Journey to Orcas

We travel to distant and exotic lands, sometimes forgetting that some of the most interesting and beautiful locales lie beneath our very noses.  Especially so when we live in the Northwest Corner.

My sister came visiting for several days over the weekend, and I realize once again how often I explore those "interesting and beautiful locales" only when I'm entertaining a visitor. 

So, on Saturday we spent the day on Orcas¹ Island in the San Juans, departing by ferry from Anacortes -- about an hour and a half drive north of Seattle.  No longer, sadly, can one simply show up at the ferry landing and hop the next ferry.  Well, I suppose it's still possible if a last minute vacancy appears (or if you're traveling without a car, as a foot passenger), but in summer a vacancy rarely does.  I made on-line reservations a couple of weeks in advance, and still had to settle for a 7:25 a.m. departure -- which meant waking up at 4 a.m. and leaving home by car at 5. 

But it was fun watching the dawn break as we drove north.  We checked in early, as required, and had a coffee on the dock as the sun rose over the Sound.  The ferry took us past forested shorelines and across long stretches of water, finally arriving about an hour after departure.

Orcas is an oddly shaped island, wrapped around two inlets -- a smaller one called Westsound, and a much larger and deeper, fjord-like inlet called Eastsound.  The town of Eastsound, at the head of the eponymous inlet, is the largest community on the island.  We stopped there for an excellent breakfast, sitting on the restaurant's open deck, gazing down the entire length of Eastsound (the inlet) that stretched before us.  A high point of the day.

We drove down the east side of Eastsound (again, the inlet), past the Rosario resort (which we checked out on the way back), and into the large Moran State Park, crowned by Mt. Constitution.  Moran State Park is named after the Seattle mayor who at one time owned the five-thousand-plus acre property, and donated it to the state.  Mt. Constitution, within the park, rises 2,409 feet above the Sound.  Like the significantly higher Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, the summit can be accessed either by a trail or by a paved road.  I've hiked to the top of Mt. Washington.  We drove to the top of Mt. Constitution.

The summit is surmounted by an odd stone tower, with an internal stairway which we, of course, climbed (joined by my sister's dog).   The tower was one of the many worthy projects constructed by the depression-era Civilian Conservation Corp., and is -- so says Wikipedia -- "patterned after the 12th-century Caucasian towers."  Right; got it.  The view from the tower, and from the summit itself, is magnificent, with the waters of Puget Sound visible in all directions. 

We enthusiastically set off on a hike 1.3 miles down the trail from the summit to "Cold Water Springs."  But where was the water?  Well, we're participants in the West Coast's drought this year.  Let's just say the walk was worthwhile in and by itself.

After driving around most of the island, including a visit to Deer Harbor resort on Westsound, we caught our 5:35 p.m. ferry back to Anacortes, stopped for dinner at a seafood restaurant in town, and finally drove back home in the dark to Seattle.  It was a long day, but fully worth our time and energy. 

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¹You no doubt assume that Orcas Island is named after the many orca whales that frolic about the area, no?  Actually, no.  Again according to Wikipedia: "The name "Orcas" is a shortened form of Horcasitas, or Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo, the Viceroy of Mexico who sent an exploration expedition under Francisco de Eliza to the Pacific Northwest in 1791."

Land of the Uighurs

My nephew Denny and friend

It's been a week, now, since I returned from my trek -- with my nephew Denny -- through the Chinese Pamirs.  My experience was highly memorable, but it's a bit hard to pick a single theme about which to write.  So, let me just offer a few observations.

1.  Tension between the native Uighur population and the ruling Han Chinese remains high, but this tension is not obvious to the casual tourist.  Most of the people you see on the street are Uighurs.  All signs are written in both Chinese and in Uighur (using Arabic script).  Although China is said to be discouraging the practice of Islam, the central Mosque was full to overflowing for Friday prayers.  Merchants go about their normal business, and street scenes are lively.

2.  The Chinese love of order and discipline clashes with the chaos of Central Asian street life.  "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain," is the Chinese mantra; you recognize Chinese urban planning from the air by a town's rigorous grid pattern.  The Chinese are the Imperial Romans of our time.

The Chinese thus instinctively abhor the winding narrow streets of Kashgar's old town.  The old quarters have been mainly bulldozed and replaced by broad streets with streetlights and trees, with a Uighur-esque gloss applied for atmosphere.  This is Uighur life as it is being presented to the tourists.  These newly rebuilt streets, with their outdoor cafe's under Parisian umbrellas, are certainly pleasant enough -- as are the similar streets of Samarkand and Tashkent -- but like the renovated town plans of those Uzbek cities, little of the romance and intrigue of the old town remains.  To see that, I arrived twenty years too late.

3.  The Chinese are coming.  The government has built blocks and blocks of still-empty apartment buildings, and huge shopping malls, standing empty without merchants.  The Chinese aren't stupid.  These buildings have been built to serve the hordes of Han Chinese who are being enticed to move to Kashgar (and Xinjiang in general) from eastern population centers by the offer of large financial incentives.  The Uighurs are about to be gentrified into insignificance -- or so, at least, is the plan.

4.  Most Americans just plain like Uighurs better than they like Han Chinese, apart from ideological or political concerns.  Marco Polo described the Uighurs as similar to his own Italians; other writers compare them to the Lebanese.  They are friendly, relaxed, good-natured, and eager to make a deal.  The Chinese, on the other hand, appear -- perhaps unfairly -- rigid, tense, and pushy, the product of crowded urban centers.

5.  Xinjiang is quickly becoming a fully accessible part of the world.  We traveled about eight hours south of Kashgar on the China-to-Pakistan Karakoram Highway, to reach our first campsite at Lake Karakul.  The trip should have taken five hours, but we were on gravel roads for a large percentage of the trip.  Our bus broke down about five times, and we were delayed at one point where the road had washed out and several vehicles had got stuck in the mud -- blocking us and a long line of commercial trucks from proceeding.  BUT -- the Chinese are rapidly improving the highway with long, aesthetically pleasing bridges that soar majestically across valleys.  The Karakoram Highway will soon allow travelers to complete the trip to the Pakistan border, driving on roads that meet modern freeway standards. "Every valley shall be exalted," indeed.

6.  This trek was almost certainly my last attempt at hiking much above 12,000 feet.  We were at 14 to 16 thousand feet during much of the trek, and I never adapted fully to the elevation.  The drug Diamox does an excellent job of preventing symptoms of acute mountain sickness, but it does not force oxygen through your lungs at low atmospheric pressure.  The hikes themselves were not difficult, had they been several thousand feet lower; but at my age the high ridge over which we climbed each day required more oxygen than I could force through my lungs.

7.  My basic axiom in choosing hikes remains confirmed -- the more difficult the hike, the more enjoyable your hiking companions.  As a result of some form of self-selection, the kind of people you hate to be around at close quarters for a week or more tend not to be interested in the more difficult hikes.  Somehow, I have to choose hikes in the future that give both this point and the prior point due consideration!

I could say much more, and may in the future.  It was a memorable trip, and once more reinforces my attraction to Central Asia.