Two Birds, One Stone

Day 240: Five years. That's how long it's been since I went geocaching (not counting CITOs and one related event). Even then, I had only been picking up the occasional cache when I travelled out of my immediate area. Gas prices were on the rise, and I'd found almost everything in the immediate vicinity, so I decided it was time to step back. I let my membership lapse, and I pulled all of my own caches (largely because I didn't want to leave a legacy of little bits of plastic in the woods if I should happen to keel over dead), but I missed the activity. After our Park CITO at the end of May, I thought, "Surely there must be some new caches, nice ones, by now? Why don't I join up again?" So I did. Today while going out for groceries, I looked for and found three, two of which were reasonably interesting. The third one was here at tiny Dogwood Park, a very predictable hide in the brushy back corner, redeemed by having pinpoint-accurate coordinates. And that said, no matter how many times I see it, this is one view which never gets old.

Out And About

Day 205: For the first time in at least a year, I got out and about this morning with my botany partners. It wasn't much of an outing as outings go: just a quick trip up to Longmire to look at the Calypso Orchids and a brief stop to remove illegally-planted materials installed by a repeat offender at a "memorial" site. It was a bit on the nippy side, nighttime temps still hovering close to the freezing mark, but my winter-weary lungs appreciated the bracing mountain air. The Calypsos were less numerous than in years past, although there were some lovely clusters, even some including the white variation. The view of the Mountain from Kautz Creek showed how thin the snowpack has become as glaciers recede and lose mass due to global warming. Snow depth at Paradise is at 129", 81 percent of normal.

Cloud Layers

Day 7: You have to understand that although I live on the hem of Mount Rainier's skirts, these views are not a daily occurrence. In fact, we sometimes go weeks without getting the barest glimpse of the Mountain because it attracts weather systems. Lenticulars are usually a pretty good sign that there's some active weather on the way. They can exhibit a wide variety of forms: stacks of pancakes, chains of "flying saucers" lined up off to one side, tidy cap clouds or, as today, a fancy "hat" complete with feathers to complement the lacy gown of snow newly dressing the upper slopes. If you look just above the horizon of dark hills, you'll see a ruff of cumulus and, checking the webcam as I write, if you were at Paradise, it occludes the Mountain completely. The "meat" in the cloud sandwich shown above is only the thousand feet or so between Camp Muir and Gibraltar Rock. Elsewhere, you'd be in white-out, wondering why you thought today would be a good day for a hike/climb.

Stack O' Pancakes

Day 365: Following on the heels of the aurora borealis, another phenomenon put on a spectacular display yesterday morning: lenticular clouds over the summit of Mount Rainier. While this is much more common than aurorae, it never fails to awe. Sometimes, the Mountain just puts on a hat, a single lenticular worn like a sombrero. Other times, it presents...well, when I threw back the curtains at dawn, I said, "Wow! A whole stack o' pancakes!" I've lived here almost 35 years. I still went running out to capture the scene with the camera from a position where I could avoid telephone lines, poles and a butt-ugly political sign. Visitors to the area often pull over here to take pictures of the Mountain whenever it's visible, even when there is no alpenglow or cloud formation to photograph. It's the only spot along the road where the Mountain can be seen. That said, the Mountain looms large over much of the Pacific Northwest landscape, and friends in Eatonville also had "pancakes" for breakfast on this fine, crisp morning.

Moon Over The Mountain

Day 44: You have to understand that in the Pacific Northwest, you don't usually get opportunities to view celestial events or, for that matter, to observe a blue sky, so when this spectacular combination presented itself through my living room window, I grabbed the camera without thinking twice. Plunging through a tangle of chest-high snowberry bushes intermixed with dry blackberry vines, I picked up a few thorns en route to a position which avoided power lines, poles, fence posts and a significantly ugly display of political statement mounted on a truck parked mid-pasture, and managed to make it in and out of the maze without tripping on the frost-slick ground. It was at great hazard to life and limb that I made this photograph for you when I could just as easily have generated it with open-source AI. Apparently, there's a lot of that going on right now. It will never happen here. I promise you that.

