The Sweet Side

After Friday yoga, I go to the Olympia Farmers’ Market to fill my mom’s order for green vegetables and peaches; and a couple more honey crisp apples for me, in spite of the fact that there are buckets of transparents and gravensteins on the porch picked from the trees at my home and the neighbor's. Passing the cart of red, yellow, green, and orange peppers－its sign proclaiming one side as the sweet side, as opposed to the other hot side－I think, there next to the end waters of Puget Sound under the blue sky and the free-wheeling gulls, “yep, I am living on the sweet side." The sweet side of life, the sweet side of this country. (In my opinion, of course.)

My yoga instructor had offered earlier that there are two sides to all things. As we enter into this season of autumn and cooler weather and stillness, the southern hemisphere is gearing up for summer. As I stilled myself in supta baddha konasana, I thought about my life and how just about everything has a flip side. For every gladness there is a complementary ache; and vice versa.

I would be beginning the annual ritual of pulling out summer vinca and marigolds pretty soon in North Carolina, and planting winter pansies. It is a duality of tasks that always made me a little sad, since the summer annuals were still pretty; until I started doing it, then I enjoyed creating openness. I haven’t bonded with my mother’s garden, beyond enjoying its beauty; but I do hope to enhance and renourish the soil this fall in the little patch around my patio to ready it for spring planting. Maybe by then I will be ready to create another garden. Sometimes all we can do is prepare and then wait to see what inspiration might come to us.

Thursday I take off for Mt. Rainier: one last romp in Paradise before the onset of winter snows shuts it down. It is a beautiful day, only somewhat marred by the eau du smoke de plumé from the wildfires on the eastern side of the mountains that mostly dominates the alpine parfum. Every now and then, I round a curve and come up close to the timberline trees and my nostrils fill with the true essence of paradise. The smoky haze obliterates the view of the rest of the snowcaps behind the silhouetted Tatoosh Range, but at my back, Mother Mountain is clear as a bell. Two sides.

I hike up Dead Horse Creek trail, the one that was still under snow when I was there earlier in the summer, then detour off onto the Moraine trail. It is mostly a non-maintained trail, with a sign warning hikers to "travel safely and make minimal impact." It is a beautiful footpath through an alpine meadow of mossy dampness, up close and personal to the mountain. I can hear the roar of the waterfall coming off the glacier; and, I guess, boulders rumbling as they bounce down the bare rock and ice slopes. Though I scan the slopes when I hear it, I never detect motion.

Back on Dead Horse Creek, I follow the trail to where it joins with the Skyline trail. Three or four years ago, I hiked up the other side of the loop until it came to the permanent snow field and turned back without reaching Panorama Point, in view on the other side. This time I take the trail clockwise to the Point. I eat my sandwich on the promontory at the base of the top of the world and wish I could see the other mountains: Adams, St. Helens, Baker; I did go to all that climbing effort, afterall. I watch a man with neither poles nor cleats, either brave or stupid, cross the steeply-pitched snow field from the other side. When he arrives, I comment on the personality choices I had assigned to him, and he wonders if he might be both. He says he saw the sign, .8 miles up and over, .3 across, and figures that’s a no-brainer. I think he lost his. One slip would be a really quick trip back to the lodge.

Pleased to realize I have more in me, I head up the High Skyline trail, the one up and over the snowfield. (I don’t have a death wish.) I get to the apex of the trail, the highest point one can climb on this mountain without equipment and a sherpa, and am rewarded with an art installation! Dozens of carefully stacked and balanced sculptures of volcanic rock on boulders. I am unspeakably enchanted. (The brave/stupid, “take the shortest route” guy, missed it.) I wander around the rocky point looking at the efforts, and add my own contribution. Community art in the high Cascades.

I had thought I would turn around here and return the way I came. Though the other side of the loop is my favorite side of the mountain with its vast meadows and gentle slopes of brilliant color, it is a considerably longer descent. (It is also a considerably longer ascent. I don’t know if that is the reason for the burning lungs and shaky legs I recall from my last trip up the trail, or if I am also in better shape today－thanks to three years of yoga.) But, what the heck, I am in no hurry. I head down the other side.

I immediately encounter a three foot length of very narrow path around a point. I am so filled with fear I forget to take a picture. Or maybe that is because I am, now, going to turn around; I don't want to record my failure. Having just met a quite elderly couple who had obviously navigated it, though, I decide as I did at Hurricane Ridge, not to let my fear win the day. I take it carefully, holding onto the embedded rock shards that is taking up the inside half of the trail, and not stepping on small loose rocks. Also trying not to think of the father that fell off a similar spot on another mountain in front of his young son a couple of weeks ago.

I don’t fall off; the rest of the trail is glorious. And I am enormously proud of myself. I have never done the entire Skyline. It is an elevation change of 1700 feet from the lodge, to a height of more that 7000 feet－nearly (only) half the elevation at the summit. But it is my summit, and I claim success.

I meet another couple, brother and sister about my age, coming up the other way. He comments on the smokiness, and blotted out views, and then shrugs and says, “That’s what the experience is on this day.” Indeed. Everyday is our experience on this day. However bitter (or hot pepper hot) it may seem, surely there is some moment of sweetness.

