...Can a Person Take of One Frigging Mountain??
Let's find out, shall we?
Last week, we spent five days in another perfect cabin, this one in Ashford, just outside the gates of Mt. Rainier National Park. We'd been gawking at the mountain for weeks, the Seattle area having enjoyed some of that crystalline summer weather that is the reason people stick around up here. These days are like the toy in the Cracker Jack box, the rainbow Easter egg in the spidery grass, the fat ripe blackberry hiding in the sticker bushes.
And there was Rainier dominating the horizon, hovering above scene after scene, and constantly moving, it seemed, to a new location around another curve.
So we decided, the heck with gawking. Let's go meet this mountain up close.
The closer we got, the more the volcano showed off. Rainier, known by the first peoples as Tahoma (which name I prefer), is a complex being, different on every side, moody at times, benevolent at others, changing his appearance and his textures but forever emanating his power.
We crept up on the Paradise side first, eyes boggled as Tahoma grew and grew and began to reveal his intricacies.
Tahoma is about as bare as it gets in August. Always, though, its glaciers remain, ancient slabs of ice hundreds of feet thick that advance and retreat through the ages. Up close, the glacial ice glows a mysterious green beneath its snow cover and in its deep crevasses.
Rainier is still an active volcano. Its last eruption in 1894-95 was a minor one. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the mountain we know began 500,000 years ago atop the eroded remains of an ancestral volcano which had been active one to two million years ago. It is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world not necessarily because of potential lava eruptions, but rather because of its proclivity to lahars. Lahars are flows of mud and debris that can be hundreds of feet thick and rush downhill at 40 miles an hour, a hazard multiplied by this volcano's proximity to highly populated cities and towns.
So, as I was saying, we spent five days up there.
But we weren't the only ones to brave the geological dangers. Nearly two million people make the pilgrimage every year into magnificent Mt. Rainier National Park. We reached Paradise Lodge on a Saturday and lucked into a parking space. Paradise has been a visitors' destination for a long time.
The lodge hasn't changed all that much, apparently.
Trails lead from the lodge in every direction. The one we took wound through subalpine fir and wildflower meadows.
Paradise, on the wet side of Rainier, receives over seven feet of snow on average, with plenty of rain during the months it's not snowing, so it is greener and lusher than Sunrise, on the east side of the mountain. In late spring and summer, glacial and snow melt fills creeks and waterfalls and the mountain runs like a fabulous fountain, with six major rivers sourced from its glaciers.
With all that water, plus fertile volcanic soil, it may come as no surprise that Tahoma also shelters some real big trees.
In the Grove of the Patriarchs, we walked the beautifully maintained trail into the heart of this remaining old growth forest.
As in Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island, this forest is largely undisturbed, the ancient downed trees nourishing new growth, the oldest trees protected as much as possible from the people who flock to visit them.
One thousand years old. That's how old this redcedar is.
Around the time when Viking Leif Eriksson '"discovered" North America and named it Vinland (in the same years the southwest's Pueblo Anasazi were moving from hunting and gathering to agriculture and building their cliff dwellings), this tree sprouted in the ashes of an enormous wildfire that burned the earlier forest.
We said farewell and wandered on.
Nearby stand these twin Douglas firs of a similar age to the redcedar. Many of the trees here are 200 feet tall.
Did I already say "magnificent"? Next post (surprise, surprise) we're still on the Mountain, and also on a visit to some local art treats. I'll publish sometime between now and next weekend 😏.
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