Something of the Marvelous

Hidden among vast green forests and thousands of jagged peaks lie the five volcanic monarchs of Washington State's Cascade Mountains, known as Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier, Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens. Each of these goliaths represents a region of the Evergreen State. This excludes the Olympic Peninsula, which boasts its own mountain range, separate from the 700-mile Cascade Range, but hosts no volcanoes. Its matriarch is Mount Olympus. These five volcanoes and one peak were called the Big Six by the Mountaineers, a climbing organization established in 1906. To this day these peaks have remained a primary focus of most climbers in the region. Yet, isn't the full measure of a peak more than this one degree?

More than the line from base to summit? What of the other 359 degrees? This was the impetus for my desire to ski around the bellies of these giants. To see the vaulted heights and crumbling cliffs, the crevassed glacier fields and teetering seracs, the crashing waterfalls and roaring rivers. Bringing it all together into a cohesive picture that forges mountain and memory into one. Mount Adams was completed in 2009, Glacier Peak in 2017, and Mount St. Helens, Rainier and Olympus in 2018. Altogether, the total effort was 22 days spread over nearly two decades. In 2022 Mount Baker remained. A cold and wet spring had sustained a healthy snowpack into early summer. This gave me an idea. Maybe I could go to Mount Baker? On a solo mission?

No one to push me but myself. Nowhere to be, but where I was. As I climbed from my RV I shuffled past herds of tourists and climbers. As I left them behind I pondered the past. How Mount Baker was once a trackless wilderness, and any civilization was nestled on the saltwater shores of Puget Sound. Only the hardy and industrious folk, the workers of the land, went beyond there. All except prospectors. The gold seekers regularly entered these rugged mountains. One such group, in 1891, would make the first high circumnavigation of Mount Baker. Skiers wouldn't accomplish the same for more than a century.

Between the forest and alpine the weather exchanged a few clouds for blue sky which I approved of since I was already looking for camp after a late start. Come morning, I wandered across the Squak and Talum Glaciers, then across the wide expanse of Boulder Glacier. Like Avalanche Glacier on Mount Adams, Boulder has historically frequent and catastrophic avalanches every two to ten years. It's not a place to linger. No catching breath until I was safely on the Boulder-Park Cleaver. Hours later I stopped at the Dorr fumarole fields. Sulfur gas sputtered, and holes that appeared to be hourglasses into another realm opened above and below me. A disconcerting place, where thoughts of missteps and vanishing without a trace entered my thoughts.

I quickly retreated back to the snow and my skis. Cracks of ice folded into terrain like so many shadows. Nothing but my feet were again visible. The depths of the crevasses expanded my view, but not in the way I'd prefer. Careful movement brought me back to safety until I finally slid out of the clouds and cracks, whereupon my pass, a key point on my way, appeared before me. That night a storm raged. There was thunder, snow and lightning, hail and rain. Occasionally, the forces threatened to tear my tent asunder and send me flying. But by morning peace reigned. The view pulled me from the tent and suddenly I stood in a world apart. A lost kingdom hidden among popcorn clouds and flowing lenticulars. A between world all to myself.

At noon, with clear skies and Mount Baker clear of those boiling clouds, it was time to go. I skied across the Roosevelt and Coleman Glaciers. I ascended to Colfax Pass and crossed Pumice Ridge. Once I reached Easton Glacier it was all gravity-assisted. Bindings locked, I gathered momentum and flew into the clouds that remained harnessed to the valleys. Finally I climbed out over the top of the glacier and back to the trail and dirt. Full and invigorated, my smiles wide and mind ablaze, memories swept me up into an accumulation of joy that avalanched me back into civilization. What about the other 359 degrees; the understanding I was seeking? I found it. As Aristotle once said: "In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous." What more could you ask for in life than that?