Nothing but Mountains

Beyond the mountains, more mountains.

Haitian Proverb

Readers who have been with me for awhile will know that I grew up in Tacoma, Washington not far from Mt. Rainier National Park. It was certainly not the close up view you see above, but it was pretty wonderful looking out my bedroom window in the morning and seeing that magnificent volcanic peak, especially at sunrise.

When I was eighteen I hiked around that mountain on the Wonderland Trail with my friend Kathy, a celebratory journey for our graduation from high school. I have at various times viewed it from every angle possible, even far west from another mountain range, the Olympics, where at various viewpoints Mt. Rainier is visible across Puget Sound.

Just like the Haitian proverb, there have always been more mountains in my life. When I moved to Wyoming from western Washington I was surrounded in all directions by various ranges of the Rockies. This was unfamiliar country to me, and I set about exploring it, hiking in the Beartooth Mountains, the Wind River Range, the Absorokas, Yellowstone National Park, and the Bighorns, which were close to my home at the eastern edge of the Big Horn Basin.

It is a wonderful thing to know about mountains, to explore their summits and valleys, to cross a pass into another watershed, to pitch a tent next to a small tarn at 10,000 feet. I did long trips through those high places, carried a heavy pack, and explored uncrowded spaces where I would camp for several days and explore the surrounding peaks and ridge tops with a lighter load.

On one such hike I made camp next to Cliff Lake, and looked around at the highest ridges I could see and went there the next day. An endless display of mountains surrounded me in all directions. The bare ground was covered with sparkling quartz crystals. I felt as though I had entered another realm, a realm in which I was small and insignificant against the landscape, a bubble of protoplasm on a magnificent planet that made my sorry struggles seem unimportant.

Many years later as an elderly woman I am surrounded by gentler mountains, the Kettle River Range and the Okanogan Highlands. That is as it should be. I am a gentler person these days. Sadly there will be no more of those long, rugged treks for me.

There is this instead: a lifetime of mountains and memories, a quiet place surrounded by pine trees. I have, in effect, made camp here. It is simple and good. And still more mountains.