5 – Hiking Up

  With a hand wave I was off, scrambling up the trail from the lakeside dock to the actual trailhead. After burning thru some initial adrenalin, I settled into my familiar steep uphill backpacking rhythm…...30 minutes march and then a 5-minute pack off break. Over and over and over. As you hit sunny patches, the [...]

5 – Hiking Up

4 – The Journey Up Lake

  A further email told me that I will catch a ride with Jerry Cook, captain of the Ross Mule, up the lake to the Deso trailhead. And I need to meet with Andris before the daily fire briefing at 730 AM. I left Bellingham at 4:30 AM after having a quick bowl of  cereal [...]

4 – The Journey Up Lake

3 – Getting The Assignment

  Most of the year I work as a physician in a town about 90 miles to the west of the Park..... My days are patients, one after another, until the work hours of a given week are extinguished. But in August each year, I watch my email to look for a message from Andris [...]

3 – Getting The Assignment

2 – The Setting

  Desolation Peak is in the North Cascades mountain range of Washington State. It is about 5 miles south of the Canadian border. It is 22 miles north of the last American road and at the eastern edge of the north unit of the North Cascades National Park…...a “stealth National Park”, one that most people [...]

2 – The Setting

1 – Waking Up

  I come to consciousness at the hint of first light in the sky..... not aware yet I was again in the firelookout cabin atop Desolation Peak nor any particular place.... slowly feeling the ripstop slickness and circular close warmth of the sleeping bag around me. And then the muffled sounds from outside the wood [...]

1 – Waking Up
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