I Wonder About Magic

 

Yesterday I saw a YouTube video about hiking the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier in Washington State (NordAmerika, US-of-A).

It was about a three-day hike of the 93-mile (150km) trail. But what it really was about was stuff: how light the guy's stuff was. That started me thinking. About stuff.

A long time ago in hamster years I accidentally found out about ultralight backpacking. It started with seeing a guy cooking for two on a Trangia alcohol stove. After that I went loping across the interwebs tracking down information and found more than I'd imagined. Before long I became frantic, ever more obsessed by ever less weight and the stuff that could make it happen. I spent a few years buying things, trying them out, discarding them, making my own things, and so on.

It seems like it should be over now but it isn't. That's the trouble with being one person. You don't realize that even if you've done it and recovered, not everyone else has. People are still tripping over the same door sill that I did, falling flat into Wonderland, and seeing stars.

I can understand that, but I don't care anymore.

I can understand the focus of the video I watched. I've been there. The geography is familiar. I can understand how a person gets swept up. I can understand going out and pulling down mile after mile, simply because you can. I understand watching the landscape unwind as you walk it, how you make it obey.

 

 

But you know, I had to feel sorry for the narrator. He hiked the Wonderland Trail in three days. It was sad to hear that. Sometimes you do things because you can, and if you're a backpacker newly escaped from the universe where every trip is a black hole of infinite mass, then you cut loose and run wild for a time.

But I still feel sorry for him. I hope he's been there before and has already seen it, or goes back later and moves more slowly. The trail deserves it, and so does he. The Wonderland Trail is an entirely complete world and is worthy of one's dedicated attention. Three days are not enough.

And a focus on toys isn't really the point of backpacking, I think.

One of my most vivid images since I began backpacking was of someone I saw on that Wonderland Trail. I was tripping lightly down a modest slope, in dappled shade, and came across a party going up. Well, going up is more work, granted, but they were making it really hard for themselves. One guy in particular. His pack — well I'm not sure what make and model it was, but it was huge. Huge and black, the size of a small refrigerator. And then he had another sub-pack on his front side, and auxiliary pouches strapped on. All black, everything. And a towel so he could mop sweat.

Poor guy.

Meanwhile, I had to be careful not to bounce too much as I walked past, or I would have risked floating away on a random puff of air.

 

 

But in a way we both had it wrong. He was burdened by I know not what, a huge and dark evil weight, and I was burdened by whiffs of smugness. That memory is really all about stuff after all.

I don't think that backpacking is about stuff. Whether it's quantity or quality, how big, how small, how shiny, how useful, how clever, how new, how old. It's only stuff after all. The fun is in realizing that you went out one day and someone else came home in your place, someone new and enriched.

Let me tell you something, a thing or two that happened to me.

A while ago, long after leaving North Dakota, I went back to visit the Badlands. They had put in a long trail right through the middle, north to south. I'd been there before, but if you live there you sort of drive up to something and look at it, and then drive home. By 2004 I was a different person, so I wanted to walk into it and touch it.

But that isn't the point. That wasn't the real experience. It was more like this...

At the end of my first day on the trail I needed to find a camp. So I went off the trail and paused, looking around. After a bit I thought I'd move on a few feet but looked down, and there was a rattlesnake. Its tail anyway.

The two of us were in a shallow, flat dry wash, bordered by sage. While I had stood there with my tongue hanging out, mind in neutral, the snake had made a break for it, but once its head got into the shade under a bush it forgot about its tail and left that hanging out.

This was a little startling, but that isn't the point either.

The point also isn't that I didn't see this happen, though I wish I had.

And just to be clear, the point isn't about fear of a fangy death.

The point is that it happened and I was there.

 

 

This was a blessed magic moment, and I have the memory. I wanted to touch the snake, to say hello, to shake its hand, but that would have been rude, so instead, after admiring the situation, I moved on. Respectfully. Quietly. Uninvited guests should mind their manners. Anyway, snakes don't have hands.

