slipped past, thinking how he chooses adventure without weighing it first. A couple weeks back we chased the coast on one of our adventures, aiming to fly a kite but really just letting the day unfold. We ran in and out of the cold Pacific Ocean water, dug holes in the sand only to fill them again, and watched that kite dance above the beach until Ronin took the strings himself. He was flying a kite, all by himself, and giggling the whole way. When it finally came down he turned it into a sled, and I pulled him across the wet sand while he gave me a familiar side-eye that says he knows we’re bending the rules. In those moments he reminds me how uncomplicated life can be if we let it. We retired the kite, so you won’t see it hanging in my garage as some sort of trophy. Rather, it will reside in our memories and be told as a story; a story that is likely to get better as time passes, but for now, it’s our story.
As I pulled into the trailhead, I couldn’t help but reflect on the lessons Ronin brings into my life. He embodies a spirit that many of us forget in our daily lives, the essence of saying “yes” to life, to moments that may seem trivial but are rich with meaning. His suspicious side-eye when we skirt the rules reminds me to embrace spontaneity, to relish the journey rather than fixate solely on the destination. I hope that as we navigate life’s winding paths together, he retains that spark of curiosity and adventure. It’s a reminder that we can choose to complicate things or simply dive in, allowing the experience to unfold as it will. Today, under the canopy of the darkened sky, I felt the weight of that truth settle in my heart, as I prepared to step into the wilderness, eager for whatever lay ahead.
Reflections…
The air still held the early morning chill when I laced up my boots and started up the old trail at Mailbox Peak, with my headlamp cutting a small path in the dark. That initial stretch was brutal, It just climbed, relentless and steep, and today I needed exactly that. Pushing through the first couple thousand feet of elevation gain before the sun even cleared the horizon felt honest in a way I couldn’t have manufactured anywhere else. I leaned into the steepness, the burn in my legs found a rhythm somewhere between breath and effort, and I let resilience do its work. It felt familiar in a way I didn’t expect, like I’d been on this kind of incline for a while now, long before today. Sometimes I take a beat on what I’m actually carrying. I thought about Kelly a lot on the way up, and realized somewhere along the initial grind that grief started long before she passed: we were facing the reality of our fading future together, trying to stay present in a new kind of intimacy while the ground kept shifting. The trail forced a rhythm I couldn’t fake, and somewhere in that steady grind my trail-thought for the day emerged: “Is it all working?” Not the hike itself, but everything around it. The routines, the structure, the way I’ve been carrying things forward. I kept moving, but the question stayed close. I had to ask myself if I was truly moving forward or just performing the role of a person who is.
By the time I cleared the trees and started scrambling through the rock field, the sky softened into that deep pre-dawn deep blue. Something felt like the kind of honesty that was searching for a truth, an uncomfortable truth. There’s no pretending up there. The world felt quieter, like everything unnecessary had been stripped away, and I needed to either keep going or stop. I think I needed that clarity. I had been putting in the effort, no question about that. The hikes, the writing, the small decisions that stack into something that looks like progress. But effort and truth aren’t always the same thing. I found myself scrambling up the rock field toward the peak, each careful step a mix of determination and introspection. I reached the mailbox and stood there for a while, with a slight wind moving across the peak. I’d brought a letter with me, something I wrote without overthinking it too much, and slipped it into the box. I didn’t expect anything from it. It just felt right to leave it there, hoping it finds whoever needs to read it.
It is a strange thing, trying to measure if any of this is working, or whether my resistance to being a victim has become its own kind of avoidance. That was a harder thing to sit with than the climb itself. Standing among those rocks, with the view stretching out under the morning sky, I realized I’ve been trying to measure something that doesn’t really want to be measured: Whether this is working. Whether I’m doing it right. I’ve built a life that looks like resilience from the outside, and most days I can even feel that myself. But there was something quieter underneath it all this morning, like an internal check-engine light you can ignore for a while, until you can’t.
The descent gave me a long stretch of silence to let it all settle without forcing an answer. I started to wonder what I’m actually moving toward, especially when the very person who was central to my identity is gone, and I’m left standing in a version of myself that feels both familiar and entirely foreign. I’ve been intentional about building something new, and I don’t regret that, but I question what I’m building. The trail has held so much of my processing, yet today it reminded me that recalibrating isn’t a one-and-done event. I’m not trying to erase the sadness or wait for some old normal to return, because that version of life left with her. I caught myself wondering if perhaps I’ve turned it into something performative, even if it’s just for me. Like I need to prove that I’m okay, that I’ve got a handle on things. The truth is quieter than that. I’m not trying to get back to who I was. That version of life doesn’t exist anymore. I’m figuring out who I am now, and that’s slower, less defined, and probably more honest.
As I made my way down, I started to see that I have likely only stabilized my emotional gauge, which is really just the groundwork for the more difficult work in front of me. It explains why I have been feeling these recent dips in my emotions, triggered by things that used to be easy to brush off. I know this is not a setback, though it feels exactly like one. I’m learning there’s no graduation from grief, no metric that eventually signals I’ve made it through. The goal was never to stop missing Kelly or to go numb to the void left in her absence. It’s to hold the gratitude for what we had and the weight of losing her at the same time, without one canceling out the other. It is a quiet, personal integration that doesn’t need a label. It just needs to be true.
As I made it back down to the trailhead, I felt a sense of relief in the honesty of the day, legs tired but heart a little clearer. That matters. I could see that what I’ve been doing hasn’t been wrong, it’s just been the beginning. Stabilizing things, creating some ground to stand on. And now that ground is steady enough to feel what’s actually there, not just manage it. The grief hasn’t gone anywhere, and I don’t think it’s supposed to. It sits alongside everything else now, not in the way, just present. I don’t need to answer whether it’s all working, at least not today. It’s enough to notice that I’m still here, still moving, still willing to ask the question without rushing past it. The trail didn’t give me clarity. It gave me something better. It let honesty breathe for just a bit. The path continues.
-Ken
- Middle Fork Snoqualmie, North Bend, WA
- 47° 28′ 0.156″ -121° 40′ 24.888″
- 9.6 miles | 4,252ft elevation gain | ~8 hours
- Sunrise: 5:46 AM, Start: 4:30 AM, 50-75 degrees, clear
Musings 