Mountain Pancakes

Day 113: When the Mountain makes pancakes, it's a sure sign the weather is about to change (and it did, so there's no hope of seeing that elusive comet any time this week). Mount Rainier is famous for its lenticular cloud formations. In fact, at least once, they've been reported as UFOs, although I can't quite imagine why. Admittedly, they're dramatic. One time when I was backpacking on the north side, I saw one incoming which looked exactly like Capt. Kirk's Enterprise complete with warp nacelles, at least to my imaginative mind. Sometimes, they pile up on one side or another of the peak; others will accumulate on or over the summit, often lowering as a developing weather system gains strength. They occur when moist, stable air flows over the summit to create a series of waves and troughs. Unequal dew point and ambient temperature in the bottoms of the troughs causes evaporation. At the peaks of the waves where dew point and temperature are equal, condensation occurs. When this recipe is exactly right, the Mountain makes pancakes. Or maybe, like the Lemurians who were reported to live in Mount Shasta, there really is a race of aliens occupying the ice caves on the summit, flying in and out in their saucer-shaped spaceships disguised as clouds.

Winter Cloak

Day 90: The Mountain's presence is always felt by those of us at its base, regardless of whether it is hidden from sight by cloud or no. Still, when its magnificent figure appears again on the horizon, cloaked in a fresh garment of white, one cannot help but be awed. At 14,411', the Mountain rises well above the surrounding foothills, although the closer you get, you lose sight of the broad lower half. From Seattle or other vantage points where an unobstructed view is possible, its massive dominance is even more apparent. On days like today, I look out my window and think how privileged I have been to stand on the summit six times. To look at me now, you would never guess that I had been a climber. But although some in my acquaintance went on to the challenge of Himalayan peaks, they held little or no lure for me. For me, climbing Mount Rainier was a pilgrimage, or a moment of intimacy with one of the most significant figures in my life. The Mountain was not something to be conquered, but a personage I respected, and to whom I entrusted my life each time I set foot on the upper slopes. I still have my wood-handled ice axe and crampons, and although I cannot envision ever using either again, I cannot bear to throw them away. The summit calls to me, even if I can no longer answer.

From Tower Hill

Day 250: You don't get many scenic views in Pack Forest. Managed by the University of Washington's forestry college, its full name is "Charles L. Pack Experimental Forest." In other words, it's all about trees: types of tree, growing methods, thinning methods, designing better ways to produce the quantity of lumber-on-the-hoof humans demand. Yes, there are a few spots where they've clear-cut, scalped a hillside right down to the soil, creating an environment where the first colonizers will be foxglove, tansy and other nasty weeds. Overlooking one of those and its incumbent stump field, you may have a small and unappealing window on Eatonville, but more likely, you'll be looking out across more forest...second growth, third growth...because forest products are what Washington grows best. Rarely, as you round a bend on one of Pack's roads, you'll get a glimpse of mountains in the distance (the Olympics, most likely), and even more rarely, a shoulder of the Mountain...you know, the one we talk about with a capital letter. I only know one spot (and believe me, I have hiked all of Pack's trails and roads) where you have a clear line of sight to Mount Rainier, and it's not from the very peak of the cell-phone tower hill, no. You have to slope off down its east shoulder a tenth of a mile or so in order to have an unobstructed view. No one goes down here. No one comes up either, even though a rudimentary horse trail attains the ridge from the north side, thick with brush which is nearly impenetrable. This was my goal on Wednesday: a nice spot to enjoy a handful of chocolate-chip cookies before plodding back to my car, but as it turned out, this finger ridge was the only place where I was pestered by flies during the nine-mile hike. I snapped the picture hastily and beat a retreat to a cooler, shadier spot to enjoy my little lunch.

