She’s a beast of a mountain. She is demanding and wild; she doesn’t need whips and handcuffs because she looms so large with an enormous white glaciated cap. At 14,409 ft., the highest peak in the state, you can’t take your eyes off her. She demands your attention from everywhere in the State of Washington. Whether you are out on the Olympic Peninsula at the farthermost western point of the contiguous U.S., in a skyscraper in Seattle, on a ferry out in Puget Sound, or in the wine country near Walla Walla, if she is within view, I guarantee that you won’t look anywhere else.

The only way I can communicate her massive presence is to compare two photos shot at the same location in Paradise, WA: the picture immediately above of the surrounding jagged high peaks to the south, with a photo at the top of the blog, shot moments later just turned 90 degrees north to Mt. Ranier’s southern flank. See? She doesn’t need a riding crop to make you behave!

Everyone can hike this monument and see waterfalls and rainbows, basalt columns, and lush greenery with abundant wildflowers due to the “Wonderland Trail” that encircles the mountain. It sits below the snow line usually by May, with hundreds of access points. Starting short hikes here with her 5 year old in 1999, Sally has taken small bites of this trail on the Northern, Eastern, and Southern flanks over the years. Steven’s mind was blown over and over, as the trail gave him peeks of the mountain frequently through the trees.

That experience was deeply enhanced as we met 90-year-old Bronka Sundstrom on a hike/bike on our last day. Hiking her usual 12 miles with her 92-year-old friend and NP Park Volunteer, Wally, we learned that she holds the record as the oldest female to summit Mt. Ranier, at the young age of 77. She is also a Jewish Holocaust survivor from the Nazi invasion of Poland when she was 14. She snuck around finding food for her family before they were captured and died in concentration camps. She is so smart and exhibits a loving, positive and forceful personality, a huge personality busting out of her tiny 90 lbs frame. She didn’t even report any fatigue at the end of her 12 miles. She says the trick is to, “Go Slow…but Go”. What a mentor! We exchanged contact information and will stay in touch. It is rare to meet a humble person as big in spirit as the mountain towering over us.

She made us feel almost as young as standing before this massive slice of Douglas Fir found in the park, seeded in 1293. Each of the circles represents points in history: Marco Polo’s voyages, Kublai Khan’s invasions, the French Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, etc. If my darling younger husband Steven needed to have a jolt of perspective as a newly minted 60 year old, he got it here on Mt. Ranier. He plans to come back yearly for his annual spanking!

Starting any trip from Bellingham is a delight. A mix of well preserved victorian buildings and and modern, arty builds, strung along a busy waterfront, makes this a tourist destination in itself. Add a nice food scene, the lovely Western Washington College with 30 outdoor sculptures, and nearby Chuckernut Drive and Larabie State Park for hiking, there’s a lot to do, even staying in town. However, Mt. Baker looms and the Northern Cascades call…

After some hikes on the southern flank of Mt. Baker, we explored the Northern Cascade Mountains, home to over 300 glaciers representing 1/3 of those remaining in the lower 48 states. These are the steepest mountains in the U.S. and Highway 20 leads you through them in style.  Lots of beautiful lakes, too cold for swimming yet, but they make nice reflections of the surrounding mountains, provide electricity to Seattle via the hydroelectric dams below on the Skagit River, and make this a kayaker’s paradise. Next time we plan to stay at the lakeside North Cascades Environmental Learning Center (great food!) and take a mushroom foraging and identification class…..emphasis on the ‘identification’. Furthermore, the 270 archeological sites here trace the human presence back nearly 10,000 years.

The heat is building up even at this elevation, and without the tree cover or cloud cover, the steep hiking is very hot, and UP UP UP on countless switchbacks. Best to sit by a creek for most of the day because….we have neither a working generator to run the motor home air conditioner, nor dashboard AC as we head east to cattle ranches and cherry farms in our next leg on the eastern slopes of the Cascades. The foodie town of Twisp (we just can’t say it without lisping it…”Twithp”….) is a cross country haven in winter but way too hot in summer, even with a visit to their municipal swimming pool! The answer is an RV park to plug in for 50 Watts of electricity for the AC, instead of our usual dry camping, while we wait for a new condenser for the AC. Why not plug in at The Wenatchee River Bluegrass Festival in Cashmere, WA?

Not only is there a concert every day with professional musicians from Tennessee, Georgia, and Kentucky, but the absolute best part…we are surrounded by campers who almost all seem to pluck something…and really, really well. Even the teenagers in camp are excellent musicians. Check out mandolin player, 19 year old Tristan Scroggins on a music search sometime!!!! Watch your back David Grisman! We are loving the free sharing of music and culture in this campground with all manner of rigs, from the behemoth rock star buses to families in tiny tents. Everybody is welcome! It reminds me to express our gratitude and joy today that the U.S. Supreme Court made a decision yesterday to include everybody who wants to marry, regardless of state of origin in the right to legally marry. About time to finally ring out Freedom on this issue! Bravo!

The ethic in the camp is that no one can join a music circle without a nod of invitation. but everyone is expected to pull up their camp chair and set for awhile or wander off to one of the 30 or so other impromptu jams taking place in the campground. One night I was up to 1 AM watching this amazing circle of teenagers jamming in the photo above. Obnoxiously good for youngsters!

We lucked out in being parked next to two couples from Portland ( which has a huge old tyme music and bluegrass scene apparently) who have played together for over 30 years. Every hot player in the park wandered by (see below) to join in at some point. Sometimes a fiddler, a dobro player, mandolin, banjo, bass or guitar, we just lay in bed at night with the windows open, enjoying a private concert of the best musicians in the park. Unfortunately, the condenser replacement repair didn’t give us any dashboard AC so we are racing for the high ground to find cooler weather…on to the slopes of Mt. Ranier, the tallest peak in the state and an active volcano!

