Rainier

Rainier Analogue 2015: Seattle Rain

September 14, 2015

Saturday September 5, 2015

The plane landed softly in the rain at Seattle Airport, Sea-Tac, around 4 west coast time. Seattle is a great city, even in the rain. I find the contrast between Seattle and Atlanta interesting. The cities are not only on opposite sides of a continent but culturally different as well. Atlanta, the world of Coca Cola, Delta and traffic, still riding what is economically left of the Olympics wave for which people are still being convicted of federal racketeering charges. The airport in Atlanta features a recording from the Mayor; no doubt an early attempt at broadening his political ambitions by claiming in a deep, bellowing, exaggerated voice:

“This is Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. On behalf of the citizens of Atlanta, I, Kasim Reed, welcome you to Atlanta where I, mayor Kasim Reed welcome you. We hope you have a wonderful stay in our great city, where I, mayor Kasim Reed is mayor…”

Seattle is different. Wall art in the airport includes posters of old concert advertisements for Pearl Jam and Nirvana. The mood is mellow and soft, even for a place as busy as an airport. On Saturdays, the airport main terminal features local tattooed kids strumming folksy rock songs, something to keep it mainstream.

I waited for the guide service driver to pick me up at the limo and taxi stand near baggage claim. At 7 I received a call from an overly enthusiastic young woman telling me to look for the happy girl in red pants near the stacked roller suitcases and lost luggage of wayward travelers. A fair woman with strawberry hair and glasses flagged me down. I always love traveling though airports with my pack which I nicknamed Heavy, an Osprey 70 liter that when fully loaded stands three and a half feet high. I usually strap my climbing harness and trekking poles to the outside of the pack not only because they will not fit in the bag, but I think it will make me look cool, almost Hemingway-esque, people think I am combing the ancient art of wandering mountains with the modern nuances of airport travel.

I hurried over to see Jenn enthusiastically waiting for me. I read into her smile fact that she did not have to tell her boss that she lost a wanderer from Atlanta. Jenn is that girl from high school who ran the theatre and art department with incredible energy and enthusiasm for the dramatic arts. A young, brilliantly luminescent woman who came to the Pacific Northwest because -like so many of us at one time- fell in love with a park ranger. Jenn loaded up heavy into a brand new silver Ford Expedition with knobby tires and a black tubular luggage rack.

It doesn’t take long to leave the metropolitan Seattle area for the big green and red wood of rural Washington just outside of Tacoma. Jess drove the truck through Saturday traffic talking enthusiastically about her love for this part of the country and involvement in the Redwood community performing arts council for which she was proudly a member of the Board of trustees while simultaneously serving as chief creative director. One could assume that performances for the council happen every fourth Friday of the third month of every year at the local VFW post which serves as the temporary home of the Redwood Performing Arts Theater. One can even go so far as to speculate that by the time Jenn is done with her tenure as trustee, the council will have weekly performances in a 300 seat theater complete  with matrix boards and computerized lighting equipment, just like she did in high school.

We rode with another wanderer. Randy is a retiree, part time salon owner and transplant from Illinois now living in the rolling hills outside of Louisville. Randy and his wife own a salon. I could only imagine the lengths Randy must have to go through to rejuvenate the soul after listening to Louisville society gossip every Saturday. I thought I had it rough in criminal defense.  Maybe that explains the common need to stomp on the terra and expose oneself to ending it all at the bottom of a frozen glacier, body unfounded. Nonetheless, Randy and I, like all who are drawn into these mountains know that one can live more in one day on a glaciated mountain above 10,000 feet, than most can live in a lifetime.

We pulled into base camp in Ashford at around 8. I was relieved to see that Whitaker’s Bunkhouse had not been victimized by over commercialization through merger, nor purchased Marriott timeshares. When I gave Sierra at the front desk my name, she told me people were already looking for me. I paused for a second wondering if the law firm in Tacoma I had to hire last year to get me out of that airport speeding ticket actually appeared in court or just said they did. Sierra gave me a folksy smile common to most Cascadians and the keys to room 5, along with a well-rehearsed didactic lecture on how to get to room 5.

“Walk out the door, turn right, past room 7, past rooms 24 and 25, to room 5, tomorrow we have you in room 6 and next Friday night in room 7.”

One can assume by the rote directions that wanderers from all over the world have come to scale an angry volcano only to get lost trying to find there room with a numbering system that starts at 25 and ends with 28, with 5 and 7 in between. I guessed correctly that the sales of ice cream and big Jim Whitaker’s book did not improve the wifi capabilities of the bunkhouse since last year. Suddenly, I found myself off the grid, no cell service with AT and sometimes T, and internet that would only let me down load email once per day, as long as Margie across the street wasn’t using all the bandwidth. “Darn it that Margie, she’s on Farmersonly.com again.”

I dumped Heavy in room 5, and started walking to the Mountain Haus when I heard the beautiful sound of a southern Illinois farmer. The 2014 rope team came across the parking lot to shakes and hugs. I once learned from a narrative by a dog named Denali that when you see someone you love, “greet them with uncontrollable joy, even if they are just entering the room.”  Without que, Dave and Dawn greeted me with uncontrollable joy. It was great to see that my brother and sister were the same after our last great adventure. Dave was cut like a tough mudder, and Dawn, with the same cool, quiet countenance of a distance runner, both illuminated smiles from deep inside their souls. The same smile you feel on your face when you see a cousin you grew up with for the first time in 20 years.

Dave and Dawn were trailed by a 27 year old Canadian from Calgary. A great looking kid, cut from the cover of men’s health magazine, who Dave and Dawn graciously informed that we were adopting as our own. With high fives, we became instant friends.

We bunked down for the night after consuming pizza and wraps at the mountain haus cafe on the base camp grounds. It was going to be a long week. Sunday was to be spent at base camp for classroom lectures on climbing knots, belay techniques and the fine art of crevasse  self-extrication otherwise known as how to get your ass out of trouble in a frozen whole in Alaska. On Monday we would be off to Paradise where after a four hour hike to Camp Muir, we would learn from the masters in the greatest classroom in the world.