Return Of The Elk

Day 158: The days of a hundred or more elk in the pasture are long past, the three herds which used to populate Elbe Hills now separated or "thinned" by hunting, but now that the first shoots of tender grass are beginning to peek through, the thirty-plus members of this single herd have returned to graze. Standing off the left edge of the photo is the glaring offense of an enormous campaign sign, the name on it sure evidence of the mind-set which would place a mega-resort on this property along with four hundred houses. a strip mall, a golf course, a convention center and a train station, all designed to line the pockets of a family which wants a monopoly on the valley's tourist trade. It is the only view of Mount Rainier from SR 706, and even when the elk are not present, the sight of the Mountain (particularly at sunset) stops visitors by the dozen who wish to capture its magnificent presence with their cameras. Nor do I take the Mountain's striking beauty for granted for all of the years I've lived here. My files are filled with different seasonal views from this same vantage point. That said, I cheated for this shot. It was so near last light that the elk were little more than bright-rumped black dots if I set the exposure for the Mountain's glowing colour or, if I let the elk be seen, the glaciers and sky became one shade of lightly tinged white, the contours invisible. Had I thought to take a tripod, I could have done better, but instead, I braced against a wobbly fencepost and took two shots at different speeds, then combined them as best I could using my photo-processing software. You get the idea, anyway. Wouldn't you rather have this view than to look out over a testament to greedy capitalism?

MeadoWatch On Naches Loop

Day 318: It goes without saying that on a clear day, Mount Rainier dominates the horizon in western Washington, rising as it does some 10,000' above the surrounding foothills. Our other volcanoes are similarly situated: Baker, Adams and St. Helens commanding the view from the lowlands around them. Mount Rainier is of course the tallest at 14,410' and nothing near it approaches its height or size. From north, south, east or west, "The Mountain" thrusts its glaciers up from the green forests and alpine meadows, its position in the geology of the area as indisputable as that of any monarch. Today, I hiked a MeadoWatch transect around Naches Loop directly east of the Mountain, counting wildflowers, being distracted by butterflies, passing along cautions to visitors lest they surprise a foraging bear. Naches Loop is a short hike, 3.7 miles with minimal (800') elevation gain. It starts at Tipsoo (a sorely abused spot of once-great beauty) and encircles rocky Naches Peak, bypassing several small ponds and the larger Dewey Lakes to the south. It is partly forested, but for the most part, it passes through subalpine meadow, an ideal location for phenological monitoring with both eastside and westside ecologies at work on the plants. What might be just setting seed on one side may be full-blown on the other, or several phenophases might be apparent within a mere half mile. Likewise, herbivory (munching by critters) may be prevalent on the west and absent on the east. I had done the pre-season hike of the Loop to report problem snow patches or difficulty in finding waypoints, but had not done another MeadoWatch patrol on it until today. I'll be sharing what I saw over the next several posts, so I hope you'll tag along for the walk.

Long Walk For The View

Day 159: Okay, there was a shorter way to reach this spot, but I prefer to park where there's some security against a car break-in. Consequently, I began my day's adventure at Pack Forest's "campus" (the complex of buildings which houses offices, equipment sheds, a greenhouse, a small convention hall, etc.). And to be honest about it, I was really only planning to do the five-mile loop of the 1000 Rd., but then I thought I might be able to find some Snow Queens (add a mile detour), and then when I got back to Kirkland Pass and started down Butterfly Alley, I really didn't feel like I'd put in a good day's walk. The 1300 Rd. looked tempting. I'd only been up it once, and that, at least a decade ago. Okay, I can make the trip do double-duty by making an invasive-plant patrol out of an extended trek.

