Shannon Costello

All forests have secrets, but this one seems to guard them more closely than most. Even the vegetation encroaches on the winding mountain roads, hiding the forest floor from view.

My quest to uncover what I can begins with the trees. I spend time with them: delight in the softness of their new growth, the feel of their bark. I measure their leaves, crane my neck to gaze on their tops, clamber up on their fallen trunks and walk their length. I smell them, struggle to identify them. Sometimes I am successful.

Much of the time we are only allowed stolen glimpses of even the birds. A tantalizing fluttering of wings, a flash of color, a momentary perch, and then they are gone, gone before the camera can be raised or the bird book opened. The exception is the Steller’s Jay, who sounds constantly in these woods and apparently cannot bear to be invisible for long.

The forest unbends only slightly for us. We come suddenly upon the bank of a rushing river, where a small bird with a funny short tail dives in and out of the rushing water, somehow without being swept away.

On another day we are scolded by a chicory. He is so close we can see his fur quivering with fury at our intrusion. He disappears, only to reappear on the other side of the tree to berate us yet again. I wonder if he will leap at us, but no. He whisks away a second time and slips away into the depths of the forest.

The bears remain out of sight. We are allowed no second glimpse of the curious small mammal with the cat-like face and bushy tail. Even the deer maintain a greater than average distance.

One day, after hiking for several miles we clamber over piles of car-sized boulders and arrive at the top of a 10,000-foot peak. We listen to the wind, the buzzing of flies, and the silence, and gaze about us at the mountains rising up on every side. Perhaps now, in the heart of its territory, the forest will relax its guard? But it does not. As we pick our way back down I hear a repeated shrill whistle. A pika? I cannot tell. It is hidden, stubbornly concealed among the rocks.