Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 6

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Moonset from Summerland - hand-painted BW photograph

September 6. Summerland. On Tahoma’s east side.

I wake just as the sun opens the day and the moon sets behind the peak. Fellow campers lend me binoculars to see mountain climbers resting below the summit. So I did see headlamps in the morning’s wee hours.

The hike to Panhandle Gap feels different. The light is weaker. There are no goats. At the Gap I take a self-portrait with Mount Adams as a backdrop. It is only four more miles to Indian Bar and from here it’s a leisurely descent through wide open meadows. A hawk screams below and I wonder why she announces her presence to potential prey. Watching her soar, I have the feeling I’ve done that before. I know what it’s like to fly.

I think of the Cosmic Christ and what Matthew Fox says of him. This Catholic theologian was silenced by the Vatican recently, presumably for his unorthodoxy. Like most prophets, he must endure censure of the religious bureaucrats who need control of the hearts and souls of others. It is a dangerous thing to set someone free.

The Cosmic Christ is Cosmic Wisdom, he says, and “is by no means a Christian invention.” There is a path to this cosmic wisdom, the “awakening of heart knowledge and of entering the darkness that is called mysticism.” The result is metanoia, change of heart. It creates compassion and justice, healing and celebration. It is deeply ecumenical. Creation theology says that we mustn’t delay the experience of heaven in anticipation of rewards in the afterlife. We are called to enjoy heaven here. Joy, in the gift of creation and the gifts of ourselves and our loved ones, is our birthright. Oh, what damage St. Augustine has done to us with his notion that we are born tainted with original sin. The inner child grieves to know it is a blot on creation. Matthew Fox says we come into this world as an original blessing! This is a revelation to me.

Indian Bar. Did the Indians come here to gather huckleberries? I wonder about their influence here. I remember the tale of the Indian Sluiskin who tried to persuade General Hazard Stevens and Philemon Van Trump not to climb the summit of Tahoma, for fear of the evil Tamanawas (spirits) that belched fire and caused avalanches. The climbers spent a nauseating night in the sulfurous summit steam caves, and when they returned the Indian mistook them for ghosts.

Native peoples have traditionally been connected to creation. They affirmed these connections with ritual, singing, drumming, ceremony. I wonder about the Yakimas and Klikitats and Nisquallies who may have walked these meadows. What did they feel here? What ceremonies affirmed their relationship to the Great Mystery?

This is the first place I have encountered huckleberries, low-growing bushes with powder-blue fruit at the peak of ripeness. I have been told there are over a dozen varieties of huckleberries. I see four kinds on this trail, and my favorite is the tall bush with large black fruit. My hands are purple from the harvest; I have never had huckleberries so perfect. My usual autumn hikes are three to four weeks later, when the leaves are stunningly crimson, but the fruit is mushy.

It is warm and the insects go about the business of living. I pick up a sluggish grasshopper in my path and see “it” is a mating pair. Winter is just weeks away, and grasshoppers are making babies!

The stone shelter at Indian Bar has the most picturesque setting of any in the park. The river bar is broad and many-channeled; mountain goats graze the slope; snowy ridges sweep around me and obscure the summit. The meadows are thick with the last flowers and seed heads; two weeks earlier it would have been riotous color. Bear sign is everywhere, huckleberry blue, but no one sees a bear here.

Four couples are in camp this afternoon. A lady from Seattle bathes across the river. I seek the “comfort station,” and I half expect hot water, mirrors and piped-in music. But that funny Ranger Randy was at work: there is only a box with a seat and a view.

There has been a lenticular cloud above Tahoma all day, and one shaped over Mount Adams to the east. These shaven, disk-like clouds mean rain or snow. Cirrus thicken to partial overcast but we are optimistic. As long as the caps don’t settle onto the peaks there will be no storm. We hope. But from here we cannot see the summit, and we take the sunset’s thinning clouds to be a good omen. I visit the other travelers, then head off cross-country to my power spot.

I find a goat track up a mountain, high above the shelter. I unwisely choose a steep course; I need my hands to make it up. On top, a ring of campfire rocks is overgrown with partridge foot. It is likely no human has been here in years. Tahoma’s summit is visible and I know the spirit guides have led me to this place. The goats will come at dusk; their tracks are everywhere. If it rains I will not make it down to the shelter because I cannot follow this trail in the dark. I will have to make a pup tent with my tarp if it does. I sleep with one eye on the sky.

