I had a sense of foreboding as we drove up to Rainy Pass to begin the Washington portion of our journey. I knew where this came from. In 1977 I experienced the worst stretch of rain over my 20,000+ miles of hiking. My vivid memory of that stretch is of mildew infested gear. I’ve joked since being out here that I hope I get to see what the North Cascades look like this time around.
The skies were completely overcast with clouds as we headed up I-5. We turned off onto State Road 530, where we were held up by road crews still cleaning up the debris fro m the devastation caused by the rain drenched mudslides of last spring. We next turned onto US 20, otherwise known as the North Cascades Highway, where we proceeded to knife our way between cloud draped ridges. My foreboding increased.
The gloom in 1977 was not all weather related. I carried out perhaps my only real function as the figurehead leader of our small group by dealing with an interpersonal issue. We were using the outhouses at Rainy Pass as shelter from the rain. Ken and I were alone under the overhang of one outhouse as he poured out his grievance to me.
Ken was the most experienced hiker in the group, but such experience did not transcend to social skills at the time. He was the only one tenting alone. Savitt and I were best friends, though we each chose to tent with one of the tenderfoots, who were connected because of their initial inexperience. Ken was disconnected. He was the navigator we gladly followed when the way was uncertain, but even as navigator his back was towards us.
In the North Cascades this came to a head. The precipitous event was the new tenting arrangements. Howie went home for the fall college semester. I now would tent with Savitt, while Dan chose to tent alone. With almost half the hike still ahead of us Ken revealed to me, sometimes in tears that matched the depressing rain around us, the alienation he felt. I listened to and comforted Ken the best I could.
As Cindy, Nike and I started hiking north from Rainy Pass we were greeted by an ever increasing parting of the clouds. When we crested at Cutthroat Pass we witnessed what John Muir once phrased as “a new heaven and new earth” with a new panorama of steep, snowfield blotted mountains before us. So this is what the North Cascades looked like! Wow! Right up there with John Muir’s Sierra.
Yet my foreboding was not wholly unjustified. We did get showered by a thunderstorm during the three day stretch, but even so we had greater visibility that day than in 1977. No, there was another personal issue brewing. Cindy Conveyed unhappiness to me, including the last day when she was in tears. I listened and comforted the best that I could, then I came up with a resolution that would change the hike going forward.
