Out of the Fishbowl

by clyde san juan

A visit to Mt. Rainier's Scenic South

An ethereal mist envelopes our day's hike. I look up the slope of the moraine I am traversing, prompted by a call from my hiking partner Bryce. Lumbering out of the mist like the bow of a titanic ghost ship, a volcanic plug materializes. Snags of windblown conifer reach up like masts with tattered sails. Slowly, the sargasso soup swallows it back up, and I strain to see what else may emerge. In this mist that strangely hasn't left any moisture on any exposed surfaces, I find myself in a ghostly tunnel paved with an ascending jumble of rock immediately around me. Up ahead on the trail the smudgy movement of Bryce quickly blends into the mist.

I follow and we climb a short set of switchbacks to the furthest end of a prowlike expanse of rock rimmed by weather tempered subalpine fir. "Offload the packs, we're home!"

We nestle on the edge and look out, into this fishbowl world.

We're somewhere south of Mt. Rainier, Washington and southeast of the Tatoosh Range. I gaze out in the general opposite direction. Nothing of the snow-clad volcanic Mount. I could well off be back home in California on the Huntington Beach pier in morning coastal fog.

"Last October I watched Elk bugling and rutting down there." Bryce points to where the sound of the drainage of the three tiny streams we crossed earlier percolates up in a soothing track. "Can't believe this. . . it'll clear up. . ." Bryce says, sounding a little apologetic.

I know that feeling. You take someone out to give them a gift of "awesome, wow, look at that, jaw dropped silence and solace," and it doesn't go exactly as you planned. The argomania in you casts a slight disappointment, a nervousness. In the end it all works for the better, and you realize all this wasn't yours to "giveaway" anyway.

So you relax and get back into it, honoring the blessing graced you.

We set up camp. Basecamp. Tomorrow, a day of crosscountry travel and sightseeing. We squint up into the veils of mist. The sun, an amorphous dimly glowing disk, high up, tells us we still have a better part of daylight left.

Lunch already behind us, eaten at the saddle before crossing over to a southern slope, leading to the ridge we're now on, gives me time to relax and recall the hike up from the trailhead. Perfect for the gradual yet persistent 2,000 foot elevation gain. Six miles cooled with morning dew, the cover of this mist, moss laden fir, spruce and hemlock. At times we were greeted by lush meadows and hillsides abundant with Magenta Glacial Paintbrush, Lupine, Elderberry, asters and daisies galore. My guide tells me that Northwest Summers for the Puget Sound and the Western Cascades are most pleasant in July, August and early September, usually sporting the least amount of rainfall. I savor the shots on my camera, the first leg of our three day, two night trip.

Taking the trail past our campsite to stretch our muscles, we come to the saddle where the Heart Lake and Angry Mountain trails converge. While spying what looks like lodgepole pines on the east side of this saddle, almost our highest point in the trip at about 6,200 feet, I remark to Bryce about the amazing terrain similarities here (complete with marmots) to 9,000 foot elevations back home in the Sierras. A difference of more than 2,500 feet, and you get alpine conditions without as much huff and puff. . . . "Northern Exposure," I quip.

Wind brushes its way in from the east. That strange smoke like mist un-gels and milky wisps of it begin to move through the contorted limbs of dwarfed lodgepole pines and larger old snags blasted matte silver-white by the ravages of wind and time.

"And up here you get Mountain Goats too," says Bryce, this time with a big smile.

"You're kidding," I check the exposures left on my camera. Tomorrow. Looking east down towards where Heart Lake should be the grey facade has teasingly opened to reveal two 80-100 foot spires of volcanic rock. They seem to take counsel and then whisper portentions of what is in store for us.

We sit down, bring out the topo maps and look north along the spine of the ridge we'll cross over tomorrow as it ascends into nowhere. I discover on the 15 minute map the names of the places Bryce has routed me through on this, my first backcountry experience in Washington state. I see that we had started our hike in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and almost immediately entered (who could have guessed?), the Goat Rocks Wilderness! My finger hovers over our campsite perched above the Lily Basin fed by Glacier Creek. Tracing the creek to Glacier Lake and back to where we sit I appreciate the topography rising up from the basin's floor. Turning to the 7.5 minute map Bryce and I marvel at the tight contours sculpting the face of Johnson Peak perched above tomorrow's ridge assault.