It is a powerful feeling to be alone at night, with stars and darkness for company. I want to feel the entirety of the night, the passage of stars and tread of the moon, to see Tahoma change from a flat, minty blue monolith to a sharply delineated sculpture of ice chips, to watch the thin clouds and wonder what they portend. Alone under such a sky, there is the sense that Somebody wants to talk to me and I’d best be ready.

The moon rises behind the eastern crags, full and with its praying Indian. The Indian is hard to see without binoculars. He sits with bent head, as if in the sweat lodge, feathers arching over. He fills the whole visage of the moon.

Finally I sleep. Precisely at midnight I awaken with a yell. A she-goat gallops through camp, then stops, silhouetted in moonlight. Her bleats are the sound of grass stretched between the fingers and blown like a whistle. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I whisper, more to soothe my own nerves than hers. As I speak she trots directly toward me. Alarmed, I wave my arms and say, louder, “I’m here. Yes, I’m really here.” She stops, turns, and runs away. I do not know why she came toward me. I should have kept still; perhaps she had something to say to me.

To an Indian, her visitation might have been significant. Traditionally, Native peoples would seek spirit guides on a vision quest. There would be a sign: a peculiar visit by an animal, a thunderstorm, a sudden wind. The spirit guide could be an eagle or bear, a beetle or rock. A Plains Indian would seek out a mountaintop for this experience, “crying for a vision.” (Hanblecheyapi in Sioux.) A Northwest Salish quester might spend the night in a graveyard or beside a lake known for its malevolent spirits. Somehow, somewhere, a sign would come. Power would be bestowed. Hunter. Warrior. Healer. Artist.

I wonder what the mountain goat means?

I am awake more than I am asleep tonight. The moon travels slowly. Wind changes from east to south; fish scale clouds fill the sky. At dawn the moon has a ring. Something is coming.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 5

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Summerland meadow - hand-painted BW photograph

September 5. Ryan’s first day of kindergarten.

I walk a mile to the Fryingpan Creek trail and mosey through old growth forest. Neatly shattered cones pockmark the trail, like the Wicked Witch melted and shingled. The fragments are the color of new wood, and I am mystified until I see a heavy cone the size of a small bomb. I believe it to be either Pacific silver fir or grand fir. I pry out a seed and bite it. A sweet, orangey flavor permeates my mouth and trickles down my throat with a turpentine aftertaste. Not a bad breath mint, actually.

After awhile I am in the meadow below Summerland. False hellebore are dead; everywhere in the park they are dying. In spring they are graceful broad-leaved groupings, robed fairies; now they are yellow and full of holes. But for some plants summer still reigns; bees and butterflies attest to that. Pearly everlastings are a bitch in heat to bees. Asters and lupine are drying up; other things have long gone to seed or berry. I like hitting seed vases of avalanche lilies; missiles fly out with aplomb. Lupines rattle like snakes when my ski pole brushes them.

I lunch in a glade before the final switchback to Summerland and notice a doe and fawn resting across the trail. We have a staring contest; she wins.

The camps at Summerland are the best on the Wonderland Trail, and I do not feel compelled to go cross-country. I am, typically, the last in camp. But they leave me the best spot: the most wide-open place, the sunniest, warmest, with the best view of Tahoma. How can I be so consistently lucky?

Here is something new: an experimental solar latrine with canvas walls and a trowel, with instructions for a scoop of peat after each dump. Admirable.

The meadows are wide open here. Little Tahoma, a prominent sub-peak visible from Seattle but not Tacoma, dominates the views. I hike, sans pack, to Panhandle Gap. Gentians abound, purple and yellow monkeyflower decorate streambanks. Higher up it is all moraine stubble, and it is a challenge to find the rock cairns marking the trail. Katydids do a mid-air dance, wings making a pattern of clicks, presumably to find a mate. I walk around the glacier of Meany Crest and the meltpools below it.

The sun is warm and nourishing. I am part of all creation, yet respectful of the forces that turn a wonderland into a fierce battle for survival. I know beyond doubt that I am fortunate. I have the best weather imaginable. I am strong now, feeling my woman power, knowing I can trust what I feel and what I know in that way beyond knowing. I feel it in my whole body, and in my hands. Healing power through my hands. I am healing myself.

I reach the Gap, elevation 6750, and gaze into new country. Mount Adams is partially obscured by clouds, and the panorama is wide open, green, sunny. I read Matthew Fox, about the 21 characteristics of a mystic. “Mysticism takes us into the darkness of pain and doubt,” he writes. “Some allow the darkness to penetrate them and others resist and deny it.” I think of someone I know, whose own “dark night of the soul” put her three times in mental hospitals for suicide attempts. She resisted treatment, failed to embrace the pain, and came out of it unchanged. She did not learn her lessons; she does not love. It is a good lesson for me.

