Notes from Cascade Pass
Three mountain goats amble towards the coolness of a snowfield at Cascade Pass on a warm July day.
On a recent trip to Cascade Pass and other places in the North Cascades where I had not been before, I kept a small spiral bound notebook with a black cover in my pocket at nearly all times. As ideas welled from my path, I wrote them down. I also noted sightings of species, surroundings and people. This was an unplanned practice of close observation. Writing down what jumped out at me helped me sort through what might be important, interesting or significant. In some cases, I became absorbed by minute details, like the physics of butterfly flight. In other moments, the history of the landscape took over and I jotted down the gestures of glaciation sweeping the valleys. My attention adapts to the rhythm of the land. This type of attunement is not easy for me to come by. A long span of time alone in the mountains is one place that I find it. Writing down the path of my thoughts may help preserve it.
At Cascade Pass, there was an abundance of terrain, life and visitation to take in. Writing down short notes was a way to document what was happening, a loose frame of the stories that converged at Cascade Pass that noon hour. Here, I copy my notes from an hour at Cascade Pass to share the experience of being in that new place, and to help me think about the broad and specific stories that are played out in this alpine area day after month after year. As I was taking these notes, I felt a strong sense of companionship with Terry Tempest Williams in her prairie dog days. In spring of 2004, she joined the Utah prairie dog scientist John Hoogland for fourteen days, and detailed her observations and reflections for 110 remarkable pages in the book Finding Beauty in a Broken World. I don’t think anything has taught me as much about observation in the natural world as the writings of Terry. I’ve never met her, but I could feel her presence as I took notes, being mindful of precise time and place, but also open to my own sensations and the words rising in my mind. I recognized Terry there when I was attuning myself to the character of the marmot, but cutting into my attention was the choking motor of a chainsaw doing trail work. It felt like a twin moment to one of those in Terry’s tower above the prairie dog city.
“The degree of our awareness is the degree of our aliveness.”
Terry Tempest Williams
12:10 I’m on the last couple of switchbacks rising to Cascade Pass. A set of loping tracks head straight up a snowfield. They’re about two inches wide and four inches long, with five toes and apparent claws. On one side, a line in the snow is carved by the tracks sweeping outward. Maybe the prints are too small to be a wolverine…
12:13 Sahale Arm trail is closed for trail work. A line of four people in drab national park service uniforms, bright orange helmets and large packs are walking towards a switchback on the closed trail.
12:15 I arrive at the saddle and settle into a nook in the talus. To my north is Sahale mountain. To the south is an impressive chain of peaks: Johannesburg Mountain, Cascade Peak, the Triplets, Mix-up Peak… and they continue.
12:17 Notice snow sliding down the cracked snow patch below Johannesburg mountain col: henceforth known as J col G, Johannesburg Col Glacier, although it is probably just a snowfield and not permanent ice.
12:30 Group of three mountain goats walk up the west side of the pass. They march up a user trail to a patch of snow already scattered with hoof and boot prints. Mom beds first, then the baby. The subadult wanders a little further to the shadow of a tree upon the snow. They get up and move again after 2 minutes of rest.
12:32 J col G cracks and rumbles. The body splits off 2 big snowballs. They roll down a steep slope of snow and break apart in midair, over the waterfalls.
12:35 J col G rumbles again. I wish I had binoculars. There is a heap of bluish crumble below the steep north face of Johannesburg mountain.
12:36 Goats rebed, on a southern aspect of the snowfield. It’s a warm, dry day. To the West are a few clouds. Their shade is welcome.
I notice that below Cascade Peak and the Triplets is a snowfield with a bergschrund and cracks. There is not ice visible. The snowfield is shaped like a ghost with long arms and pieces of its belly missing.
12:40 A rumbling rockslide on west side of Mix-up peak. Triggered by waterfall? Spray and stone fall off the cliff. All of these peaks are hewn from forbidding dark stone, broken only by snow ribbons clinging to the gullies.
