12/18-19/12 I went up to Camp Serendipity for only 2 days: Tuesday and Wednesday.

The week was cut short because of fear, but I'll explain that later. On the way up, I stopped and visited with Uncle Charles, and then proceeded on to make some deliveries to neighbors. The drive over the pass was gorgeous. It was like driving through a Christmas card. There had been a lot of new snow the day before and I stayed in 4wd from about Goldbar for all the rest of the trip. I followed a snowplow most of the way.

I had heard about the blizzard, the downed trees and the power outage on Monday, but it was clear and calm now and I figured that the road crews had by now cleared the road. They had. The drive was easy. But I counted 37 places between Lake Wenatchee State Park and Camp Serendipity where trees had fallen across the road and the road crews had cleared them away. A few of the 37 had fallen just short of the road so no clearing had been necessary, and two of the trees were still standing but leaning against the power lines. There were many utility vehicles and workmen along the way.

At milepost 5 I talked to one of the utility workmen. I wanted to know whether I would be able to drive to Camp Serendipity and he thought I was asking about when service would be restored. After telling me that they were working one pole at a time and that they were moving toward the White River Road, he understood my question and said that, yes, I could drive up there at my own risk.

I proceeded on. I stopped at Mike Dickinson's house and delivered a jar of Ellen's Christmas jam. Nobody was home so I just left the jar.

Then I stopped at Ron Siderits' and dropped off the trailer keys. He wasn't home either and it looked as though he had walked through the snow to the road. I followed his footsteps through the snow which was between 2 and 3 feet deep. I left the keys and proceeded on.

When I stopped at Mike and Shirley's, Bert and Ernie came right out to greet me. Unfortunately I didn't have any biscuits with me. I exchanged Christmas jam for Shirley's customary Christmas ornament that she made. They told me that power was still out and that the word was that it wouldn't be restored for days. When I left them I was not worried too much about the power but I was wondering whether Mike had plowed out my driveway.

Bert and Ernie ran ahead of the truck all the way to Camp Serendipity. When we got there, I could see that not only was the driveway not plowed out, but there was a huge amount of log and tree debris in the driveway along with 3 feet of snow. It wasn't clear that there was even room between the logs to park.

I had to disappoint the dogs and get to work shoveling snow. They eventually gave up and went back home. There was a narrow space, about 9 feet wide in the driveway with no tree debris. I set to work with my aluminum grain scoop and shoveled out a parking place and got the truck backed into it. There was only about a foot to spare between the truck and the end of a log sticking out.

I could see that there was a huge log across the driveway 20 or 30 feet behind the truck and I could see that I would not be able to go either over or under the log. It was just too big and there was too much snow. So I put on my snowshoes and walked up the road looking for a way to get onto the property.

Since it was already after 3:00, I was a little concerned about having enough daylight to get moved in. Fortunately I had just eaten an apple and I had a left-over sandwich with me, so by eating the sandwich as I blazed the trail, I didn't have to stop for lunch.

As I started out I saw where the road crews had cut that log to remove it from the road. It was a huge log.

A little further on, right at the culvert, there was a way to cross the ditch and get onto our property. I had to cut a snowshoe trail through some smaller fallen tree debris, but I got into the parking area and continued to cut a trail up to the water valve. I closed the valve down some in order to get pressure up at the cabin, and then I continued to blaze the trail to the cabin. There were a couple more trees to dodge on the way.

Up at the cabin I cut some wood and started a fire in the wood stove. Sure enough, the power was out and so was the phone. I plugged in a phone that doesn't need power and that one was dead too. The only communication I would have would be down the road where I could get cell service.

I snowshoed back down the same trail and before it got dark I decided to drive to the schoolbus turnaround and call Ellen. I got cell service up there but Ellen didn't answer. I left her a message explaining that I was OK and that there was no phone service. Then I drove back and got the truck back in its parking place. I carried one more load of gear up to the cabin and then realized that it was going to be cold during the night. I went back down to the truck and got two sleeping bags I keep in there for emergencies and while I was there, I grabbed a battery operated light and radio that I also keep for emergencies.

By the time I got back to the cabin it was already starting to get dark. I lit some candles that I had and I found a Coleman battery powered lamp. With that set up in the bathroom and the emergency radio-light with its fluorescent tube set various places in the living room, dining room, and kitchen, I had pretty good light to work with.