I head back to camp. A herd of mountain goats crosses my path; five babies at least. Before I am back I count 26 goats in all. The moon rises just past sunset, and again I am in the gaze of Tahoma as I sleep.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 4

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Tahoma from Summerland

September 4. Another perfect sunrise.

I am on the northeast side of the mountain, and the descent into the parklands of Sunrise is one of ecstasy. I am captivated by the rolling meadows, crossed with streams and boulders and flowers and smells of life. I see the fire lookout on Mount Fremont and wonder if I am being watched. On a clear day, like today, the Space Needle can be seen from there. It is not difficult to see Mount Baker and Glacier Peak to the north.

After an hour I stop and eat a roll with peanut butter. This has been my pattern. First, two packets of instant oatmeal (peaches ‘n cream type), then peanut butter an hour later. As always, I drink water. Lots of water colored with little iodine tablets. It occurs to me that maybe I’m not putting enough of the buggers in. I fear that between the warm tadpole feces water and insufficient iodine and turbid lake water and debris-filled streams that I’m definitely a candidate for giardiasis. Oh well. More little pills for that.

At least my food stays fresh. I eat fiber bars and health food conglomerations, cashews, sardines. I had kippered snacks in Cajun sauce once and the empty can stunk up my pack. Cous-Cous soup with semolina wheat granules or Nissan Cup O’Noodles make up lunch. Dinner is Top Shelf: glazed chicken, chicken Acapulco, sweet and sour chicken, BBQ ribs (make Sylvester the Cat noises here), spaghetti, lasagna, beef roast.

Sunrise Lodge is just a couple of miles away. I ditch the cursed Jansport at the crossroad to Second Burroughs Mountain, and I feel like I’m floating. It’s nothing at all to make this steep ascent with only my camera and water bottle. The sun soaks into my bones; the wind is cool. I wave to whoever is in the fire lookout on the next ridge and I go up, up, farther up than the down I have just come. I can nearly touch the Winthrop Glacier. The nearby Emmons gives birth to the White River, a thin, bright etching of foil far, impossibly far below. I will be down there within hours.

Standing on Second Burroughs, at the trip’s highest point of 7400 feet elevation, I am at the gates of Heaven. I have seen five people since dawn. I masticate jerky and look down on the slope at Skyscraper Mountain, where I spend the night. It occurs to me that climbing the summit of a mountain is a typically male thing, to be on top of something. The woman’s way is to admire intimately, to observe from all sides, to experience the soul of the other in this way.

I failed my summit attempt six weeks earlier because I could not do it the macho way. Two of us women stayed behind at Camp Muir as the party went up by headlamp at 2 a.m. We got up again to watch the sunrise and count volcanoes: Adams, St. Helens, Hood, Jefferson. We congratulated ourselves for making it this far, the 10,000 foot level, and validated our decisions to stay behind. But we wished the unspoken: that we had tried harder. Our party returned eleven hours later. Some reached the summit on their knees. Two got left behind in sleeping bags on glaciers, to be picked up on the descent. There had been little time for pictures. No time to drink in the beauty, the splendid sunrise, the awesome achievement. Hell, the guides wanted to clock out of Paradise by five.

So I did it the woman’s way. I walked around it. And I admired Tahoma as I would a beautiful sculpture, a Venus de Milo. For Tahoma is indeed female. One of the Indian names for her means “breast of milk white waters.” Another means “the mountain that was God.”

So God’s a woman.

Tahoma, the breast, gives life to dozens of rivers and creeks, hundreds of streams. It nourishes the entire Puget Sound basin, this one lone nipple piercing the clouds. Her sisters, too: Adams (Pahto, son of the Great Spirit), St. Helens (Lah-we-lat-lah, person from whom great smoke comes), Baker (Koma Kulshan, white steep mountain), Glacier Peak. All birthing, continually creating.

From a jetliner, these are merely white bumps on rippled fabric. From the perspective of a creature on its skin, a mountain is a living being. Especially these – Cascade volcanoes. And so I have to think of myself, merely an ant, a creature foreign to the landscape yet not entirely out of place. Who am I to think myself insignificant? Who am I to think my life touches no one? I have only to look at the glaciers, and the hawks and chipmunks, marmots and flowers, butterflies, pikas, the ants. We are all related. Mitakuye oyasin. “No man is an island, entire of itself…” How easily we forget our place.

