I had to think about this amusingly sarcastic poem, Breaking Silence, by Whitby yesterday, when a gorgeous hike along Mirror Lake trail and up to Tom, Dick and Harry mountain yielded all kinds of beautiful vistas – but no silence. The car noises carried heavily over from US 26, and the trail was populated by all kinds of not so silent people, some blaring loud music no less. Kids happily screaming at the lake

found their counterpart in screeching Gray Jays, also known as Canada Jay, Camp robber, and Whiskey Jack, as I learned yesterday.

We made our Goretex exodus through ascending crowds of people in flip-flops and slippers later in the afternoon…. no longer silenced, in some fashion, by masks, which had been rigorously worn by the early morning hikers we encountered during ascent at 8 am.

The trail is probably the most heavily trafficked wilderness exposure close to the Portland area, and many conservationists are eager to develop alternative plans to protect the environment in the long run while allowing people to hike along these vistas.

The brooks gurgled, branches made the occasional odd noise when moved by a bit of wind, leaves shaking off the raindrops from previous showers.

The crinkly plastic paper from a devoured power bar rustled in my pant pocket, annoying enough that I had to transfer it into the backpack.

Loose boulders along screes rumble under your feet, and you wonder what the one large rock cairn you encounter would sound like if climbed. I could not figure out, after the hike, who built that cairn, or the rock stacking walls on the overview. Native Americans used cairns either for religious purposes, or as markers to show the way, but there is no information to be found if this cairn comes from a time before their land was stolen.

On top the clouds provided a bit of eeriness, no views of Mt. Hood. The mountain only appeared later in the day.

Even the chipmunks started to vocalize, when chasing each other in competition for the crumbs of my lunch. Rapid, high cadence sounds of chip-chip and cluck cluck in alternation, it seemed. Here is the real thing from National Geographic.

My knees creaked.

Only the raven on the summit kept his silence. A blissful day.

And since it was such a popular and populated trail, let’s have some popular classical music guide us into the weekend, inspired by landscapes, forests, and a river coming down from the mountain, Ma Vlast.