Another time, in the Olympic Mountains of western Washington I crossed a stream narrow enough to toss a cotton ball across. It was summer.

Wading is always a nuisance, but it makes a person stop, so I stopped, and sat, and waited to dry. And then the stream's surface suddenly erupted. Right in front of me. A small dark thing splashed on the surface for an instant, dancing crazily. Dancing upstream, right there. And then it vanished, beneath the surface I thought. I was not sure. What. What it was.

So I waited.

After a bit this thing leapt back into the world of air and light, skimming the water, splashing small splashes. The thing, it was, whatever it was, skittered another foot or two before plunking back. Into. The water.

How could this be? What sort of magic? Was. It?

And again. It happened. This thing. Like a mouse. Moving so fast I could see only a thing. Flash. Splash. Gone. My world was not behaving. But it was my fault.

 

 

See, I was on a long loop hike that had gotten too complex and dangerous and so I was headed back the way I had come. Because it was prudent. And now this mystery. I should have been tens of miles from there, but wasn't. I should have been tramping out long days but wasn't. I was there for the miracle because I had failed, and turned back, and crossed into a different story where they weren't expecting visitors.

If I had made other choices I wouldn't have been a backpacker at all. Nor would I have been there that day to see a water shrew impossibly running atop that stream. That was a blessing. Miles did not matter. Gear does not matter. Blessings do not comprehend scales or dollar signs.

I used to know someone who unashamedly confessed to a steep delight on entering an outdoor shop, where all the shiny things were displayed in long aisles of tidy shelves in a clean and well-lit order. I understand that. It can be fun, fun like doing an impossible number of miles in one day, because you suddenly find that you can, even though before, you couldn't. Fun like looking at things and thinking "What if?" Fun like knowing that you have money to throw, at whatever.

We all have those feelings.

An uncle of mine bought a cheap little exercise thingy. A stand with a bent metal bar running through it, like bicycle pedals. He bought it so he could exercise while sitting in his soft chair, watching TV, and smoking. He tried it once.

I heard about someone else like that. Who fanatically loved the Home Shopping Channel. Enough to buy two stationary exercise bicycles and not use either, and then to buy a third because it folded for easy storage in even the smallest closet.

 

 

That's the thing.

It's the difference between reality and imagination, between a mathematically perfect plan and the dangerous wet kiss of serendipity.

You can look at things and imagine yourself among the gods. You can decide to crown yourself a newly minted god and plan a mega-hike. And complete it, on schedule. And that's fine.

There is nothing so fine, though, as being awakened in the dead of night, hanging all trussed and helpless in your backpacking hammock, by a barking elk suddenly mad with fear, only a few hand's breadths away, when it walks into your scent.

As watching a solitary bee-fly hover endlessly over a nondescript flower, attacking anything and everything that comes near, except you.

As realizing that a herd of deer has coalesced around your shelter, to fight over your urine.

As noticing that, through a gap in the shrubbery across a small meadow, a bear is quietly watching, to see if you behave.

 

 

It is easy to want things and to buy things, but wanting them and buying them, and even using them don't always change you, and I think it might be more important to change, even in random, unpredictable ways, than to always be in control. It might not always be good to be strong and drive those arrows right into the center of that target. After all, that bullseye is a very small and soulless thing to be obsessed with.

So if you go to Mt. Rainier, take time to enjoy it.

Many people plan two weeks. A lot don't finish the hike. Knees. There is some up and down, but if you are in reasonable shape, and don't carry too much weight, then you shouldn't have a problem. The biggest problem is making reservations.

The good news is that you can to do this by long distance, but then you can't be sure of the weather and all that. The worst part though is having to commit to specific camp sites on specific days. Some of these places have the trail running through them, and none offer privacy. You are registered, and have a tag, and are expected to be somewhere, on time.

