Ash & Pumice

There is a sense of bliss that comes when walking through the ashes of an active volcano. The sandy pumice is still fresh on my boots as I write this.

I fell asleep last night to the sounds of shuffling tents and chattering of people and dogs. Not my idea of a camping trip, but the absolute silence of 1 AM made up for the distractions.

It's weird when I go camping. I have a tendency to wake up in the middle of the night for no good reason. Sure, I'm uncomfortable, but that hasn't prevented me from sleeping in the past. Maybe it is to experience that uncanny silence and darkness, where your view is only illuminated by the moon and stars that shine through the trees.

Of course, there are small noises in the night too, simply the activity of the forest coming through to take advantage of the food leftover by clumsy campers. That's why you always lock up your food in your car: to make sure your campsite is not pillaged by the creatures in the night.

I woke up again around 5 AM, to a glow of a sun about to come up in half an hour. I promptly fell back asleep though, in the warmth of my sleeping bag against the mid 40 degree weather of the mountains.

My next distraction came at 7 AM, with the yelling of kids and the barking of dogs as the minute hand slid past the quiet hours into the loud hours. I tried to go back to sleep for a while, but I couldn't shut it out. Around 8 AM, I was not too happy, and decided to high-tail it out of there.

I took off towards a place called Blue Lake Trailhead. I figured: "I have all the time in the world! It's only 9:30 AM!" The car climbed alongside a rising ridge, and in usual mountain fashion, overlooks were plenty and stunning:

Finally, the climb plateaued in a very thin forest littered with boulders. Rockfalls were everywhere, and the trees were all dead and splintered. Eventually I figured it out: This must have been remains from an eruption. Maybe the 1980 eruption? I'm not sure.

At first it looked like a logging operation, but when I pulled up on the final leg of the gravel road, I saw the path of an eruption flow. Little did I know, this rock flow would lead me to the lake, which I believe was also formed because of damming from said eruption. The trails lead up and down alongside the flow, and eventually out onto the road of rock.

All this time there was rushing water off to the western side of the flow. Its noise was straight out of a recording of nature you find in Target. The trail was not far, only a mile in, but it was stunning to cross such an alien looking landscape. And of course, all this time the giant herself always loomed above me, visible through the clouds at different points.

The lake itself was serene. It was cold. Glacial melt I was assuming, or snow runoff? And it was blue. The water was so clear, I would have gone swimming if the outdoor temperature was not 55 degrees.

Hell. I thought about it anyways, to live life on the edge. Then I remembered I was at least 50 miles away from the nearest medical clinic, needless to say a mile out from the actual road. The idea of hypothermia was enough to encourage the carpe diem right out of me.

I sat at the lake for a bit, playing my fiddle and reflecting on life. It was one of the few times where I could actually play without fear of annoying anyone. There were obvious campsites at the edge of the lake, complete with fire pits, but I wasn't about to haul all of my camping gear a mile at a time across rock and ash to try to set it up. Where's your horse when you need one?

In the end of the day, I spent about an hour up on the freezing pumice plane, playing away, wishing the clouds would vanish for the sun to come out and warm my bones. It did eventually.


Mount Saint Helens, or in the Klickitat language: "Loowit", has captured my imagination ever since I arrived here. As a little kid I always was fascinated with volcanoes, and never did I think I would "grow up" to come to play around the very volcano I watched documentaries about back in Ohio. Her very power and presence is commanding. It dominates the horizon with Mt. Hood (Wy'east), but St. Helens is malleable. It has exploded, eroded, glaciated, and steamed; something that large chunks of rock should not do.

The mountain symbolizes the impermanence of the earth, the very thing that we take for granted. When looking, you can tell: There is more to this than meets the eye. There is always something else behind all of these wondrous things we can see in our everyday world.

US 12 and the Cascade Transition

Rain Shadow. The term conjures up different meanings for different people. Out here in the Northwest, it refers to the fact that the Cascade Mountains prevent much of the soppy rain from getting to the eastern side of the region. But with that very sop brings the greenery to life in the west. It is what makes the Pacific Northwest the place for young development and high, liberal standards of living. It allows prosperity, and the host of issues that come with it.

After about six months, you start to lose track of the mountains on either side of you. The Coastals are the first to go, because they are shorter, and demand less of your attention. Then the Cascades in the east go, because it's just something you get use to. The ultra-high peaks are the last to go, and I still marvel at their size from time to time; still questioning to myself how such things with such size can exist in this world.

Green valleys tend towards the steep western slopes of the Cascades. Flat gravel rivers tend to be the norm because of the glacial erosion and volcanic forces that created the valleys. It makes for amazing farmland, fertile with nutrient rich ash infused soil.

As you climb, the fields and streams are replaced by lush evergreen forests and rushing rapids. The trees bristle with life, and you start to venture into National Forest lands, uninhabited by none but government sanctioned ranger and gas stations, resort lodges, and dry, snowless ski slopes.

You keep an eye on those volcanic giants the whole time, as they dip and dive behind the wooded hills.

As you crest the highest point on the road, within minutes the scenery starts to change. The trees become a paler shade of green, and droop. The soil goes from dense underbrush and roots, to open forest floors with a pine needle carpet. It doesn't rain here nearly as much, and so the forest had to adapt, and to separate its species for less water, and dustier soil.

There are more open plains: Places where the trees couldn't quite make it because of a lack of water. Soon the scene turns into solid rock that rises up into massive megaliths of dirt on the land. The grass is about the only thing that can survive these steep and treacherous hills. How does anything live out here? Who in their right mind would think to settle here?

Irrigation. It's the only thing that keeps this valley alive.

When driving into the Yakima Valley from the south, you come out of the desolate empty hills that make up the Yakima Indian Reservation onto this plain of Eden. The valley floor (around halfway up the picture) is just painted with green. Green fields, green orchards, green trees and towns. And brown hilltops. Desolate, isolated hilltops where agriculture does not work.


The Cascades serve much more than simply a barrier for rain. They symbolize a divide among the cultures of Washington and Oregon. To the West lay the lush, fertile forests and farmlands; home to the burgeoning tech giants and environmental firms of the Pacific Northwest. To the East there is dry, infertile desert land. Depressed towns with little to no reason for existing outside their irrigation. Impoverished families with no hope of upward mobility; stuck forever in their circumstance of where they were born.

Liberalism, and the populations that accompany it, drive the politics from the West. State capitals are in the West. Urban centers are in the West. Interstate corridors of prosperity are paved in the West.

Fading conservative bastions are in the East. The dry high desert demands the rugged individualism you find in people, along with the fear of change, and the fear of abandonment. The towns are smaller, the people more xenophobic, and the roads much dustier.

Yet in the East there is much, much more apparent diversity. So many privileged neighborhoods in the urban centers in the West are exclusive for one ethnicity, and one group of people, and those tend to subtly stereotype urban societies, neglecting the minorities that live within the exact same area.

In the small towns in the East, minority groups are visible. There are Mexican restaurants, Spanish advertisements, and decorative colored banners adorning many of the main roads around migrant settlements. Yet they do not hold power either. There is more of an outward racism and fear from leaders and citizens in the majority. There is positively no appreciation or embracing of the migrant populations, nor acceptance from the majority into the area.


Though their populations are different, there is much more that links these two sides of the Cascades besides Interstates and US Highways. But the mountain chain divides and separates in more ways than just weather.


What amazes me is how apparent and striking the change is. Within an hour through the Cascades you are in an entirely different world, one radically different, but still with hints of familiarity and similarity.

I believe that there is no such thing as "nowhere". Anywhere you can travel is "somewhere". You just need the will to look.