A Peak Experience

I am a part of all that I have seen.

James Joyce in Ulysses

Like most hikers and backpackers I have enjoyed climbing to high places over the years, though I would not consider myself to be a “peak bagger.” Dangling from a climbing rope or pounding pitons into solid rock has always been a little too scary for me. I prefer to have my feet on solid ground, and solid ground has taken me to some pretty amazing places. . .no rope or pitons necessary.

This past week I hiked to the summit of White Mountain, not far from my home in the Kettle River Mountains of eastern Washington. Named for the white granite, the mountain rises to nearly 7000 feet and offers sweeping views: east to the Selkirks and Lake Roosevelt, west to the Cascades, and north along the expanse of the Kettle River Mountains. On the day I hiked to the summit the southern view was obscured by heavy smoke from the Swawilla Fire burning on the Colville Reservation to the south.

The mountain tells many stories. Fires have burned across its slopes, the last one started by seven lightning strikes in 1988, burning nearly 21,000 acres and forever altering the landscape. Charred soil can still be seen. Fireweed is abundant, and the pine saplings are all about the same height. The clearing created room for willow thickets where moose browse, and reportedly wolverines are occasionally seen in this wild place.

It is sacred to many of the native people who live nearby, and the talus summit is dotted with rock pits where young tribal members have conducted vision quests offering their prayers, waiting for visions.

After a climb of over 1700 feet I arrived at the summit and sat down on a log to eat my lunch while raptors flew above me. On a mountain top there is inspiration and time for memories and musings. My own stories were also part of this landscape. I looked at the long expanse of Lake Roosevelt, the reservoir created by the construction of Grand Coulee Dam in the 1930’s. I was twelve years old when my family launched our boat near the dam and spent a week exploring the lake, crossing the border into Canada where the name of the lake changes to Arrow Lake. Eventually the lake would become the northern Columbia River. We stayed at an old hunting lodge on the river called St. Leon’s. Dinner was served each evening in the beautiful dining room. There was no menu. We simply ate whatever was served, and it was always wonderful: pot roast, fried chicken, baked ham. We spent our days swimming in the cold waters of the northern Columbia. The lodge was accessible only by river. There were no roads to this beautiful old building made of logs from the surrounding forest. My family took many wonderful vacations when I was a child. This was one of the best.

We knew it would be the one and only trip we would take to this wild stretch of the Columbia River. In the years to follow more dams would be constructed, blocking access by boat. At Christmas time that year we received a lovely card from the owners of St. Leon’s Lodge, thanking us for being their guests and advising us that the lodge had burned down that fall only a couple of months after our memorable visit.

It was the first time in my young life that I had confronted change like that, and nobody bothered to ask me if I liked it. My grandfather had died the year before after a year long battle with cancer. I started junior high that year and was suddenly living in a body that had breasts and pimples. And a place that I had loved was gone forever. Things would not ever be the same, and I knew that. It created an ache in my heart that remains to this day, a longing for a simpler world where the river was wild and there were no choices on the menu.

Over sixty years later I sit on the summit of White Mountain and remember. I look down at the lake and try to imagine our blue Sabrecraft making its way north. I am sitting on the bow with my brother. The sun is warm, and life is simple and good. There will be egg salad sandwiches out of a cooler for lunch. They are wrapped in wax paper that has been neatly folded around each sandwich. The mountain tells many stories. This has been mine.