Peak Bagging in August

My mountain climbing partner and I had picked a weekend in August, yet on this occasion we logically assumed that there would be other peak bagger mountaineers doing the same ascent and that they would arrive on Friday or Saturday, and depart by Sunday. So on our journey we opted to arrive on Saturday about mid-day, make our ascent on Sunday, and depart on Monday.

We spent the first day, Saturday, driving north there from Portland, arriving at the parking lot at mid-day, thus giving us a reasonable half-day to make the initial approach hike up to high camp.

Indeed, up there at high camp were a number of other summiteers camped at the bivouac site at several of the flat landing spots along the moraine near the lower terminus of the glacier.

Early Sunday morning we departed upward summit bound; that same morning everyone else departed downward trailhead bound.

We marched slowly but steadily across the two-and-a-half mile wide glacier, meandering around numerous crevasses, en-route to the final steep snow ravine near the summit plateau.

Above that final snow ravine it was a basic long march across the flat summit plateau to the lone subtly higher real summit perched roughly some 400' higher than the nearby surrounding snowy terrain. It took all day for the adventure but we returned safe to our high bivouac campsite near the moraine late in the day.

At that moment a unique situation clearly struck our innermost senses, for not only were we the ONLY party up there at high camp in the early evening hours surrounded by an entire alpine zone all to ourselves, but we had also managed to pick the perfect weekend of banner blue skies with nary a hint of clouds anywhere in sight. As we relaxed at our bivouac site in cotton T-shirts and cotton pants, there was not a hint of any chill temperature, nor a strong breeze in the air.

And for miles around us at the alpine level, between the deep green forested slopes below us, and the rock and snow peak world above us, lay an immense treeless alpine world of infinite colorful bloom with every imaginable flower available on full bold display.

I had brought my Canon DSLR 40D camera with me, and while my climbing friends proceeded to prepare our evening dinner, I took a long wide slow walking tour amongst all of the very colorful meadow floral beauty that surrounded our campsite, taking many dozens of photographs of one of the most impressively amazing floral displays I had ever seen on the west side of the northern Washington Cascade Mountain range.

Collie Dog

"Among the rattlesnake's worth enemies is the collie dog. On one very hot morning, while Hale and I were talking at the back gate, our collie, Cim, came running down the road toward us. Suddenly he stopped. A coiled rattler was lying in the bright sun on the roadway. Cautiously Cim drew near the rattler. Then he began a dance in the sunshine that would have won applause for a ballerina. On tiptoe, the dog swiftly started circling the snake and every so often dashed in, as the snake, open-mouthed, fangs exposed, struck back. Between strikes, as the snake's head followed the dog's movements, his slender, darting tongue had a hypnotic effect on us. But the collie was too quick for him. He was also having great fun, for he knew when and how to come in for the kill."

"As we watched, fascinated, the dog waited for the precise moment when he could close in and grab the rattler at the back of the head. Suddenly he tossed the snake high into the air. He then trotted smugly over to us, knowing he had put on a great show. Back of him lay the still-twitching body of the dying rattlesnake."

Quote from "Ranch Under The Rimrock" by Dorothy Lawson McCall