Somewhere.........before that age when a boy becomes a man.: The Paradise Paradox (Kid Stuff)

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”: