The Day the Mountain Came to Town

The view of Mount Saint Helens from the summit of Mount Adams on July 4, 1976.

On the 200th anniversary of our country’s birth my cousin Dale and I joined one of the last mass climbs of Mount Adams in south-central Washington. I left from work on the Friday afternoon, drove to Yakima to pick him up, and we went to a campground outside Trout Lake to spend the night. Of course the excitement and the noise of all the other campers kept us awake all night. I don’t remember getting any sleep at all.

We were rousted out for the climb around 3:00 in the morning. We received some orientation and instructions and lined up to begin the climb. One of the instructions was to stay in line and not to pass those ahead of us. We were young and strong. Many of those ahead of us were neither, so the temptation  to violate that rule was strong.

We reached tree-line just before dawn, and that morning provided one of the most spectacular views I will ever see. We watched the ghostly pale peak of Mount Saint Helens emerge from the night, turning raspberry pink, then dazzling white. Before it erupted, Saint Helens was nearly perfectly symmetrical. As we strapped on our crampons and struggled to keep our places in line, we watched Mount Saint Helens in the distance, a graceful and beautiful mountain that later proved to be powerful and dangerous.

Pahto

Mount Adams early in 1958, viewed from the foothills above Glenwood. Photograph by Walt Danielson.

I climbed Mount Adams for the first time in 1957, when I was a year old. I had help. My parents corralled all six youngsters and, in caravan with my grandparents, they drove the axle-shattering dirt roads to Bird Creek Meadows, just below snowline on the shoulders of the great peak.  As proof of this visit, I offer the following pose, the portrait of an outdoors man as a very young man.

My father and I rest on a rock on a sandy bank at Bird Creek Meadows in 1957, when I was a year old.

Although my current home lies much closer to Mount Baker, old Mount Adams has always held a dearer place in my heart. It’s prominence is due to the overwhelming presence it has in Glenwood, where my family arrived in 1882 as a band of uprooted Germans. My great-grandfather cleared a forested meadow and planted hay. His farm prospered and he gained prominence in his community,

The Crossroads

Lower Crab Creek provided water. In Eastern Washington, that was a godsend. Temperatures on the Columbia Plateau routinely soar to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summertime, and rain is scarce. Cleaning irrigation ditches with a shovel west of Othello as a boy, many were the prayers I sent for even one scanty cloud to shield me from the overbearing sun.

The Sinkiuse Indians who lived there before me probably shared my distaste for the relentless sun. But they didn’t have the benefit of a well of cold water I could retire to, an air conditioner that cooled the house when I took a break. They were stuck with the weather the way it was: hot in the summertime, cold in the winter. They took a more basic approach to living on the Columbia Plateau: they stuck close to water, or if that weren’t possible, they found the shortest route from one water hole to the next.

Over centuries of migration and travel, humans developed routes that guided them along the most direct lines of travel from one pool or stream of potable water to the next.

A New Glimpse

Out of the blue, a distant relative, who happens to be a neighbor of mine, provided another image of life on the homestead in Glenwood, Washington. It came in the form of a picture postcard with a message scrawled on it, mailed to my great uncle Robert Kuhnhausen in 1909. The image shows workers in a field of hay, raking the cut grass into mounds amongst the stumps of the former forest. In the background Mount Adams looms, ever present in the Glenwood valley.It wasn’t until I had scanned the image that I was able to inspect the figures in the field. In the foreground is an obviously female worker, clad in overalls and a white cap. Since the card was sent to Robert, the eldest in the family, and the handwritten inscription declares this to be the Her[man] Kuhnhausen Farm, I inspected this person carefully. I am firmly convinced that this is Rosa Kuhnhausen, my great aunt, and the great-great-grandmother of the relative who gave me the photograph. Rosa led a full life, and by that I mean a long and painful one, but she carried with her a practical philosophy that has inspired me through the recent painful adversity in my own family’s life. She died when she was 106 years old, three months after meeting my daughter who was named after her. My daughter died at age 10, two years ago.

Making hay in the Glenwood Valley of Washington State in 1909. Mount Adams fills the skyline to the west. The worker in front appears to be Rosa Kuhnhausen.

Narcolepsy and the Haunted Concertina

Some may call it odd, but I prefer to think of my skill at playing the English Concertina as merely quirky. This is an unusual instrument, to be sure, but it certainly fulfills my need to be unique…most of the time. And who was to know that the instrument was so well suited to me?

The English Concertina has an ancient history and a noble, scientific modern descent. It was invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone, whose accomplishments in the field of electricity continue to influence electronics to this day. Have you ever heard of the Wheatstone Bridge? Not unless you are an electrician or a concertina player. I am the latter.

Let nobody disparage the influence of music in your life. For many, music is a sedentary or second-hand pursuit. For me, as well as for most musicians, it plays a crucial role in my state of being, and it has directed the course of my living.

When I returned from Ireland in 1982, I brought home my first English concertina. It was the product of one night’s lodging at the Youth Hostel in Glasgow.