But if you are somewhere that you can do it, are mildly devious and yet responsible (as in taking responsibility for your own actions), especially if you camp lightly, as in using a backpacking hammock, you can do a thing.

You can hide.

Assuming that where you are going has enough campsites open in approximately the right places, on roughly the right dates, you can register appropriately. Then each day you stop near to where you should be, in case you meet anyone who wants to check your tag. And then, and then, you disappear.

The next day you quietly return from inivisibility.

This is called stealth camping, and is more fun than a titanium cook pot. But you need to be clean and careful. Careful to not make a mess, to clean up exactly everything, to be quiet and respectful, and never to set the place on fire. And also, if you get arrested, hey. Them's the rules. Federal offense and all, if you are in a place like a national park. Which is why I prefer traveling through national forests to national parks.

But there is room out there, lots.

In Mount Rainier National Park alone you have 368 square miles (950 square km) to roam in, and aside from the tall pointy glacier-covered part in the middle, most of it is comfy, spacious forest. So when you're moseying along, it's magic no matter what.

No need to rush.

Because.

You can't rush magic.

Especially if you try.

 

 

 

---

Have extra info to add? Send email to sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
See if that helps.
Me? Leaving behind only failures, carrying away only regrets.

Rainier Photo Dump, 2007

These are photos from my second trip around Mr Rainier. I think this first one is from Reflection Lakes. (Hints? What were the hints? Reflection — probably a good guess. See the "Wilderness Trip Planner & Map", below. The map is on the PDF's second page.)

Stevens Creek

I have to work from the map. This was a while ago now, 10 years, and although the emotions are still fresh the details aren't. The image just above is of lower Stevens Creek, which is pleasant to hike along.

Moving north along Cowlitz Divide toward Indian Bar on the east side.

During the winter of 2006-2007 there was a huge amount of rain, almost 18 inches (457 mm) in a sudden 36 hours, according to the park's web site. That had effects. "The flood destroyed most of the park’s low-lying trail bridges. Major sections of trail collapsed or were scoured down to bedrock, and will need to be rerouted or rebuilt," said the park's web site shortly after the event. Entire sections of road also went missing.

The drop into Indian Bar.

As I recall, the Wonderland Trail was closed during the whole 2007 hiking season. I didn't even think about it aside from hearing a couple new reports.

Indian Bar, my favorite place.

Then, sometime in August of 2007, maybe late August, or extremely late August, suddenly the Wonderland Trail had been repaired, mostly, and was open again. Woot! No bugs or competition. Since I lived nearby, all I had to do was to show up. Everyone else had given up for the year and gone into their winter dens by then.

I don't know what these — maybe a sort of gentian.

So, a no-brainer. I hate fighting for permits. I prefer National Forests to National Parks because, if anything, all I need to do is to fill out a free permit at the Forest trailhead and not die out there. You hike and then go home when you're done and no one knows what you're up to or bothers you, and doesn't really care. National Parks are fussy, and many, like Rainier, have quotas.

Looking back to the south across the Indian Bar area while headed north.

Given that, I also deeply prefer going where other people don't. That usually works. You see things when you go to unpopular, ignored, and dismissed places. Some of the most rewarding times of my entire life have come about just by sitting down somewhere and keeping still. You can't do that when you're fighting to see famous roadside attractions, whether those "roads" are either congested highways or congested trails.

Looking to the west, toward the center of the park the mountain while climbing out of Indian Bar.

Roadside attractions are generally crap anyway. On my first trip to Yellowstone in 1977 I stopped about every half mile, got out of the car and took a look at whatever the signs pointed to while bumping shoulders with everyone else. It made me crazy, but I caught on. On my second morning there I climbed the hill behind the campground and walked along a stream. There was no trail. There were no signs. Nothing pointed at what to see. No people. No buses. No horns. Nothing official. No stress. It was fantastic, a great September day. On the hike back I took off my clothes and splashed around in the creek, then sat on a rock and sun-dried. Perfect.

Climbing the pass between Indian Bar and Summerland.