We think of ourselves as somewhat fit because we bike, run, swim, and play tennis on a regular basis. Ha! We became so aware of the extra pounds we’re carrying around when we had to haul it 6.8 miles up a steep climb to get to Easton glacier on the Southern Flank of Mount Baker, and then back down again. 3500 ft. elevation gain…..Ow! Ow!

Our first day hike on the “Scott Trail” was steep but only 6 miles round trip to this view above of Mt. Baker…accessible just over one little ridge. We were shocked at how exhausting the next day was on the “Railroad Grade” trail was as we stumbled back to the car. Our rig, “DeeDee” proved her worth as we were able to take hot showers, eat a hot meal, and fall into bed right at the trail head. Awwwwwww….

It helps that the hike is so beautiful and wet and green, with lily ponds at the entry (and mosquitoes), followed by creeks and frequent peeks at the Volcano.

We finally had to walk the last 1/2 mile to the glacier…. 12 inch wide sliver of a trail on a knife-like ridge with lovely wildflowers tumbling down the access side to a wide meadow, and a sheer scree drop off on the other side, favored only by the large, whistling families of hoary marmots.

The relief at hitting the first edge of the glacier! Sal just had to make a snow angel, and hang out in the white stuff for awhile…or is she just unable to move? Meanwhile, the real mountaineers, with ropes and cramp-ons, headed on up to the deep crevasses. We turned around, climbed down the knife ridge and back into the lush greenery. It is a gorgeous walk even when you can hardly pick up your boots!

F

Well, the rail trail conversion anyway, on our bikes. With an enormous and historic logging industry in Oregon and Washington, came trains to move the timber. Enormously heavy, the rails could not exceed a 4% grade, perfect for cyclists. As timber and industry rails fell out of use all over the country, “Rail/Trail Conservancy” groups, arranged public and private funding, to remove the cross ties, add gravel, signage, and best of all on some trails…..trestles safe for cyclists, pedestrians and horses! The conversion of rails to trails hastened with the federal government passing legislation promoting the use of railbanking for abandoned railroad corridors in 1983 which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990. This process preserves rail corridors for possible future rail use with interim use as a trail.

“Whoooo….Whoooooooooooo………”, we chug chug out our best train sounds as we cross the many trestles on the 26 mile rail/trail conversion between Sedro Wooley and Concrete. As it sits on the western slope of the Northern Cascade Range, the views when you clear the lush forests and creeks, and reach open meadows, is of snow capped peaks, wineries, and herds of bison and elk.

We loaded our bikes and took a free municipal bus in Sedro Wooley up to Concrete. The very nice locals told us of some aggressive feral dogs on the trail and gave us a canister of mace. We never saw the dogs but couldn’t get enough photos of these goofy llamas (also featured image) that had been shaved for the summer leaving oversized furry heads and lower legs.

With the best ever gluten free bakery, “5B’s” in Concrete fueling us before the ride, we lingered, enjoying our chat with Em, the proprietor. She has Celiac Disease, and has raised twin boys also with the disease. Instead of making her sons feel they couldn’t have baked treats, she became a fabulous baker.

 20 years later, she opened this cafe/bakery when one son left for a physics degree at Stanford and the other one to study robotics. Eat your pastry and get smart!

Puget Sound is a huge tidal basin with 450 islands at low tide, sheltered by Washington’s Olympic Peninsula and Canada’s Vancouver Island. The Washington State Ferry that serves the islands, including a stop in Canada, is the largest ferry system in the world. It is extremely efficient and completely free for pedestrians and bicyclists traveling between islands.

Lopez Island, more agricultural and less hilly than San Juan and Orcas Islands, is an angler and sailor paradise, not to mention forager, farmer, kayaker, and bicyclist heaven. As a San Francisco bicyclist I was very impressed at the drivers on Lopez Island. They all “shared the road” with bicyclists. They also wave…at each other….at strangers….every car….every contact. Usually a laconic one finger salute (NOT THAT one finger salute, the index finger kind!) but they do it at every contact with bikers, drivers, and bicyclists.

After biking to Spencer Spit, we tried to join a wild food foraging class taught by the Northern Cascade Institute this exceptionally low tide weekend, but they were too full. We then had a good excuse for sitting at the water’s edge watching a HUGE bald eagle grabbing lunch out of the water in front of us. Too bad I was too slow to get him on camera. We contented ourselves with tennis and a visit to the farmer’s market, where there were four week old goats to pet. We got to see two young musicians we had met the night before at a chamber music concert, perform a variety of music on their violins. The school system is small on the Island. Only 18 students attended graduation this year, but over 600 members of the Island community attended the graduation. Now that is a show of support!

Lopez is also quite literary. The designated, waving honoree in the lead car in the 4th of July parade is NOT the mayor, but the Librarian. The Library is a beautifully renovated building with fireplaces and lots of natural light; it has won the NY Times and Publisher’s World awards for programming several times in the last ten years. Two well known authors (Garth Stein and Pam Houston) are giving readings at the Library this summer, and one of my book group’s favorite writers, Ruth Oseki, will read at the local bookstore next month.

We found wonderful art and sculpture in little studios all over the Island. Driftwood art and other “found materials art” is the basis of much of the public art. One local had filled the beach in front of her house with animals and birds (see feature image). We also attended an early music concert in a local church featuring instruments from Beethoven’s era and performance by three members of the Victoria Symphony orchestra traveling around to small venues performing chamber music this summer.

Add in beautiful sunsets, rain forests with moss and fern for gorgeous hikes, an Amish farmer plowing his fields with draft horses, and small town/Island charm, and you have a recipe for a good fantasy about moving here. In fact, we met at least 10 couples here looking at property to create a summer home.