Matthew Fox says “The mystic (which is in every person) is keen on the experience of the Divine and will not settle for theory alone or knowing about the Divine.” How can one not experience the Divine in a place such as this?

I came down from Burroughs Mountain, again waving at whoever is in the Mount Fremont lookout. I heft my painfully heavy pack another mile-and-a-half to Sunrise Lodge and gobble a pitiful hamburger as if it were a gourmet meal. I write two cards as I eat, bum stamps to mail them with, get a permit to continue the trip, wash hair and socks, and slurp a vanilla ice cream cone on the steep trail to White River Campground. The White River looks to be days below. But an hour and a half later I meet the river.

This is a car camp and I wait for Tim to come with food and clean clothes. When he does I ditch the tent, five pounds of Canon F-1 and the telephoto lens, the Huichol rattle, and extra clothes. Good weather is predicted for the next three days and there are shelters at the next three camps.

It seems safe here. But the mountain has the final say.

In 1963 an enormous avalanche fell off Little Tahoma Peak onto the Emmons Glacier. The barrage of rocks and ice careened four miles into this river valley, coming to rest a mere half mile from here. Some of the boulders it brought are as large as buildings. Some scientists believe volcanic heat had something to do with it. Had the avalanche occurred in summer, many hikers may have been killed.

I sleep tonight on a picnic table.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 3

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Tarn near Mystic Lake - first light of dawn

September 3. At dawn I crawl from my tent and nearly jump out of my skin. Behind me is the tarn, and behind it in Widelux 3-D Cinemascope is Tahoma and the Willis Wall. The Carbon Glacier has been up my spine all night. Sun tints the snow pink and a lenticular cap hovers over the summit like a UFO. Tahoma is so close I cannot enclose it and its reflection in the tadpole tarn with my 28mm wide angle lens. I remember I accidentally drank that water last night, unboiled. What exotic germs, I wonder, incubate in tadpole feces?

I bathe with warmed tadpole water from my cooking pot. The sun is a miracle. My camp is soon sucked up into bags and pouches and I salute Tahoma before I descend to the valley. Tahoma disappears behind a ridge and at Mystic Lake is nearly obscured. Another gloomy tree camp, and I hear from its denizens about Ranger Randy, bed-checker and bad-direction-giver extraordinaire. Wonder if he missed me last night?

There is a washout just past Mystic Lake, and I slog for 45 minutes through mud, over trees, under trees, around trees. My ski pole walking sticks rescue me on this greasy slope. Finally I emerge and find myself in sunlight at the toe of the Winthrop Glacier. On the other side I enter forest again and glimpse the high moraine wall that parallels the trail. Another steep climb, and by god that pack is heavier than the day I started. I have to take a nap.

I do not fast on my vision quest. Usually seekers will find a place of power and they will stay there for three or four days and nights with only water for sustenance. I cannot fast on a trip such as this. Yet I have many of the same feelings a fast induces: “weakness, intensity, vacancy, fertility, openness, heaviness, lightness, disorientation, harmony and spiritual awareness.”

I sleep for an hour and a half. Then I force myself into my pack harness (I cannot lift it; I develop a rather amusing method of hoisting it onto my back, much like lifting a dead man onto one’s shoulders.) I slog upward. I am supposed to be in Berkeley Park tonight, in the northeast, below in a valley. The forest opens to a yellow grassy slope that ends in a ridgetop. I am nearly dead, and I cut across and collapse behind a small spruce. Two Clark’s nutcrackers frolic and an elk bugles to his harem. It is a primordial sound.

I check the map and determine I am at 6740 feet, at the base of Skyscraper Mountain. I drag myself to the cliff edge and to the north I see the enormous flat expanse of Grand Park, gold in the late afternoon light. Below are green meadows of Berkeley Park and Sunrise, and beyond are waves of Cascade peaks, blue and clean.

I rest, eat, write. Cumulus clouds flow over my ridge, around Burroughs Mountain where I will be tomorrow. This will be a good place to be scared out of my wits by a thunderstorm. Perversely, I WANT to be scared out of my wits. I want a rollicking storm with maximum effects. I also want snow sometime before this trip is over. I want to see a bear.

I do not set my tent tonight. The wind is from the east, gentle, and the sky mostly clear. I begin to read Matthew Fox’s The Coming of the Cosmic Christ. “A mountaintop is not just about beauty but also about its counterpart, terror. Lightning strikes mountaintops; great storms gather there; and clouds often shroud it. Immense silence and aloneness can be tasted at mountaintops.”