Rainier in early September of 2007 was like that. I had free run of the place. No one gave an official eff because almost no hikers were there that year, especially after Labor Day, which is normally quiet anyway. I did see one ranger at about the halfway point, but she ignored me. Usually rangers ask to see your permit, at a minimum, and maybe ask questions to make sure you're doing what the permit says. This ranger was talking to another person, maybe a day hiker, and I can't remember if she actually even looked at me. Choice. Sweet. Most excellent. Just the way I like it.

Same area, different view, looking up and back the way I came.

I got lucky in another way too. I went counter-clockwise from my starting point at Longmire. During my first night, near the Nickel Creek camp, I got a few sprinkles on my hammock fly, but no more. Somewhere along the route I met a guy who had started at roughly the same time as I had but who went in the other direction. He had been on the windward side of the mountain and got to enjoy a couple days of rain. I was hiking in the rain shadow and got fog and crazy-wonderful clouds without all that rain stuff. Choice, Part Two.

More atmospherics along the way to Summerland.

I got super-lucky in another way too, despite personal stupidity. Adventurous stupidity, something I specialize in. Even after much trail repair, the part of the trail in Sevens Canyon along Stevens Creek was still closed. You pass Reflection Lakes, do some trail hiking and a little road walking, then pick up the real trail and head down Sevens Canyon, but not in 2007. That lower trail was closed — some parts of it had been washed away. It meant several miles of road walking.

The drop into Summerland.

Well, I flubbed it. I got confused by the signs that said hikers should take to the road, and I instead continued along the trail. I thought that the signs were a sort of "heads-up" to indicate that the detour was coming up "real soon now", but that was the actual real detour, and the trail there looked fine, so... By the time I came to the massive trail washout I didn't feel like backtracking, because I'm dumb, so I used my shoe edges and fingernails to dig into the slope just enough to keep from rolling down the 45-degree slope of hard damp subsoil onto the rocks along the creek, about 100 feet (30m) below. Well, hey. It was maybe 100 feet down the slope, not a full 100-foot vertical drop, and maybe only 50 feet to go horizontally across the washout, at most, and in the world of non-news, I made it, using up some good luck I didn't deserve. The rest was easy.

It seems like this view is much farther along, but I don't recall just where, so hey again. It was nice. That's enough.

Later on, much lower down the canyon, there was some confusion. But no people. Since I was on a closed section of trail, it was bliss in that respect. Super-doubly quiet.

Evening slightly upslope from the Glacier Basin camp.

The confusion came in a flat area where Stevens Creek had gotten its hair mussed by the previous winter's flooding. The trail was washed out in spots, or covered by debris, and the creek had re-routed itself several times — hard to tell where the real channel was, let alone the trail along it. I had to hunt for the trail. At least I knew that no matter what, the way to go was downstream. Whenever I lost the trail I found it again after a bit of stumbling around. Not bad.

Near or on or approaching Burroughs Mountain (to the right, I think). Nice place.

So there I was, down in the flats and it was all mixed up yet again, in a tangle of uprooted threes with two or three possible stream channels to choose from and no trail in sight. To get a better gander at things from a few feet up, I stood on the trunk of a fallen tree. About three feet up. Then I lost my balance and fell over backward. This, generally speaking, is not usually a good thing. It's surprising how fast it happens.

From Burroughs Mountain looking back east the way I'd come, in the direction of Sunrise.

I did manage to step backward as I fell off the horizontal tree trunk. I did get both feet off it as I fell, somehow. And then I hit the ground. Feet first, also a good thing, but my body was rotating backward, with my feet as the pivot point. So the next part of me to hit the ground was my tail, then my pack. So far things had been going well, sorta. But the pack rocked me backward when it hit, and my head whipped around just before the back of it slammed into the ground.

I'm not sure if that peak at the left-center is Little Tahoma or not. Could be.

