Puck

Just barely moved into our new homestead in the county and I began feeling a bit overwhelmed with the newness of the situation. I decided to surround myself with some familiarity in the form of a lake which I (and perhaps only I) frequent during the warmer months for fishing, swimming, and the like.
The aptly named “Lost Lake” (not the one in the Chuckanuts) is always a struggle to get to. All of the area surrounding this little gem is heavily logged, and due to this the logging roads frequently change. A compass and a map (or a GPS I suppose) are handy to have in this ever morphing maze of gravel and stumps. In addition to the logging road difficulty, the trail itself that leads to the lake is poorly maintained and requires more than a little tracking ability (and again a compass) to navigate. So, after some time orienting myself and scrambling over washed out trails and newly slain clear-cuts, I was somewhat shocked to see that the old familiar lake had itself transformed, and was covered in a seriously thick layer of ice. I could have been disappointed at this unusual scene but instead I took a new form of comfort in the ice blanketed water. Nostalgia flooded my memory as I stepped out and I recalled pond hockey and ice skating in the East coast when I was growing up. Had I been bolder (and perhaps was wearing a wet suit and water wings) I would have attempted a little shoe skating, but considering myself lucky that I hadn't already fallen in, I was content to walk a little ways out, turn around and begin my search for the trail back to the car. The fish were safe for another few weeks and I was feeling more at home than I had in a long time.
another one minute(ish)video