I read until the type blends into blots, then I use a flashlight. Rough clouds to the east are aflame; the moon rises. In the faded light I see a herd of elk coming down the far ridge. I am in their path. I hope they don’t step on me as I sleep. The call of the bull is resonant and throaty. He is king here; I am an intruder. I realize there is nobody around for miles.

Tahoma’s glaciers are silver and close. My wool hat is on and I am warm in my down bag, except where wind blows my cheek. The moon crests the hill and it is nearly full. There is no skin now between me and the Great Mystery.

I’m supposed to be in Berkeley Park, down in the valley. It is the place where angels gather. But God is up here, and I am with Him tonight. I have become very thankful on this journey. I have laughed a lot, smiled, too, cried some. I have thanked God numerous times for the perfection of this day. Even the exhaustion, the touch of altitude sickness, aching hips and swollen knees are perfect. They made me camp here, didn’t they? I take delight in all that I see, all that I am.

Steven Foster says, “Can it be that Death assumes the mask of an unrequited longing to be filled?” If I die here, it will be a good place. A good day. My mother can say “I told you so.” But it will be good. I will die whole.

I miss no one, though I think of them. I am at peace with the moment. I am one with the place.

Long, hard moonshadows ribbon the slope. Tahoma looks as if she will fall on me. Clouds cling here and there, afraid to be on their own. Let go, I tell them. Simply let go. It will be terrifying. But you must. You cannot go to other places if you do not.

It is not easy to sleep on a slope. It is not easy to sleep exposed to the stars and the stares of animals. Alone. There is a primordial trickle of horror that something out there wants to eat you.

I think I am awake more than I am asleep. I watch the moon traverse the field of stars, see the Big Dipper grow huge and set; Orion’s Belt comes up near dawn.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 2

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Observation Rock from Spray Park - Hand-painted BW photograph

September 2. At 6:20 a.m. Tahoma greets me.

There are only a few clouds, and the pristine glaciers are edged with the first sun. It is revelation, emergent from obscurity, harbinger of mornings to come. I am to see The Mountain on all mornings save the last.

I photograph the morning’s gift to me. Observation Rock is the highest point on Ptarmigan Ridge. In its crotch is the Flett Glacier; Liberty Cap is a smooth scoop of ice cream at the summit. I fill my water bottle at the stream and know I am among the earth’s most privileged. I am alive, fully alive.

The vision quest is a symbolic dying to the old, fearful self. “By making yourself ready to die you give birth to yourself.” This is a creative death. It has already been accomplished in me. That is why I live.

I delight in all I see; brown pipits at a tarn, the jumble of shale-like rocks, streams everywhere. It looks easy to climb Tahoma from here, and I long to. There is nothing so wondrous as the first light of morning, full of promise. Clouds smother the Puget Sound basin to the west and wisps of fog flit about near camp. I cut the reverie short, afraid it will sock in again. Breaking camp, I find the trail and, alone, I walk farther into myself.

Ascending to the 6400 foot ridge to Seattle Park, I am even more aware of my solitude. It is a windswept place, rocky and barren. It is beautiful in simplicity, a rugged scrabble of debris and mat plants and thin sunshine. I think of the young man I met yesterday, walking in the fog with a Walkman sucking his ears. “Christian sermons,” he explained. “Good preaching.” I wanted to tell him he missed the point, but I just smiled and walked on.

A transparent lenticular rain cap forms over Tahoma, to the east of the summit. Mare’s tails, too, hint at bad weather. I am prepared. I will take whatever comes.

Descending, I cross the only two significant snow patches on the entire trip. Two men pass me, coming from Cataract Valley four miles below. The meadow gives way to patchy woodlands and flower fields; there are waterfalls and the clouds are coming in. I stop to apply Second Skin to my downhill blisters, and figure how to keep the healing goop from squishing out. Purple Lewis monkeyflowers (and a patch of albino) cluster along the creeks; clearly summer is not over. In the woods are strawberry bramble with sweet but impossibly tiny fruit. Devil’s club is here, deer fern, twisted stalk with dangling red berries underside. It is all good and beautiful.

Steven Foster writes of the phases of the contemporary vision quest. The first is severance, separation from all that we call our world, our home, family. I think, strangely, of the Oregon Trail pioneers, leaving behind a secure world to find something better. Graves of their loved ones mark their passage into a new life. Graves of the Native peoples they displaced also scar the land. I am a pioneer, white-skinned. My people came from Italy, France, Ireland. It is said my father’s grandmother was a quarter Indian. I call it the family myth. I want to believe it.