And, in yet one more stroke of luck, that ground was a soft pillow of sand, so I didn't die immediately. After a few startled seconds of lying there on my back, I turned my head to the right and saw a water-smoothed watermelon-sized rock humped out of the sand exactly beside my head. Not more than six inches (150mm) away.

This is probably Winthrop Glacier. It would have been fun to get to that last ridge.

Dying quickly isn't so bad, and I probably would have if I'd come down on stone, but being still alive, I had second-tier concerns — more worried about my retinas than anything else. If it's one thing I am it's nearsighted. You get that way when your eyeballs are elongated, which stretches your retinas like crazy. Any bang on the head at any time and several other causes can inspire these retinas to cut loose like over-stressed rubber bands, and then it's all over, sight-wise. The other possibility, after that, was a concussion, even after bonking on sand. I did have a mild headache for the rest of the day but since I've made it for another 10 years, so far, I'm not worrying about that any more. Call me Stumbling Ed Dufus.

North of Burroughs Mountain, southeast of Berkely Park.

OK then. That was the first day. Aside from two or three sprinkles of rain that night, nothing happened. Lucky, lucky, fine and plucky, me. But mostly lucky, and way dumb in parts.

Carbon Glacier, several miles farther west.

Farther along, up the east side of Rainier and north, the trail passes through Granite Creek camp on its way west, then Mystic Camp, and then it parallels Carbon Glacier as it heads north, passing the Dick Creek and Carbon Glacier camps, all nice places. (Check the map link.)

Mommy marmot. She and her little one munched nibbly bits along the trail as I tried to act not-dangerous and sidled by only a few feet away.

I don't remember all the camps I've been registered at in my two trips around Rainier, but I've stayed in only two of them. I guess I'm a minor outlaw, but hammock camping at most national parks is almost impossible. On the first day of my first trip I encountered a ranger while crossing South Mowich River. He was stationed at Golden Lakes where I was registered for that night, and checked my permit, so I had to show up. It took around two hours to figure out how in hell I could possibly hang my hammock there. I managed, but it was tricky. Great view though.

Morning, somewhere between Carbon Glacier and Mowich Lake.

The other camp was Glacier Basin in 2007, which is on a spur off the main Wonderland Trail, and had only one other set of visitors there that night, off on the far side somewhere, and was decent. Most of the camps I've seen are right on the trail. The trail either skirts them or goes right through them. Yeeg.

Spray Park area.

I prefer to either stop a bit short of a camp or go a bit long. That way I can claim that I'm just exploring, or haven't quite made it into camp yet. Either way, I look for a good spot, check to make sure that no one is around, and melt into the landscape. In the morning I quietly drift back onto the trail and continue hiking. It isn't what is supposed to happen but camping that way is a lot nicer and even if anyone saw my campsite after I left, they'd never know that anyone spent time there. National Forests and other "free range" areas make it easier.

Spray Park area.

During my 2007 trip, I stopped my second-to last night in the South Mowich River area. There are some braided streams there, and I was able to slide off the trail and have a wooded sandbar all to myself. By that time I hadn't seen another person for almost two days, but discovered the next morning that I'd been visible from the trail. Still, I had no problems and don't think anyone had come within miles of me. Pure luxury. Usually this kind of space and privacy are only available in totally unfashionable places.

Somewhere near Klapatche Park I think — on the east side anyway.

I suppose this trip was unique. Unless there is another bad winter bringing severe damage I'll probably never see such a wide open chance to explore Rainier. In late September, 2016 I was looking for one last hike of the season, but a storm was blowing in, so I didn't try.

I'd like to give this a name but it could take weeks of research, so let's just call it Fred.

I did check the various Park web cams, but even a few days ahead of the real storm, there was blowing snow at the Wonderland Trail's elevation. Obviously out of the question, even for someone as prone to doing stupid things as I am. So I folded. Why push it past the limit?

I guess this is on Tahoma Creek between Devil's Dream and South Puyallup River camps.