Pack Forest's best view of Mount Rainier is out a spur road (the 1330), just beyond three cell phone towers which are visible from Eatonville. It's also just about as far from campus parking as it's possible to get on an east-west axis. When did I ever let a little thing like that stop me? It's just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other one, right? Well, there was a little backtrack involved when I forgot to waypoint a nasty infestation of English holly (something Pack particularly wants us to hunt down), but I eventually got to the cell towers and the view. Now what? Do I go down the short way and continue back to the campus on the remaining stretch of the 1000 loop, or do I take my chances with the 1300 Rd., hoping that it will come out where I think it does? At that point, I said to self with appropriate harshness and reproach, "You shoulda brought the bloody MAP!" Well, yes, but I hadn't been planning to make a major expedition out of the project when I'd left the car.

Turns out the 1300 was quite a bit longer than I'd expected because it joined up with the 2500 for a couple of miles. By the time I'd connected to the 2000 Rd., my dogs were barking. I don't usually get sore feet, but the weather was unseasonably warm (read, "too damn hot to be hiking") and I'd worn the Gore-tex boots which don't breathe nearly as well as the promotional materials would have you believe. With wool socks added to the equation, my footsies were overheating. At the junction with the 2000 Rd., I resigned myself to the consequences of having three miles left to go to get back to the car and, to add insult to injury, I was retracing the steps I'd taken to check on the Snow Queens. By the end of the day, I'd put in twelve miles, climbed at least two more hills than I'd intended, and had 15 instances of invasives to report, a process which ate an hour of my evening. Y'know, I really feel like I deserved that bowl of ice cream I stopped for on the way home.

Mountain Drama

Day 90: There is more drama than that of politics associated with Mount Rainier today, beautiful in nature, if perhaps somewhat foreboding. Clouds mount a nebulous assault from the north, lifting over the summit in ragged lenticular formation, fighting vainly against an unseasonably warm upslope wind. The Mountain makes its own weather, according to its mood; dangerous at times, kindly at others, but never without an undercurrent which warns that changes may come on a whim, with little to announce their imminent arrival. Experienced climbers know this; the foolish ones trust to luck. Most of us, regardless of our camp, survive more or less intact, living out our days in the foothills when our bodies cannot meet the demands of the sport. That said, our hearts are on the Mountain, even in bad weather. Don't let the allegory bite you on the bum.

2130 View

Day 249: When you're a 14,410' Mountain and the surrounding foothills top out between 5000-7000', you certainly dominate the landscape from every vantage point offering a clear view. Of course much of the Pacific Northwest is forested (logging operations notwithstanding) and a little of it is dominated by man-made structures (Seattle), but for the most part, if a hiker achieves a high spot where trees don't block the vista, Mount Rainier owns the horizon.

I don't think this particular section had been clearcut the last time I walked Pack Forest's 2130 Loop, and the obvious maturity of the thistle patches and foxglove stands indicated to me that it must have been more years than I remembered. From main campus parking, the 2130 is roughly the farthest point in Pack attainable by walking the road system and/or trails. Other routes would add more miles, but if you're looking at the 2130 as a destination, you're in for pounding your soles. I had started my day with a shorter hike planned: up the 1000 to the 1400, 1400 to its end, then back to the Advanced Horse Trail and up to Hugo Peak and out via the Reservoir Trail, a 10-mile trip. After having lunch on Hugo, I decided to visit the 2130. I remembered it as being heavily forested, shady and richly green. I did not remember the view of the Mountain, and that's not something I'd be likely to forget. After all, the Mountain is a significant part of my life. Having done the 2130, I walked back to Kirkland Pass trying to judge how much more plodding my feet would stand. I had three choices to take me back to parking, two somewhat shorter options and the longer Reservoir Trail. I went the long way. Typical.