The second phase of the vision quest is crossing the threshold into the unknown. “Armed with symbolic tools of self-birth, (the participant) enters a universal order that is sacred and immortal. During this threshold period, secret knowledge and power are transmitted and confer on the individual new rights, privileges and responsibilities upon returning.”

I lunch at Cataract Valley Camp. I pity the conventional folk who camped here in the gloom instead of the meadows; I congratulate myself for insisting on a cross-country permit. It is six miles to Mystic Lake, where I’m supposed to be tonight. I’ve already walked six and I am tired; the added 15 pounds over my normal pack weight is taking its toll. I cross the Carbon River on a suspension bridge and trudge uphill alongside the snout of the Carbon Glacier, the lowest accessible glacier in the park. The trail is filled with Labor Day hikers from Ipsut Creek; many ignore warning signs and clamber near the glacier’s dangerous tip. Rocks fall constantly and erratically, but the tourists are oblivious.

I have descended 3500 feet since this morning. Now I must gain another 3900 with a pack half my body weight because of my camera gear. I learned from my failed summit climb six weeks earlier (yes, fool that I am, I gave it a try) that rest, rehydration and good blood sugar are essential to my well-being. As long…as I can…get enough…of…those things… I will… make it…

It is the longest four miles I have ever walked. Or maybe it is only three. Or six. I don’t know. I go through Moraine Park in the fog and can’t stop long or I’ll chill. It is 7 p.m. and I reach the top of the pass and see the sign, “.8 miles to Mystic Lake.” I am hypoglycemic, sore, exhausted, cold, sweat-drenched, and it will be dark in an hour. I see a lake, or a tarn. For all I know it’s Mystic Lake herself, mystically shrouded in fog, and the camp’s another mile away.

To hell with this.

I pull off, figuring this isn’t a cross-country zone but it’s an emergency. I have my story ready should an officious uniformed person question my camp. “What do you want, a few crushed flowers or a hypothermic body to cart off this mountain in the morning?” It would not be wise to tangle with me this evening. Fortunately, company never shows up.

I apologize to the lupines under the tent and untangle the mess of ropes on the rain fly while my meal heats to lukewarm. I flop into my sleeping bag at 8:30, bundled in all of my winter clothes, and fall mercifully to sleep.

Again, it is a fitful night. Sometime in the middle of it the moon emerges from behind a silhouetted hill. I have a nightmare. I talk to God a lot, out loud. I pray for my family, my friends, and for me. I have some decisions I need to make. I tell Him I expect his reply within ten days. Avalanches keep me awake. I am not sure where I am.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - a Quest for Meaning - Sept 1

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Spray Falls in the fog - Hand-painted BW photograph

September 1, 1990. Spray Park backcountry. Mount Rainier National Park, Washington state.

There is no noise in the fog, none save the white sound of an invisible stream.

My tent faces Tahoma – Mount Rainier. I had seen Ptarmigan Ridge momentarily, before the fog settled, but I see nothing except my meadow and dewey flowers. It is the first day of September, and for the first time in my life, I am spending the night alone in the wilderness.

Why?

My parents had been baffled. My husband Tim initially refused to allow it. I stopped telling family that I was going on the 90-mile Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park. Alone.

Why? They had all asked.

It is necessary, I said. I must do this to live.

I am here on a vision quest. I am 35 years old, and I have entered a place I didn’t ask to be, a place I know I must embrace before I can leave it. It is a mid-life thing. That’s what the books say. The Native Americans have a saying when they pray in the sweat lodge. “Mitakuye Oyasin. All my relations.” On this first day of a 12-day journey, I realize I am going into the wilderness not just for me, but for all my relations. I go seeking wholeness. Renewal. Indeed, I seek Life itself. My family, my friends, deserve no less of me.

It is the result of a several-year-long spiritual quest. I would say this trip is the culmination of the search, but I know the path is never-ending. It moves, spirals, allows growth. This is merely a high point, one that comes at great price.

It is an act of desperation. But it is not foolhardy. I’ve hiked and backed for 14 years. Tahoma has always been a place of power for me. My photographs of the dormant volcano are featured in my two coffee-table books, on postcards, posters, calendars, numerous publications. It is only appropriate that it be the place of my own Searching.

