I'm going to introduce you to three people in next few posts. I don't know them very well, but I know what they do, which is what I want to tell you about.
High up on the east slopes of Mt. Rainier, where, at 6400 feet, the paved road that reaches the Sunrise Visitor Center is the highest paved road in Washington, I encountered Sierra Willoughby.
It was serendipitous, as most good things are. Craig and I had taken our time down below in the Grove of the Patriarchs, which we visited in my last post. We drove leisurely up the mountain from there on roads whose shoulders dropped vertical in places. One wants to take one's time on those; it's difficult enough to keep one's eye on the road when at every turn the view is a delicious surprise.
Cascade mountains as far as the eye can see, furred on this dry side of the mountain with fields of wildflowers. The road takes so many twists that I swear we had no idea in which direction the mountain, invisible so far, would appear.
Suddenly, there it is.
It grows in your vision as you realize you are high upon its slopes.
Sunrise is different from Paradise, a much smaller facility with no overnight lodgings. They don't put a lot of fancy into the structures, as they're only occupied from late June to early October, which is as long as the road is open, being buried in snow the rest of the year.
We had a couple of burgers in the café then went over to the main visitor center. We were perusing the many educational and interesting exhibits when a young man strode in and made an announcement that he would be leading an informative nature walk in ten minutes. Ten minutes? How could we turn down an offer like that? We didn't.
Sierra Willoughby works for the U.S. National Park Service, the entity that protects and interprets Mt. Rainier National Park. We saw the work of the Park Service everywhere we went on the mountain. The cordial visitor centers, the trail systems, the buildings, the careful attention to preservation, the education of the over one million people who visit the park each year.
Sierra greeted us at the foot of the steps and we followed after him like fifteen assorted ducklings. He paused along the way to discuss the fragility and beauty of the meadows.
The diagonal trail below has not been used for fifty years, yet, in this usually frigid world with a short growing season, the plants are still trying to get a foothold. But you can also see the designated trails above it, two of many on the mountainside where people can meet the terrain up close.
Sierra is a font of information, as enlightening as he is entertaining. He talked to us about the Emmons Glacier, the enormous ancient ice rock which flows down this side of the mountain.
Six major rivers have their sources in Emmons and other glaciers of Mt. Rainier, and the Emmons is a popular route for mountain climbers on their way to the top.
We learned that the vertical hexagonal columns of rock that we'd seen around the mountain were formed from hot flowing lava cooled by contact with the glaciers, which once were much larger. As they retreated, the lava columns were left behind like walls of giant black crystals.
Sierra grinned. "Ice beats fire," he said.
Toward the end of his talk, he spoke about the Park Service and about how it seems to be one of those entities that is never first in line for tax money and often is one of the first to be robbed for other programs. I often wish we could designate our tax money to go to a our favorite recipients. That would be an interesting way to get messages across to lawmakers, wouldn't it?
National Park Service & Mt. Rainier
If I could, I'd put the U.S. National Park Service right up there in my favored few. Thanks, Sierra. Hope you have a cozy winter somewhere and that you're back at Sunrise next June to appreciate and reveal to us ducklings the magic of nature on Tahoma, King of the Cascades.
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