I had been on the Ptarmigan Ridge trail over a dozen times before. I had already hiked it this season. Hiking in the Pacific Northwest involves checking multiple weather forecasts and smoke forecasts and hiking reports and transportation updates, and having the time and being healthy. The stars were aligned last Thursday. My wife and I had just completed an (unexpectedly long) eight mile hike on Tuesday and our bodies and the forecasts and our calendars came together. I found an old pair of hiking boots that still had many miles left in them. My two current pairs (lighter weight and heavier weight) are both having their soles fall off. Today’s glues suck. The forecasts called for clouds to be breaking late morning and turning sunny in the early afternoon. We got out of the cabin around 7:30 armed with our packs and poles and lots of water and the same sandwiches and peanuts we happily eat hike after hike. Off for the familiar 31 mile drive to the end of the Mt. Baker highway.
We got there, hung up our Northwest forest pass on the rear-view mirror and headed off. It was a cloudy day. Several miles in (it is about a 11.5 mile round trip) it seemed that the clouds were not burning off but rather thickening. But, and this is the main thing I learned today, or really relearned, it was beautiful. The clouds never did burn off that day. The forecast was dead wrong. The candy box said that that particular chocolate was fudge filled with nuts…..but clearly that was a cherry I just bit into! It ended up being the most beautiful pleasurable happiest day ever for me and my wife both on that trail. As an added bonus, since it was a workday in September the crowds were very thin. I only counted five people on the trail all the way to the turn-around point called the East Portal. You know that that is the point to turn around because if you were to take more than a few steps in any direction except the way you came along the ridge you would likely fall to your death. It really isn’t quite that scary if you stay a few steps away from the edges as I always do. You are on top of the world. You feel you could reach out and touch the tip of Baker (more correct Kulshan or Koma Kulshan or the White Sentinel). I was privileged to be alone there on that day for the full 20 minutes I was eating lunch (my wife didn’t quite make it to the Portals that day). I took over 100 pictures, many separated by a few seconds as the wispy cloud-mist blew up out of the valleys and over the ridges. I never got a classic clear view of all of Baker (or the nearby Mt. Shuksun) that day. Rather I had a day long real-life movie playing out before me as the tip of the mountain and then one of the glaciers and then nothing and then two glaciers would come out of the mist. The clouds. Oh the clouds. The hundreds of shades of gray and dark and light and the myriad greens and ochres and yellows and browns below them. And the reds and yellows and purples and whites and oranges of the late summer wildflowers and blueberry (huckleberry) bushes. I didn’t even mind that somehow this year every blueberry bush I came across had been picked clean. I knew that it made so many people and animals happy. I had all I needed.
Two days later, yesterday, a Saturday, we had the opportunity to test this thesis. Could a cloudy day really better than a bright blue day out on the trail? Short answer is yes! It is of course like trying to compare your favorite song with your favorite meal. The difference between an A and an A+. The blue sky and calendar meant that the trail would be packed. It was. It was the busiest day I have seen in the half dozen years we have been hiking that area. On the way home the cars were parked a mile down the mountain. I estimated that I could see over 40 people in a particular stretch of the trail that offers a long view of the ridge walk. Happy little ants receding all the way to the parking lot. There is virtually no way to be anything other than happy on a that trail.
The sun meant it was hotter which meant carrying more water. Despite two applications of sunscreen I still got some sun on my face. I seldom got to hear the brooks babbling or the wind rustling. There were too many conversations going on about boyfriends and food and reality going on around me.
You don’t always need to have the “red” candy. Sometimes the coconut or lemon one is actually really wonderful. You don’t have to be 23 to have your best day of hiking, you can be 53. I hope when I am 73 I have an even better day on that trail. A really good bowl of homemade minestrone can be better than the best aged marbled steak cooked to perfection. Seeing an undiscovered band still working their kinks out at a tiny venue can be better than seeing your favorite band ever (usually in an arena or larger space). Sitting quietly on a Sunday morning in your cold home in your underwear and a thick coat drinking really good coffee sharing a record of what you learned on the trail that week can be the high point of the day, the week. Oh, that hug my daughter gave me on a trip to New York years ago, she knows the one. That was special. That could not be scripted. That can never happen again.