Indian people traditionally went on vision quests as adolescents. It was a rite of passage, an entry into another phase of life. For contemporary people, the vision quest often comes in adulthood. It is a symbolic enactment of death and rebirth, an ancient ritual deep in the collective consciousness of humankind, a necessary journey for those who are called. It is an immersion into the very source of life, the Great Mystery. Aloneness is required, and we fear it. We leave behind the shells that insulate us from nature; our roles, rank, wealth, responsibilities. We are, in comparison, naked and helpless.

So on the first day of September, 1990, I say goodbye to Tim and my five-year-old son Ryan and bounce along with high spirits, great determination, and a 65-pound pack. I am to rely only on myself, my wits, the little house I’ve packed with me, and a friend’s words, the words of his Chippewa grandfather, that whatever happens, “She’ll be all right.”

I begin in the northwest corner of the park, at Mowich Lake. It is a cloudy Labor Day weekend, and the trail to Spray Park is crowded. People express concern that I should do this thing alone. I smile, and continue my steady pace through ancient forest. In three miles I emerge into open meadowland.

The fog is definite; there is no promise of sun. The ranger on the trail predicts (in terms of lenticular caps and meterological jargon) that it will rain. I am not dismayed. Fog aids the interior journey, the sorting-out time, the time of letting-be. The sub-alpine meadow is serene in the fog. This is the stillest time there is. Revelations come suddenly, and small things become visible. Gentians the color of indigo ink pots cluster in tight groups like crocus, distinct from dewey lupine and paintbrush. Butterflies do not go about in a fog. Nor do bees or mosquitoes. Fog is a perfect beginning.

I depart from the trail, using compass to mark the return route. Tim and I have been here before with Ryan, when he was a 7-month old baby. I want to find our spot again. After a half hour of careful walking, I see Ptarmigan Ridge and a flat glade. The place calls to me. I will stay here tonight.

Before the tent is up, the fog has hidden the ridge at Tahoma’s base. I want to heat water for dinner, and supremely confident in my abilities, I screw in the fuel canister without bothering to read instructions. It sputters out of my hands like a loosened balloon, fuming propane and collecting ice crystals. Well, I can laugh about this. I’ve got another one.

I’m careful this time, for I have no more fuel. Fortunately, Top Shelf lasagna does not require boiling water to be edible, so I heat it just enough to save gas. A hard roll and chunk of semi-sweet chocolate top off the meal. It is getting dark. I take out my Huichol Indian rattle and sing the two Huichol songs I know. “Mother Earth, I give you my life. Great Spirit, I want to live.” In Huichol I sing them. To the Four Directions I sing them. Then I go inside the tent. The nylon is like a skin between me and the Great Mystery, but it is cold and wet and I need it.

This is an important night. I have entered the realm of the vision. My path here has been most unconventional.

Steven Foster authored “The Book of the Vision Quest,” about the traditional quest for meaning in a contemporary culture. He calls the vision quest a “heroic passage” where “separated, alone, given over to the Great Mother, the hero/ine enters the fearful darkness and confronts the naked self, the apparitions and shadows of the mortal state of being. Here the solitary battles against the inevitable monsters must be fought. “The hero/ine does not court fear; but fear must be faced. The treasure of the quest cannot be found without enduring the despair of ever finding it. The trials of the heroic passage exist because strength and courage exist, but these traits are found only in combination with vulnerability and fear.”

I have a lot to say in my journal tonight. I use up two sets of batteries. It is eleven p.m. when I shut off the light, and I feel vulnerable. Dark shapes blend into dark ground; the rush of the stream hides animal noises. There is no one around for miles. I know this. No one. The animals won’t hurt me. I know this. I hear the voice of my friend. “She’ll be all right.”

I don’t sleep well. Sometime during the night the fog lifts and the moon shines into my eyes. I awaken with a suffocating panic. What the hell am I doing here? But it goes as quickly as it has come. I know it’s okay to be afraid. I come here to meet my fears. I come to grow strong in spirit, mind and body. I come to face the dark and light within. “She’ll be all right.”

Summer's End

Raspberries and blueberries from my garden

Well it's happened again. Summer's end. Not much time for blogging, although I did get a bit hooked on Facebook for awhile before I decided to just quit cold turkey. I got tired of eavesdropping on all these private conversations going on between friends and family. Didn't seem right. And I wasn't getting enough work done. Plus I feel compelled to rant and rave when somebody says something that "ain't right." Gotta stop that. But I'll do a post now and then, just to let folk know I'm still alive.

