A friend asked me to take her on a snowshoe trip yesterday to Camp Muir, the lofty perch where most climbers spend their first night if they hope to make the 2-day trek up 14, 410-foot Mt. Rainier. I must admit that initially I wasn’t sure I wanted to do yesterday's hike. In the 30 years I have lived in Washington State, I’d guess I’ve hiked to Camp Muir 50 times. It’s a long, long, slog, beginning at Paradise (elevation five thousand feet) and climbing to Muir (ten thousand feet.)
But... See the photograph above? I am SO happy I did the hike.
I’ve always considered the trip to Muir to be something I can do if I’m feeling like my fitness level needs a kick in the pants. It’s a kind of trial-by-fire day-hike guaranteed to give my lungs a wake-up call. Often, I’ll end the day a couple of pounds lighter than when I started. But I’ve done the hike so often that it unfortunately offers few surprises. Been there, done that. Fifty times.
Still, most photographers who shoot wilderness landscape pictures will tell you it’s better to be lucky than good, and yesterday I felt I was very lucky. Mother Nature served up a beautiful, sunny, spring-like day. My friend and I snowshoed to Muir in a bit less than five hours (not bad, considering every step of the hike was on snow,) and we descended in about half that time. As we returned to Paradise, the weather changed and storm clouds gathered near the mountain. There was also a thin sliver of gold--a fleeting and distant sunset--peeking out just above a gentle snow slope. Mother Nature graced me with a gift--a moment I would not have seen and a photograph I would not be able to share with you today, had I stayed home and spent the day lounging on the couch.
Annie Dillard is one of my favorite writers, and her book “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” to me, is yet another gift. Annie Dillard says: “Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”