I try to paint pictures in my mind of the terrain, of the spectacular views of Mounts: Rainier, Adams, St. Helens, maybe even Hood, south into Oregon. . . and yes, Mountain goats frolicking across high snowfields.

For now though, the promise of tomorrow is in a map of brown contours on green flapping in the wind, in weather that seems to be changing. We saunter back down to camp, out of the now gusty wind, to our campsite. The sun has now taken on a more phosphoric glow behind the covering mantle. Trying to glare down on upon us, but for now, failing.

I'm lulled softly to sleep by the comfortable breezes there at our basecamp haven. . .

To awaken still in mist but, there seems to be a thinning of the veil overhead. It has taken on a warm fuzzy glow, hinting at the magic hour of alpenglow. I glance at my watch, it's just past 7:00pm. Amazingly light for the time. We're now ready for dinner which is a matter of heating a defrosted block of mole´sauced rice as a side to seasoned turkey, jalapeño and brown rice filled Empanadas. A resident chipmunk makes himself known and we can't help but oblige a few grains of rice. Hold the green things.

While cleaning up and stowing our packs, a warbler flitting amidst the firs rimming our island in the sky, entertains us with song. He seems to be excited about something as if sensing something about to happen. We wonder, but only momentarily. With one last call our visitor leaves us in a dead silence which is slowly replaced by the trickling sounds of Glacier Creek far below our parapet.

It's almost 8:15 pm. In this diffused warmly colored light, a peaceful calm swaddles us. We shrug on our warm layers, both of us secretly yearning for the milky glass of our fishbowl world to shatter and the alpenglow and long shadows of a day's end to come rushing in. Yawns creep into our thoughts, interrupting conversation in an array of topics. My family's vacation here in Washington, our respective jobs, Bryce's climbing trips on Rainier, The Mountaineers, and my exortations about the virtues of backpacking in the California and Colorado Plateau deserts.

The yawns even intrude into our future plans of backpacking in Olympic National Park, the Sierras and Utah's Canyonlands.

The air is now cooling rather rapidly. Bryce and I sense a big change. Maybe something akin to what our feathered friend had instinctively read earlier. Our own senses delayed by the feeble dulling of our overly human and objective minds. A lever is finally pulled, something turns and softly tumbles. . . Magic hour has now been set into motion.

Almost suddenly there is a heightened aura of light and motion all around us. The fishbowl is cracking! The rapid change in temperature is creating a downward tugging of the sheltering clouds! We see blue through a rapidly thinning ceiling, coming at us from above.

Watching in amazement as the mists of the fishbowl funnel down into Lily Basin, the ridge behind us rises up in a fiery glow. . . We have breeched the surface of the ocean of mist and have met the sky, blue with a crystalline sharpness! What was once the whole world, we now ride upon, on our little ship of rock bathed in alpenglow. . .

I turn around. . .

Mount Rainier stands there in its legendary volume, above the clouds which boil in an incandescent fire from the setting sun. To the south Mt. St Helen's asymmetrical visage also stands on the horizon. All around us shadows are sprouting, reaching further and further towards the east. Reaching. . . out the Fishbowl.

You've done it before, at a moment like this. You hold your breath. Even longer than you ever did during swimming lessons as a kid. It had all happened all at once, 360 degrees around us. We catch ourselves spinning like tops. . . trying to take it all in. What had been kept in silence and veiled in mystery all day was now before us.

A grand explosion of inspiration and wonder! In the fading golden light, our gyrations finally cease and we come to rest in awe, in silence, in solace. We watch the magic hour through to its end, a good day's end.

I check the exposures on my camera. Tomorrow. . . .

© 2002 by clyde san juan

About the Author

Backpacking affords us a chance to recapture some wonder and inspiration in our lives. How much vacation time do you have accrued?