It's the same idea as avoiding world-famous places and the crowds that go with them. So I checked my notes and decided to try the Three Sisters Wilderness in Oregon. That worked. Nice area, but again, it was late in the season and because of that, the hiker population had been severely trimmed back. Even so, several areas were crowded. This would be hell in summer. Signs everywhere. Restrictions to the left of us, restrictions to the right of us. Speed limits, no-parking zones. Traffic lights. Almost.

There is a story here. Betcha.

I did have a nice four or five day window of great weather out there in central Oregon, visiting a place I'd never been at all close to before. The bad weather eventually did blow in but only on my last day. Not bad. Unlike what can happen on Rainier. Rainier is completely exposed to whatever the Pacific Ocean pitches at it, and conditions are always iffy. Central Oregon is much farther inland, better buffered from western weather, so that was a good choice at that time. Still, I really would like to get back to Rainier again. Maybe 2018. Maybe. I'll think about it, I will.

More info from MORA.

The Wonderland Trail (info)

The Wonderland Trail Profile Map

Wilderness Trip Planner & Map (includes trail mileages)

Park Map

JPEG Shaded Relief

November 2006 flood ("old page")

November 2006 Flood

Images of the Flood of 2006

Mt Sky Wiper

Hey. It's better than Twinkie Heights.

There is a move afoot to rename Mt Rainier in southwestern Washington State.

The name is currently Mt Rainier, as you might guess from the name, which is currently Mt Rainier.

But wasn't always.

Previous to Captain George Vancouver's float-by in May 1792, this massive massif, standing taller than anything else for miles and miles around, was known by several other names. Such as Tahoma, Tacobeh, Pooskaus, and the always-popular Tacoma.

But when Vancouver (who wore tight pants, a white wig, and was employed by the British Royal Navy to drift around and look at stuff) saw it, the first thing he thought of was his good buddy Admiral Peter Rainier, also of the tight-pants, British Navy, white wig set.

Rainier and the mountain were virtually twins: two 14,411 ft (4392 m) high, 500,000 year-old, glacier-covered piles of rubble. Gigantic, imposing, and likely to go off without warning.

"Make it so," Vancouver ordered, and lo, it was. The name has been Rainier for a pretty long time.

"That's part of the process I think when you conquer," says Robert Satiacum, a member of the Puyallup tribe, who used to, kind of, own the mountain. He prefers calling it Ti'Swaq', or Sky Wiper.

Soon though, Captain Vancouver quickly learned about the whole "branding" idea, and got a bunch of other things named directly after himself. Vancouver Island in British Canada, for example, and the city of Vancouver just next to it. The other city of Vancouver, now in Washington State. Mount Vancouver on the Yukon/Alaska border. And like that.

So now when someone says they're going to Vancouver all you think is WTF, get dizzy, and fall over.

Some of the other Northwest peaks used to be:

• Mt Adams: Pah Do
• Mt Baker: Koma Kulshan
• Mt Hood: Wy'East
• Mt St Helens: Suek

All hard to pronounce, and currently without strong brand identity. So how about some suggestions?

• Mt Adams: Mt Samuel Adams - Take Pride In Your Beer.
• Mt Baker: Mt Little Debbie Baker's Snack Cakes - Unwrap A Smile.
• Mt Hood: Mt Red Riding Hood's Kinky Kostumes - We got the role. You bring the play.
• Mt St Helens: Mt Mary Helen's Vegan Pet Chow - Tasty Bets For Your pets.

Hey, in these times of tight budgets the licensing fees could pay to bring more pro sports to the region.

So then we get back to Mt Rainer, but why screw with a good thing? No need to change the whole name when a little tweak will do, and it precedes Samuel Adams anyway.

Mt Rainier Hiking Fluid: "Hang on to youth while you can. We have the beer when you're ready."

We already filmed the ads decades ago:

While the Wonderland Trail and Mt Rainier Hiking Fluid go together like chocolate and peanut butter, please don't drink and hike.