The alarm is set for 3:47 a.m. This is not an accident. Through three seasons of pre-dawn drives to the same ridge in the Cascades, I have learned that the light begins to change at exactly 4:18 — a faint luminescence at the eastern edge of the ridgeline, softer than anything that follows — and I need twenty-two minutes to park, lace my boots, and reach the overlook where the valley opens below.

Most people who visit this forest see it in the afternoon. They park at the main trailhead, walk the popular loop, and return to their cars having experienced something beautiful but unremarkable: tall trees, filtered light, the smell of resin and earth. They do not see what the forest is.