I put a big covered pot of water on the wood stove for wash water. I boiled a big potato and fried a salmon filet for dinner. It was pretty good. My normal routine of washing the dishes, brushing my teeth, taking my pills, and relaxing with a drink, went on pretty much as usual. It was pleasant being cozy warm, extremely quiet, and dimly lit. The room, I mean.

During the night the temperature in the cabin dropped to 40º by about 3:00 AM. I put both sleeping bags on top of my bed and was cozy and warm all night.

It was 20º outside when I got up at first light and it was still 40º inside. I changed that in a hurry by lighting a fire in the stove. I put the teapot on the wood stove and cooked my usual breakfast of oatmeal and coffee. The only thing different was that I couldn't watch courses on DVD like I usually do.

When I finished breakfast, I drove back to the turnaround and called Ellen to let her know that I was OK. I missed her again so I left another message. Then I went back to start on my plan of action.

My plan was to use the snowshoes to make trails and pack down a work area so I could buck up that big trunk and get it out of the driveway so that Mike could plow it. When I got down to the log, I could see that it had fallen dangerously close to the power service pole. If that were smashed I would have a big problem getting electric service restored.

I could see that the old temporary power pole, which was still standing, was OK. But the new pole was between that pole and the fallen tree trunk. I couldn't see whether or not it was intact until I snowshoed over there and dug the snow away. There was a lot of small branch debris on the pole, but to my great relief, it looked like it was undamaged.

I used my scoop shovel to get a measure of how close the tree had fallen to the power pole. It was just about exactly the length of the shovel. That was too close for comfort. I took a picture of the shovel spanning between the power pole and the fallen tree trunk.

Next I decided to shovel off the concrete staircase so that I would have easy access to the work site to bring down the chainsaw and to get to the cabin easier. I started shoveling from the bottom and when I got to the intermediary landing, I saw that the big tree that had fallen was the one that was just behind Chuck, the newest giant sequoia I had planted. I dug around the big pile of snow looking for Chuck, but all I found was a huge snow-covered pile of dirt. The falling tree had pulled up a giant root ball so the sequoia tree was buried in that somewhere. I probably won't find it until spring.

While I was shoveling off the steps, I heard a loud crack and turned around in time to see a pretty big tree break off up high and fall over in a huge cloud of snow. When the snow settled, I couldn't tell where it had landed because everything looked the same. I was worried about the truck so I went down to check and I could see that it was OK.

A little later I heard a chainsaw running pretty close across the road. I was surprised to hear it that close because there is no neighbor in that direction. My plan was to add to that chainsaw noise in a few minutes.

But as I finished shoveling the stairs off, I began to realize how dangerous the trees were right now. There was not a breath of wind and all the trees were loaded with about as much heavy wet snow as they could hold. Obviously many of them had been unable to hold it and had fallen over. I began to wax philosophical and I asked myself, If a tree falls in the forest, will it land on my truck? And if I go down there and start bucking up that big log, will a large branch fall on me?

I decided right then that it was too risky and I decided to go home immediately. I went up to the cabin and began packing and closing up. While I was doing that, I heard a loud crash in the direction of the front porch and I saw a huge cloud of snow out the window. I went out on the porch expecting to see a big pile of snow that had slid off the roof, but instead I saw evidence of a branch that had fallen a little ways down the upper roadway.

I carried my first load of gear down to the truck by going down the upper roadway and when I got to that fallen branch, I saw that it was about 5 inches in diameter and it had fallen right on the trail I was on. I knew right then that I was making the right decision and I hoped I would be able to avoid getting hit before I got out of there. When I got down to the road, I saw two newly fallen trees that had fallen from my property across the road. Both of them had a section cut out of the trunk so that cars could pass through. That was the chainsawing I had heard. One of them was within 20 or 30 feet of my parked truck, and that was the one I had seen fall. In fact it fell right about where my truck had been parked while I was shoveling out my parking place.

On my second and last trip down to the truck, I went down the concrete staircase and there, again, was a big branch on the ground that wasn't there before. I loaded up the truck and gently drove out of the parking place and down the road. I didn't really feel safe until I got to Highway 2. All of the trees along the way looked heavy and ready to fall.

At milepost 7 there was a work crew and a truck containing about 10 new utility poles. I figured that they had advanced 2 miles from the day before. But when I got to milepost 5, I could see that they were still working there too and I could see three big wires drooping to the ground from the top of a pole. I expect it is going to be many days before power and phone service is restored. I felt good about getting out of there safely and that there wasn't any serious damage to my cabin or power pole.

12/20/12 Made a slideshow video of this week's adventure and posted it to YouTube and Facebook.