A late start. A wrong turn just after Hennegan Pass. Back track. Two and a half hours to here. Two hours without the wrong turn. A tight timeline. Fourteen hundred feet from the summit staring up at it from this high alpine ridge the North Cascades in every direction. The northern Pickets. Mount Redoubt. Whatcom Peak. Mount Challenger. I stop finally to pause and am startled by the silence. How quiet it is. A slight breeze warm in the sun crests over where I stand. A bug or two fly past my ear. Rockfall far in the distance. I just stand still for the first time in hours and listen. Look up at the summit from here. I could make it. I would have to haul but I have crampons and ax to get me to the top. The glacier is not opened up much and I spot a seemingly-obvious route. Mount Shuksan and Baker glisten in the autumn afternoon sun. Beckoning. Or. Or I could stop here. Pull out the sit pad acting as pack frame of sorts and plop down on a rock. Eat the fixings I brought with me. Soak up and absorb the silence. Not a soul in this valley. Probably not in the next. Or the next. This mountain vista is mine temporarily and I could own it for the next hour or so until the setting sun urged me to get moving back down shadows growing longer and higher up the valley walls. It is warm enough to be sitting here in shirt sleeves. I cannot describe the views or the silence. They must be earned. Experienced. Or. Or I could rush up to tag the summit quick. To see the north face of Shuksan though washed out at this hour. I could no doubt see more. More than I could from where I stood despite the already insatiable view. See. And then it hit me: but not hear. Cos all I would hear would be the crunch of my crampons on the ice of the glacier heading up. My own breathing. I could see from the summit for a few minutes before having to race back down. Or. Or I could save it. Save it for another day when Shuksan's north face was not blinded in shadow. I could let the sun wash over me. Enjoy this moment tucked away in these mountains for which I feel such a deep connection. I feel remote but then stare over at Whatcom and Challenger and sense their even more remoteness two valleys over from where I now sit here on this rock in the alpenglow. On the east ridge of Ruth there is this enormous cirque carved by glaciers scraped bare and smooth down to rock thousands of years ago itself falling thousands of feet down into the Chilliwack River valley where the Brush Creek Trail winds its way to the nearly-impenetrable Whatcom Pass. And beyond that lie the peaks of the northern Pickets. Whatcom. Challenger. Fury. Luna. I do want to see them. This is certainly a special and extraordinary place. There is the ice of glaciers. Granatic rock. Vine maples on fire middle of October. Firs. Cascades of creeks and rivers Ruth and Copper and Chilliwack from those same glaciers offering the intrepid climber the ability to see. I know I will be disappointed if even slightly for having chosen not to rush up to the summit. But it is so peaceful here. Time flies. Shadows lengthen. Light falls. I want to stay but know I must leave. The Ruth Creek valley is filling with darkness while high up on this ridge I bask in alpenglows and I could stay here indefinitely as I would like to think. But I gather my things. Take a last few photographs to remember the light and the shadows and race down.
-----
And all the while. All the while back down thinking to myself of the difference between seeing and listening. I have always wanted to see. To see from the summits of these peaks. To more and more peaks. Oceans of them. Above cloud-filled valleys glistening with emerald green dews and soaked from Pacific rains. To see from ice and rock. Always a race to the top. Then back down. Eldorado in a day. Sahale. Others. Seeing from the summits to distant peaks. But unlike today suddenly so sudden as if to catch me quite literally by surprise I discovered that leaves no time to just listen. Listen to the silence of these mountain vistas. Instead of racing to the summit just taking a moment to sit down and listen. I was amazed. My breath was taken away. Maybe more so than had I reached the summit out of breath no time to pause. No time to hear. What did it mean to just sit on a mountain ridge beneath the summit of an icy peak with views north to Redoubt and beyond and south to Cascade Pass and the majestic Glacier Peak rather than stand on the summit itself? Watching the light change. Clouds move. Disappear.
It sounded amazing.
No comments:
Post a Comment