Tribble-On-A-Stick

Day 327: Any Star Trek fan would be happy to identify this wildflower for you. It's "Tribble-on-a-Stick" and the subalpine meadows at this time of year are a testament to their reproductive abilities. Seriously, though...Anemone occidentalis does carry the quirky common name of "Mouse-on-a-Stick" in addition to "Western Anemone" or "Western Pasqueflower." The flower is one of the first to appear in the spring, often blooming in between snow patches. Phenologically speaking, Western Anemone has one of the longest cycles between budding and "blowing" of any of the subalpine plants and may be observed in the meadows throughout the whole season in one form or another. The "mop-heads" familiar to most hikers (as shown above) are the seed-bearing phase. When the seeds are fully mature, the plant will release them to be sown by the wind, ensuring a whole new generation of Tribbles to plague Captain Kirk.

Natural Habitat

Day 320: This is a Crow in its natural habitat. For all of how much I love wildflowers and the critters of the forest, it is the high, bleak and desolate places which truly command my heart. I am too old, beat-up and decrepit to get to the ones which are dearest to me, but there are others almost equally beautiful still within the reach of my strength and stamina. Today, I went up the Lakes Trail on a MeadoWatch hike, recording the phenological stages of specific plants at plots with precise geographic coordinates. At the top of the transect, the sub-alpine plants thin out until only a few of the hardiest species remain. Continuing up, the environment becomes a moonscape of ankle-wrenching rocks, layer upon layer laid down by the stratovolcano which is Mount Rainier. It was this landscape which drew me higher today, my soul craving the open space of the Mountain's rocky alpine zone. Here is where perspective rises up and shows you that your human presence is no more than a speck of grit in the cosmos. It is a metaphysical journey which, oddly, I find eminently consoling, comforted in the knowledge that whatever happens in this world is of very little significance indeed.

A Brief Respite

Day 310: By mid-afternoon yesterday, the brief respite we had from wildfire smoke was in retreat against a new onslaught. Although the Mountain hadn't been clearly visible at any time in the previous 24 hours, you could at least distinguish glaciers from rocks, and that for the first time in two weeks. But as the saying goes, all good things come to an end. This morning once again, there is no Mountain on the horizon, only a blurry red disk rising in the east. I consider myself to be in good physical condition, yet the smoke in the air impairs my breathing, leaves me feeling tired, worn and, if the truth be told, not at full capacity mentally. On the other hand, I am grateful that it isn't worse. Ranger friends have been evacuated from both Yosemite and Glacier due to the wildfires there. As tinder-dry as the Pacific Northwest currently is, all it would take would be one lightning strike, one careless toss of a cigarette, one fool leaving a campfire smoldering, and we'd go up in a puff.

Looking Forward

Day 80: New Year's Day morning wasn't quite as rosy as I'd hoped, but any day you can see the Mountain is a good day. Although there's no substance to omens and portents, I will offer one up by saying that this bodes well for the coming year. In words from the Pixar film "Up," "Adventure is out there!" and I'll be looking for it under rocks, on mountaintops, in swamps, on trail and off. There is always something new to find (or new to me at least, and that's what counts). Will Myrio sprout in abundance again this year? Will the Phantoms return? Can I possibly justify a road trip to Mount Adams to search for Drosera anglica, the "other" Sundew native to Washington?

We tend to become somewhat myopic when surrounded by events like those of 2017, and it's difficult to focus our vision as we look forward. I find myself having to use a magnifier to bring the picture into view when you'd think a telescope would be better suited to the task of seeing far ahead. For me, it is the small, neglected bits of beauty in Nature which inspire my forward progress. In them, I find the compass I require to keep me on track and out of the sinkhole of despair. One lichen, one tiny flower, one botanical mystery, and all else pales in my mind's eye. We all need such helpers as these. I hope you will find yours as we look forward to 2018. Happy New Year!

