I was lucky enough this fall to go on a few hikes with friends around Seattle. I don't particularly see anyone anymore, at least in person, so I figured a few hikes outside, with masks, etc., would be sufficiently virtuous for me to avoid any guilt. (I think I regard the coronavirus as rather like lightning --- you can do a few things to reduce your terrible, terrible risk, but in the end it's up to luck. Is that accurate? I don't know, because I stopped listening to the CDC last April and am, at this point, just waiting until someone gives me a vaccine.) One was up Mt. Si, remembered from past races, with a friend who I met freshman year in my philosophy class. Another was up with an old friend from high school to an alpine lake by Stevens Pass. I have forgotten its name, but the hike will forever live on in my memory for two reasons: 1) I went swimming in the exceedingly cold lake, and 2) two frat boys from either WSU or UW --- they mentioned both schools --- had hauled up a twelve pack of Coors and were playing loud pop music along the lake while shotgunning beers. I had always assumed frat boys were restricted to Greek Row and campus, like how ghosts are unable to leave the site of their death. I am amazed, too, at their determination and fortitude, to haul a twelve pack up 3000' and several miles to a placid autumnal lake, and then simply shotgun them as if lazing around their backyard. I wonder if they drove home. And for that matter, why were there so many odd people out in the mountains that summer of 2020?
0 Comments
My parents are travelling people. So am I. Understandably, then, 2020 made us all anxious to get out of our little corner of the US and see something more, and equally anxious not to contract a major illness in the process. We decided to go to California because it was close enough to travel by car, different enough to feel like a trip, and would probably be more or less abandoned in the weeks after Death Valley broke a global heat record. I wrote letters to my friends along the way, about Newberry National Monument, Death Valley, and Joshua Tree. Was it irresponsible? I have no idea. I ended up alright, and I suspect I run at least an equal risk visiting the grocery every week, although perhaps this is an example of motivated reasoning. Anyway, I needed the adventure. Look, a donkey.
Ahh, look, the header image again. I hiked with Fleur, a friend from FHL, up the PCT from Harts Pass and down again along the Pasayten River. The first two days were bright, warm fall days, with the heather and blueberries decked out in dark orange and the larches going yellow, the blue sky a brilliant contrast against the black of the peaks. Green valleys, as you can see, opened below us, glacier-carved. The last day, clouds blew in low along the ridges, and it began to rain, then to sleet. We switchbacked up a sheer scree slope between patches of larch, the peaks obscured by fog, the wind sweeping up the rocks and under our coats. I think I nearly killed Fleur subjecting her to that cold. On the last leg, walking down the road to my car, a scrawny man drove by in a muddy Toyota with a bumper sticking reading "WHITE PRIDE." I am rather glad he did not stop to talk.
As you can see, it was a gray day. I always think the mountains look loveliest like this in the snow, with the slope and sky merged into one, an uncertain boundary occasionally becoming definite as the clouds sweep over and past. The white level patch at the valley floor is a lake, fully frozen over and snow-covered for the winter. We went around it, and returned home.
Probably my most classy backpacking trip. Myself and a friend (from Honors, incidentally) hiked down the PCT from the North Cascades Highway to Stehekin over a few nights, with excellent weather, abundant wildflowers, and lovely blue-green opaque rivers running down deep valleys. This picture was taken at a stop on our drive back, by the Washington Pass Overlook near Early Winters.
September of 2018, just before my sophomore year began, my dad and I went to Maui to visit his sister and explore the place he grew up. While there, we drove up to Haleakala and hiked the crater, a long, meandering trek through black and red cinder, with the sun bright overhead and the small, struggling silverswords still clinging on along the valley bottom. According to my dad, they used to be far bigger when he was a kid --- he seemed vaguely disappointed at the sight of them, although I was thrilled to see such an endangered and beautiful plant species.
January of 2019, myself and a couple Honors friends hiked up to the ever-popular Lake 22 off the Mountain Loop Highway. It was a gray day, snowy at the top, with the lake half-covered in old ice and the peaks showing black through dirty snow. We circumnavigated the lake, losing the trail at points in the snow, and one of my friends leapt into the water for a spontaneous skinny dip. You can hike and swim year-round in the Northwest, if you're brave enough.
|
Overview
I think I just created extra work for myself by making this page, but c'est la vie. The link below should take you to the main page for hiking, if you're interested in seeing the rest of them.
Archives |