THROUGH THE BROADLEAF


The trail seemed to go on forever as I wound along the terraced landscape just one more drop through the chest high broadleaf ferns to the river in which I had been able to hear for quite a while now. The map had shown a small but marked USFS trail leading from the gravel road some 800 yards behind me and 2500 feet above me, to a bend in the Upper East Fork of the Lewis River. Switchbacks had been its course, and I was along for the ride in hopes of fish and solitude. The two things in a fisherman's life that seldom seem to collide.