“What day is it?” asked Pooh.

“It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.

“My favorite day,” said Pooh.

This day is surely one on the sweet side of my life.

Morning Fog, Gradual Clearing

The sky is cloudless all afternoon on Thursday, except for the cloud border at the west end of the valley, hiding Mt. St. Helens. And then, as the day begins to fade, the mountain top (what is now the top) becomes visible. It would have been easy to miss. I was feeling the same way early in the week. I am here where I want to be－I am clear about that; but what I am doing here is foggy. Just as I am despairing, my clouds lift just a bit and improve my vision. It would have been easy to miss.

Friday promises to be a spectacular day, and I am off for Mt. Rainier. I leave later than planned because of dense fog. Then, heading downtown to wait it out at Santa Lucia, I realize that visibility at road level is fine. I kick myself for the loss of nearly an hour. I want to get to Paradise before the masses ascend and the parking lot is full. I grab my low-fat, double-shot latte and head up the interstate.

The interstate is not my recreational route of choice to anywhere. In fact, I spend the evening before searching Mapquest and old-fashioned paper maps, trying to determine if the road that crosses the valley below the house and disappears into the hills on the other side, hooks up to the road I need through the map dot labeled Cinebar. It is not clear; I decide to save that exploration for another day and stick to the known non-interstate road through Chehalis and Mary's Corner to US 12. However, due to my tardiness, I roar down I-5 out of town.

But a funny thing happens on the way to the mountain, I exit too soon－State Route 508, rather than Highway 12. I don't realize my mistake until I am a good way in. I check the map to see if I need to go back or can cut across somewhere. I discover I am headed for Cinebar. Which intersects with State Route 7 at Morton. Right where I need to be. Apparently I am meant to check out Cinebar－though I confess the dot is so small, I don't see any sign of increased civilization. As I approach the dot, I stomp the brakes and pull off the road after I cross the "Caution, Narrow Bridge," rounding a curve to the fog-filtered sun slanting through the trees. Grabbing my camera, I walk back to the bridge and only then hear the gentle whooshing of un-visible water tumbling past rocks in the Tilton River, hidden in undergrowth. I can't get a good picture of the sun, but I enjoy the attempt and am overcome by the beauty. A few curves on down the road, the fog clears over the barns of a farm at the foothills of the Cascades. I stop again to visually walk down the lane to the house. A chance discovery－my route of choice for future trips to Rainier.

The speed limit signs are in place for a reason: in a speeding car one could miss the first nano-second view of the mountain peeking around a hill in the foreground; or even the 30-second full view a few miles later. I pass through the park entrance gate, for the first time purchase the annual pass rather than the day pass, and wend my way through the old growth forest for the 45 minute climb. I arrive at Paradise to cloudless skies－and a few empty parking spaces. And that smell; oh my God, the smell. I wish I could photograph it and post it in this blog.

I start out on my favorite trail, counter-clockwise on the Skyline loop. I observe an older couple on the trail below me, she carrying a purse. Why, I wonder, do we unnecessarily burden ourselves? A bit later our paved trails merge and he asks me if the way I have come is fairly level. Behind me comes a multi-child family: three on the hoof, one papoose. On the return I meet a woman in flip-flops. I move on to the unpaved trail, the descent followed by the ascent that is not for the disabled. I love this trail because the mountain is visible only occasionally; which makes it, for one thing, a more solitary trail. The dominate view of the Tatoosh range and the in-and-out-mountain-view makes it more interesting to me than the constantly clear view of the breath-taking Rainier.

I continue until the trail disappears under late-season snow pack. I am not adequately equipped with crampons and poles to traverse snow. And one fall per year is all I allow myself. I will return (I got the annual pass, after all) when conditions are different or I am better equipped. Then I will continue the lung-burning climb above timberline to the incredible view of three mountains. For today, there are plenty of other paths beckoning. On the way back to the Alta

Vista trail, I have a shoe malfunction－the elastic lace breaks at the top of the tongue of my right shoe. I make a successful emergency repair and continue until the next trail, and the next and the next, morph into snow. There are more children going happily up one steep trail than I have ever seen. And then I see why－there is a huge snowfield halfway up. Eighty degrees and all the snow one could wish for.

Streams and waterfalls trip over themselves down from the glaciers, the volume ranging from trickle to roar, making their swift trip to reservoir lakes and on to the Pacific Ocean. Back in the day, we would lie down on our bellies and drink face fulls of icy water. Before we knew about giardia and the fragility of the Paradise meadow gardens of avalanche lilies, marsh marigolds, western pasque flower, old-man-on-the mountain, subalpine buttercups, Indian paintbrush, lupine. And the old-as-God trees that reach for the sky－and in the thin high-altitude air, get nowhere near. They all persevere.

I leave Paradise and head down the back side of the park to Reflection Lakes. No reflection is visible, but I lift my camera lens for a shot anyway. And through virtual viewfinder of my digital camera, the reflection is as clear as the cloudless day.

In the cool of this early Sunday morning, I sit on my patio as the sun sweeps the low fog from the valley floor and illuminates the "lesser" Mt. St. Helens. The week has illuminated my vision of the future. There may be fog now, but the clearing will come. Meanwhile, I will enjoy the limited view.