September Blue sky

Day 335: Some of the Park's volunteer activities are so popular that dates have to be reserved well in advance. Take MeadoWatch, for example. Right after the June training/review, I put myself on the calender for two Thursdays in September (my favourite time of the year to hike). Did I have an in with NOAA that I had a long-term forecast for no rain? Not hardly! When the first of the dates rolled around, we found ourselves under a suspension of all outdoor interpretive activities due to thick smoke from the Norse Peak fire. Even if I could have drawn a breath without coughing, I couldn't have done the hike as part of my duty. Luckily, there were still a few openings this week, so I reserved Tuesday (yesterday), hoping that the weekend's cooler, breezier conditions would blow the smoke away. I got lucky. Other than being rather too warm by late morning, the skies were gloriously September-blue. It is worth note here that it's been forty years since I first put on the uniform. Admittedly, my service hasn't been continuous (being gone so much caused family trouble), but I have in roughly twelve years and plan to keep going until I drop.

Snow Walk With Friends

Day 102: I went to work yesterday expecting to participate in a four-hour "webinar" to evaluate and learn to use the new Volunteer(dot)gov website soon to be rolled out. An hour in, they still hadn't eliminated the clicks, screeches, pings, dings, clacks, clatters on the line, and when an electronic flock of seagulls made their appearance simultaneously with more pressing office business on our end, we gave it up as a lost cause. I went back to my regular duties and just as I was finishing up, two friends dropped by and invited me out for a walk with them in the snow. I leapt at the chance. We made the rounds of Longmire Campground and although I didn't find any canopy lichens deposited by our recent winds, it was quite enjoyable.

Kevin and I left a little early, with me thinking that I'd get home in time for a quick dinner before heading up to Seattle for Morris dance practice. There was a catch, though. I needed to check my email first to see if the practice was still on, the other team members still rather tired from the Women's March on Saturday. I fired up the computer and...no internet.

"No internet" is a common complaint in my area. "Crappy internet" is even more common. Slow at the best of times, nonexistent at the worst, our internet would be rejected out of hand by occupants of most third-world countries. It had been out just a few days earlier, and when it was restored, we were told that a farmer had run a backhoe through the line. However, when another friend asked what had caused the outage, she was told that a tree had fallen on the substation. "Alternate facts" seem to rule in our ISP as well as in higher government. As for this outage, we were advised that, "We do not have a projected date for when your service will be restored." Are we charged for down-time? You bet! But it is my understanding that a group of locals are consulting with an attorney to initiate a class-action suit against the company whose other business practices are as dodgy as their service.

For now, I'm back, but that's subject to change without notice. Unfortunately, that one ISP is the only game in town.

The Mountain

Day 81: Even from Seattle and other points north, Mount Rainier dominates the western Washington skyline, or to be more accurate, I should say that from points north, the peak shows its full majesty. Up close where I live, the lower portion is generally obscured by foreground ridges. It isn't until you get to Paradise or Sunrise that it really comes into perspective, often drawing a breathless "Wow!" from visitors. Long-time residents speak of "The Mountain" with capital letters. You seldom hear us say "Mount Rainier" unless we're talking to tourists.

At 14,410' feet, any climbing route on the Mountain can be called a "world-class" challenge. The Camp Muir route is the easiest, and generally requires two long days from Paradise to summit and back. Longer and a bit more challenging, the Emmons Glacier route (east side) is also popular with alpinists. In my heyday, I made six successful summit bids on five routes, doubling up on the plod through Muir. Of my climbs (none technical), an ascent via Kautz Glacier was the most demanding. My husband and I carried full expedition gear to the top and overnighted in the crater.

To look at me now, you wouldn't think I'd been the tough little nugget that I was in those days. In addition to climbing, I was on the Mountain as often as not, hiking to remote locations off-trail, camping out for weeks at a time alone. That spirit of adventure is still alive within me, but alas, the knees and hips disagree when my brain suggests a 20-mile dayhike "for old times' sake." That said, I'm not quite ready to roll over yet, so don't be surprised if some sunny summer afternoon, you run into me at Indian Henry's, Grand Park or up on Panhandle Gap. I don't turn around until I'm "halfway," however far that may be. The second half is the trek home.