In
retrospect, I always look forward to a trip to the mountain. With some regret there is a realization that the
drive has been made too few times over the years.
Life of the everyday has a habit of thwarting those moments that engender memories. Those occasions that capture our senses in ways unimagined. Chance meetings with the unknown, the exceptional, and the secret. Instances that touch our subconscious and leave mere shadows of themselves. Fleeting, yet permanent. Without cost, all the while priceless. Encounters that hold us as tightly as we do they.
The image of the fluorescent blue
azure blaring through translucent half domes of ice is as real today as it was
50-plus years ago. Each tip of ice where
it ended and giving way to the next frozen arch glazed with a drop of water. Each droplet waiting its turn with destiny
before raining down. Splunk…splunk…splunk
– cold and heavy on the skin. Together
they burst from the mouth of the Paridise Glacier in a revelry that only freedom
can induce. Beautiful. Amazing.
Other worldly. Dare we say
heavenly?
National Park Service Photo circa 1958
My experience with that
mystical place took place on a day hike with my Dad and Sister – maybe two or
three years after that photo was taken.
I’d do the drive and hike again in a heartbeat in order to relive that
moment. But sometimes, “once in a
lifetime” means exactly that. Dad has
gone to be with our Lord. The glacier
has receded and the ice caves are no longer - victims of a warming planet. Only a fond memory remains. Bittersweet.
Mount
Rainier. Known to the Native Peoples as Tahoma – meaning
“mother of waters” or perhaps better “that frozen water”. Ice birthed from molten fire. A giant spec that dominates the Puget Sound skyline yet follows suit with the lesser
known peaks of the Cascades and Olympics.
At 14,411feet, Rainier is never far
removed from eyesight. And it calls.
Not long after Jamie and I
were married, we became aware of something called the Wonderland Trail. A 93 mile hike that encircles the
mountain. Not too daunting - until one
considers the many ridges that the path traverses. In all, those none too subtle dips and rises add
up to a cumulative 22,000 feet of elevation gain. But hey, the challenge is the better part of
any good adventure. So, undeterred, we
gave ourselves hiking boots for Christmas one year, and the next we bought a
tent. We researched and plotted our
advance. In between, we made a few day
trips to reconnoiter places where we would cache our food supplies. And the mountain never disappointed. The closer we got, the higher it loomed - as
if daring us to actually touch its essence.
Names like Paradise, Sunrise,
Devil’s Dream, Mystic Camp, Summerland, and Indian Henry’s Hunting Ground teased. Well, I’m somewhat chagrined to report that
our hike never got beyond those early planning stages. Once again, that pesky activity called life
got in the way and teaming with a
narrow window of snow melt, the tandem derailed our ambition indefinitely. Maybe, yet to be. In all likelihood, given the consequences of
age, not meant to be.
So, given my history with the
mountain, there was an added thrill when it became apparent that The Chase would lead us along a number
of trails on the face of Rainier. To be sure, portions of the Wonderland would
be traversed. Indeed, I would go with
Jamie along much the same path that I had trekked with my Dad those many years prior.
I am nobody in the presence
of such majestic grandeur.
And it is easy to imagine
that the by-products of a search in a theatre of such glory might well be awe
inspiring in their own right. Well, one
would think but not exactly. For it is
here on the flanks of Tahoma that a paradox is introduced and repeated time and
time again. Yin and Yang. Black and white. Good and evil. Male and female. Birth and death.
Here are some pictures of
what we found having followed the bread crumbs, deduced “the blaze”, and “looked
quickly down” in an effort to bring our “quest to cease”:
Clues leading nowhere? Evidence hiding in plain sight? The beginning of the end? Yes and no.
A paradox wrapped in a
paradigm, versed in a parable, intersected by the parallel and presented in a
venue of Paradise.