Papa bluebird feeding his kiddoes

So I did what I usually do - took care of the yard and gardens, though not as aggressively as I usually do. I did the art shows to sell out of inventory and save up money for a new vehicle to get me back to Big Bend in October. And I spent a little time with friends. Here are photographs of the summer here in Maine.

Edmund my Garden Muse and loosestrife

I also began to clean out the house and studio of all the stuff I'll never use, even though I thought 15 years ago I'd really really really make a quilt someday with all those fabric scraps, or do a stunning found-object sculpture with those flattened catalytic converter rusted metal parts. So what I can sell I'll put out in my yard sale Sept 11-12 (Ya'll come now, hear?) or list on craigslist or Uncle Henry's.

Turkey family

I've got ads out to rent my house year-round. My goal is full-time work for the Park Service, preferably two seasonal parks. I bit hook, line and sinker when I worked at Big Bend this winter, and I also have a goal of visiting all of the national parks in my lifetime. It's a leap of faith, but I've got the Wanderlust again, and I'm ready for a big change.

Day lily with dew

It seems like every 18 years there's a Big Change in my life. First joining the Army at age 18. Then being married and living in Washington state for 18 years. And now it's been nearly 18 years in Maine and the road calls again. It's harder this time. But I'm excited despite the uncertainties. Life's given me a lot of lemons the last few years, but I do like lemonade. Needs lots of sugar though. Sugar can be hard to come by sometimes. Maybe some day I'll tell you about some of the summer lemons, but for now I'll focus on the peaches.

Yeah, real peaches. They came off my very own trees. I planted them 3 years ago and they finally produced. The Reliant gave lots of small, sweet fruits, and the New Haven gave fewer very large peaches. Next year whoever rents the house will be soooo lucky.

Peach ripening and the August harvest

There was lots of bird activity. A flock of turkeys consisting of 3 hens and 17 pullets has been visiting regularly and is tamer than I've ever seen turkeys. I threw out scratch feed the other day when the flock was in the yard, and not only did they not skedaddle, but one of the babies came running up to within three feet of me!

Part of turkey flock


Bluebird baby

My bluebirds successfully raised a family, although they didn't hang around after they fledged. The catbirds barely had the first crew out on their own before mama built another nest in the wild rose bush. Tree swallows, mourning doves, song sparrows, common yellowthroats, and who knows what else found nesting spots in my yard.

Catbird with yummies for babies

I had a boarder this summer, though he didn't pay any rent. Matter of fact he stole from me. Woody Woodchuck dug a hole under the living room (my house is on a slab) and thinks I planted the zinnias and daisies for his snack bar. But he's just too cute to evict, though I'll encourage him to leave in a few weeks by shoving the dirt back into the hole. Don't want a skunk to take up residence there over winter!

Woody Woodchuck

Yeah I'll miss all this critter activity. I love my yard. But I hate winter. Hate hate hate. And I love America's natural places. Love love love. And I love helping people respect and enjoy them, too.

The most beautiful gladiolus (gladioli? gladiolusus?) in the world


Another little thief

My cats have been tormented by a chipmunk which they sometimes "attack" through the screen door. This little guy has been raiding my bird feeder and storing seed under the deck. I'll probably have sunflowers popping through the cracks next year. The red squirrels (below) have also been busy, but the blue jays are the champions when it comes to tucking away sunflower seeds in their throat pouches and caching them for winter use.

Red Squirrel

What? Me? Steal the bird seed?

One of the banes of my existence is the Japanese beetle. Thanks to the early spring, the roses were more voluptuous than I've ever seen them, blooming long before the beetles emerged. But once they did, every emerging petal was covered with ravenous beetles and I never got a rose past mid-July. Does no good to spray, since new beetles just take their place.

Japanese beetle - so pretty, and so HORRID!

Another garden heartbreak - late blight. Again. The tomatoes were huge and green. And the blight, which first appeared in Maine last year, got 'em again. I hope my friend down the road did a prophylactic copper fungicide application, as she has probably 100 tomato plants. I salvaged a few, but even a long soak in a chlorine bleach solution didn't keep the brown blotches from showing as the fruits ripened. I salvaged what I could and made fresh salsa. Yum.

Sweet pea


Birdhouse my friend "Mama" Gay gave me, and climbing sweet peas

Late summer flower arrangement

Well tomorrow I'll hit the Speed Limit (55) and I guess that means I'm supposed to slow down. But as long as I have meaningful work, and good friends and family, and a lovely place to live, how can I? We must move toward the Light in the world, and try not to let its Darkness overwhelm us. The best revenge is a well-lived life.

Here's to living well!

Full moon setting at dawn