Notice a cornice on the east rib of Triplets
N snowfield of Mix up peak has a little schrund
12:43 Man approaches resting goats. They run off. Man shuffles after them.
Noticing all of the vegetation around me: thick pink heather, hundreds of young spruce trees wafting in the breeze. Rodents shriek.
12:47 Distinct call of pika
12:50 Intricate meadowlark-like bird song on west side of pass
12:53 Hiking couple confirms J col G has been crackling for the last half hour. More chunks break off. The waterfall appears to burst for a moment. J col G looks like it could slide off the slope at the slightest echo of its own fracturing.
Looking north west, the base of a broad snowy peak is visible. The top is clouded.
To the south east, a line below the peaks appears. It heads below Mix-up peak, towards what my map says is Cache Col. Looks like footwork. Could it be the Ptarmigan traverse?
12:58 3 day-hiker kids and parents walk down the trail. They reach a bend in the trail and point down to something. I hear water flowing beneath the snowfield I sit near.
13:00 I walk down the trail to where the kids were pointing. I see a parking lot. Dozen cars.
13:05 Three older men pass by, on their way back to the parking lot. They hike in the Cascades a lot. I ask what changes they’ve seen. They haven’t seen any significant changes here but they exclaim at the glacial change they’ve witnessed on Mt. Baker.
13:06 Cross back over the official top of the pass. Unexpectedly, there is a full semicircle of boulders and flagstone paving create a very structured resting place there. A couple sits on the rocks. “Wow, a fully furnished lookout” I say in passing. They nod and laugh and look east.
13:09 Walking south on a user trail to the start of the Ptarmigan traverse. Goat fur adorns the limbs of spruces like wisps of a colder season. I notice that the alpine huckleberry plants don’t have berries yet, but squishy pink bells midway between fruit and flower. Sense of profound peace in the sun and breeze. Look East to McGregor – it has hardly any snow. Librarians Ridge is bare and tan. From here I can only see a few swoops of white on the northwest ridge. There has been a lot of change within the past month. New plants unfurl where days ago there was snow. I find a perch. The range of observation topics is remarkably wide.
13:14 Grouse woofs in the spruce. Goat scat fills the ditch of the climbers trail.
13:17 A motor roars across the cirque. The National Park Service crew working on Sahale Arm trail has power tools and hammers.
13:22 A large, lone hoary marmot lounges on a boulder in the midst of the climbers trail. The sun is hot. I crouch beneath a sapling before I reach the marmot, hoping to give both him and I some peace. He notes my awkward rustling and cheeps at me. From the shade beneath the spruce tree I can see Sahale Peak, a snowy pyramid. On the other side is Sahale Glacier, I saw it when I hiked past Horshoe Basin. Another impressive something peeks beyond the arm of Sahale mountain… Buckner Mountain? I feel hungry again.
13:27 Marmot tires of my watchful eye, sneezes, and enters a cave in the talus.
More chainsaw.
Pelton Basin below me is tranquil, half snowed and half soggy meadow. I have a strong urge to go swimming. Since the trail to Doubtful Lake is closed I will have to wait until I go down from the pass. I have already moved 11 miles today, and there are 11 miles back to my camp. I feel gratitude for having the ability to travel quickly, and see much. I think about adventure scientists, people who can utilize unique skillsets to take data in remote places.
13:31 Birdsong throws me out of my quiet thoughts. Is it time to get down?
13:36 A bald eagle floats over the pass. Soft song of wind in the spruces is torn by the chainsaw, again.
13:46 I leave the pass.
“We have forgotten the virtue of sitting, watching, observing. Nothing much happens. This is the way of nature. We breathe together. Simply this. For long periods of time, the meadow is still. We watch. We wait. We wonder. Our eyes find a resting place. And then, the slightest of breezes moves the grass. It can be heard as a whispered prayer.”
Terry Tempest Williams.
Hoary marmot loafs on a warm rock