Cross Streets: Echo Lake Rd. ** Directions: Hwy 38 to Oak Flats Rd to Echo Lake Rd to Raymo Rd. I want the description to do justice to this 51-acre off-grid property, of course. To summon some of its magic, some of what it feels like to walk for an hour the trails far side of the long, low bridge. To pause at the edge of the big pond (beside the second cabin) and truly inhabit a landscape, to feel a part of something rather than just a visitor, to feel as if there are clues to life written into the way the humped granite forages between fingers of rich dark water, the way the forest floor (the endless-seeming forest!) gives under your boot. I have not been here at night to see the sky spread out all bejewelled, the doubling of it on the water's top between viewer and beaver dam; I'm really not sure my system could take it. There is a charming three-year-old board and batten cabin with a loft bedroom like something out of a dream. It has a 590W solar array controlled at a repurposed shipping container for light (there is also hydro right at the road) and a woodstove for heat, and a fancy, high-tech rainwater collection system to keep you clean and hydrated. The pine interior and open stairs make it feel as if you rest somehow inside a beehive. Only that hum, you'll soon realize, comes from inside you, is the sound of your own blood racing, your heart coming suddenly alive, like a pheasant bursting up from old leaves. I struggle with the beauty here. It's easy to point you to the photographs, but that feels an abdication of responsibility, as if I really do need to take a stab at description, even if it means coming up woefully short. Let me admit this much: If you go, and you really should, you will realise just how badly I have failed at my job. (id:27476)
