richness of a past I have not yet explored having previously strayed far below the Oregon border. These new stories surrounding the volcanoes inspire me, past and present slowly become one and imparting wisdom. Hood is known to the Multnomah as Wy’east, the warrior that was punished for battling childishly against his brother, Pahto, for the favor of the same woman, causing serious carnage. Pahto was turned into Mt. Adams, Wy’east became Hood. Tales of volcanic seductions are everywhere. The ice and snow hide the fires of destruction and creation. On these peaks you sense you are one with this — the avalanches that roar down nearby, the quick whiteouts obscuring your steps, sulpher dioxide steam venting, the lahars ready to break free again in contrast to the collecting of snow to nourish forest and rivers below. The native names and stories for the peaks are way cooler than the common ones we have burdened them with. Mt. Baker is called Kobah in Skagit, meaning “White Sentinel.” Tatoosh means “nourishing breasts” in Yakima. Peter Rainier was the rear admiral of Vancouver but so much cooler is to learn that the Lushootseed called the mountain Tacoma meaning “Mother of Waters”-- and with 26 major glaciers, the most in the lower 48 for any peak, they are right. Murky larger-than-life figures are not so far away. While on Rainier, I connect with natives,
explorers and even my heroes and can follow in their footsteps — their voices still echo there. In 1870, Yakima Indian Sluiskin guided Hazard Stevens and Philemon Van Trump to Paradise Meadows so they could be the first whites to summit Rainier. They survived the night by spending it near steam vents to stay warm. John Muir tagged the lower 48’s fifth-highest peak
Fay Fuller, a nearby school teacher that lost her job over the climb because of her spending a night alone with four men near the summit — it lacked necessary propriety for back in the day. On the Columbia River, staring at Wy’east from Horsethief Butte, I marvel much the same as Lewis and Clark did more than 200 years ago. These histories, these peaks continue to sustain and inspire. In a metaphoric way so does Maureen, the woman that pulled me out of my desert. She too is a volcano, piercing the clouds and bringing the sun on the dreariest of Portland’s days.
for its fifth recorded ascent in 1888 and fueled his desire to get Rainier preserved as a National Park. Back in the day charcoal, or a mixture of Vaseline and flour was used back then to protect from sunburn.
It happens commonly now, my visions of the deserts conjured up by the seemingly endless rains that are just as quickly eclipsed. Desert dreams evaporate with quickened heartbeats as Cascade strato-volcanoes slip the nearly perpetual wreath of rain clouds. Close is the satisfying crunch of ice axe and crampons into sticky 40-degree snow and ice. I am always ready for the promised kiss of wind over exposed skin and ridgelines, the breathless push at altitude to a summit — to finish the stitch of 20,000 footfalls connecting emerald forests, turquoise tarns and ancient glaciers — to tie their stories together while finding the way to that elusive hypoxic highpoint. The wily fox easily wins out against the old desert rat.
First female ascent on Rainier? Twenty-year-old
photo this page: Mt. Hood reflected in an icy Mirror Lake, Oregon