Images and Words from the Olympic Coast by Daniel Silverman

Reflections from an expedition to one of the most rugged and remote places in the lower 48 states

The Crab

This crab is not alive. I spent a quarter hour setting up the model, and 1/500th of a second taking the photo. Infinitely more satisfying than the actual act of photography was contemplating the life of this tiny crustacean. Noting the speckled pattern on its shell, I am reminded of spray paint. Pondering further, I think that we visitors are more like spray paint than this little fellow. He spent his whole life on this one beach, becoming a perfect part of the way of the ocean. We people are applied as hastily as graffiti, a drippy tag on the bathroom wall. In this, I am reminded not of a crab shell, but of a huge question: do we deserve it? I, so temporary, merely visit this place. The corpse of this creature, so brittle and fragile, is infinitely more permanent than I. While it may last for weeks or years, I am to be on a van home the next day. As I trudge away, I picture a statue; an immortal visualization of some being far more essential than I.

The Group

As a team of backpackers, we made a connection that has transcended all physical boundaries. Whether going to travel the world, to enlist, or merely to return home and take a shower, we all returned to Portland with a new perspective. A new viewpoint of the world could be described as the tilt and shift of a view camera, as the flick of a light switch, or as the historical journey from black and white into color in The Wizard Of Oz. However, all of these things imply a tangible change. There was something akin to the sense of peace you feel when first waking up in the morning, without an alarm clock, without work to do. It is warm under the covers, there is nothing outside of your tiny perfect world. This is different. The purity of the forest left us with something even greater, as if our tiny peaceful world had expanded to follow us, encompassing everything we saw.

The Starfish

There are a very few things that I learned in elementary school. The most interesting of which, I believe, is how starfish eat. A hungry starfish will swell up, and then attach itself to a clam. The mouth of the starfish pries a tiny hole through the seal of the shell, holding as tight as it can. When the hole has been made, the starfish vomits up digestive liquid (hydrochloric acid) into the poor clam. After the clam has been melted into soup, the starfish inverts it's stomach, filling the shell. When it has finished consuming the clam, it retracts its stomach. After a while, it deposits the waste into the empty shell through the same hole. The entire process can take 2-3 days. The strangest part of it all is how calm and peaceful the little starfish appears. Funny how things are not always as they seem.

The March

I thought nothing of it at the time. Now, I see an analogue to Lewis and Clark's great expedition. The broken line of men, with their backpacks bulging from the gear, look like they have no destination, only a desire to go somewhere. Indeed, I spent a lot of time meditating on the purpose of the expedition. I found it, sure enough: to live. So much of what we do every day is mechanical, automatic. The purpose of this expedition was not simply to "shake things up." It was to make us think to live. It was to make us work for our progress, not rely on fossil fuel, or the engineered precision of a bicycle, but to put one foot in front of the other, and move the world beneath ourselves. And, with each step, I thought: left, right. Left, right. Which one is which? Does it matter? Yes, it does. It all matters. That is why we take the time to reaffirm our beliefs. We take the time to revitalize our elements of life.

The Peak

All of us will eventually reach a peak, at which point we can rise no farther, and we must go back down. I climb towards the peak of my life, wondering not about what it will be like, but what it has been like. In our rush to achieve, we forget the most valuable peaks are those we climb together. Now, my motto, "stand up, or fall down," applies perfectly: in our standing up, our achievement, we bring ourselves back up, not to where we would be, but where we should be. If we do not try, if we separate, we will fail. Because even small peaks are great, every molehill is a mountain if you are willing to climb it. As a team, we scale the rock, and as a team, we slide back down. Thinking about our inevitable downfall is nothing more than a waste of time. When we do fall, another takes our place. Our success, indeed our very spirit, is transfered to them. The important part is that we peak because we are unified. Disparate, we recede, sliding back to the abyss.