RockWacker No. 1 "FoolWacker"

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About a week beforehand, brother Pete asked me what I was doing for my fiftieth birthday. I surprised and frightened myself by telling him I was headed for Found Lake. I'd been thinking about it, but rather as a ram eyes a dam. High hopes, but I'd spent my fortieth there and remembered that the trek nearly did in a body ten years younger.

When Pete suggested I shouldn't go it alone this time, my determination cemented. "I been ramblin these hills alone all m'life, goldurnit."

Then somehow he twisted things around to where I was doing him a favor; giving him a needed break from the family. The excuse that he was protecting his big brother from insanity would fly with the wife.

So I graciously allow him to join me.

Drive up an old logging road, hit a washout. Whip out the RockWacker and walk up a mile or so of overgrowing road to the trailhead, where a rabbit-run fires straight up the hill through brush. Of course it's raining. A hundred yards in Pete stops and asks, "Is the whole thing like this?" Yes. But he doesn't believe me. We’re soaked.

There is no real trail, you know, the kind of thing where you can stay on your feet, maybe bitch about all the switchbacks. It goes straight up, twenty-four hundred feet in two miles, through beautiful old growth trees. You're grabbing roots and brush, pushing and pulling on your staff, climbing the forest like a rock face only muddy. Of course, it's raining.

Pete forges ahead while I lag. Half a dozen steps, stop, huffa puffa and pamper the bad knee. Nowhere to sit. Straight up. It's raining, of course, but there's no water along the way.

Pete forges ahead. I lag. Huffa puffa pause. Look around. It's raining, of course. That's the dominant sound besides the huffa puffa, high above on the fir needles then the dripping off the canopy. It's beautiful, looking down through the trunks of those old trees, laced with mist. Step. Step. Grab something, Step. Huffa puffa. It's beautiful, looking up through the trunks of those old trees. No hurry. It's raining, of course.

This goes on awhile that would seem long if there was hurry, anything better to do, anything better period. The body cries but comes alive.

Eventually that old body breaks over the top: level ground! It's raining, of course. There is a sort of trail, evidence of others' passage, which now meanders around the contours of a couple knolls, still in trees, old supine trees, colorful little marshes and skunk cabbages and rock outcroppings, patches of snow. Bitching knee but no huffa puffa.

Pete has stopped forging ahead where the trail goes straight up again, a slope of heather. No, Pete, over here you head down the gully to traverse this headland into the lake's outfall. But that goes down! Yes, you go down. But that can't be! It is.

Pete prevails. We go up. Huffa puffa. Straight up. Probably another thousand feet, this above timberline in heather and scrubby little trees, not much to hang onto, leaning on the RockWacker. Getting late now, step, step, huffa puffa, patches of snow. The knee is beyond protest, has begun a sullen nag. It's beautiful, even though it's raining, of course.

At last, this little saddle. On the other side the terrain goes straight down again. To where the lake is. We melt snow, eat something. We set up our little bivouac tents which are too small and don't keep out the………it's raining, of course. It gets dark. Pete voices his objection to being wet. I'm content but not comfortable.

In the morning it's not raining. The sun comes up over high rocky ridges and snowfields. We spread out our stuff to dry and look down into the lake's basin at the purest cotton that someone has stuffed it with. It's still raining down there. We look across that basin at the other bluely bejewelled lakes, set in their rock and snow, that lie in hanging valleys above the big one and supply it with waterfalls. Beyond those lakes the peak of SnowKing rises rocky from its glaciers. It's beautiful.

We probe along the ridge, looking for a way down. It's all cliffs. Probably if we traversed around the ridge it would drop us into those higher lakes, but we're bound for Found. Reluctantly we head back the way we came, not quite as straight down.

The knee really doesn't like this. I slide on my ass where possible, using the RockWacker as rudder, occasionally getting out of control and speeding over heathered bumps. If I start tumbling I'll break something. I don't.

Then we descend into that gully, more down but a semblance of trail that even does some switching back. Pete forges ahead while I lag, nursing the knee. He can't believe we have to do all this down after all that up. I stop a lot, looking around. No hurry. It's beautiful.

As the wise man predicted, the trail levels out and traverses, turns, turns around that vertical headland and hello Found Lake. By the time I arrive Pete has two perfect dinner trout in the pan ready to go. The sun shines. The lake shimmers. Distant water and rock falls resound. Lakeside cliffs form the cathedral. SnowKing peeks over them. My body is beat to shit, but the misdirection blessed us with morning sun and a spectacular panorama. I'm so happy I could cry. The last time I was here I was sure I'd never see it again. But I'm quiet. I would never confess to prayer; as for gratitude, I'm guilty.

"You weren't exaggerating," says Pete, "That is one asskicker."

Yes, and I made it and I'm here. "Take my picture."

More drying out of stuff. The brush is blossoming bloomers and such. Pete has packed in a little inflatable boat, impossible to enter without overturning or filling it but I do. I paddle off, a concerned-looking brother hovering like a guardian angel at the shore.

With the fishing rod along as an excuse, and relatively frequent fish hooking on and interrupting the purpose, I tour the lake, past the little island that guards the center of the hourglass, along the boulderfalls we had elected not to descend, bobbing just off springs burbling through bansai'd bemossed and belichened boulders, waterfalls large and small. White clouds cruise around, moving shadows across the surroundings; the lake changes colors with the sky.

These places speak, more like sing, a soaring high delicate ring of gentle distant roaring and trickly slap-happy counterpoint, with the occasional crack and rumble for emphasis. It is the sound of big. The occasional marmot whistles into the mix.

A night sleeping here plants something wordless. It's to be trusted.

It was hard to leave so we didn't until too late. On the way out, the body pretty much quit. No point in stepping down onto the knee, it won't hold. Once again on my ass, sliding, crabwalking, leaning on the RockWacker. It got dark. I got off the way.

This goes on awhile that would seem long if there was hurry, anything better to do, anything better period. The body cries but comes alive.

Pete, however, worries. He leaves his pack at the road and comes back up looking for me. Following his voice, I make my way across a treacherous fall of logs and back onto the path. He takes my pack and we grope our slow way out, crawling like tornado victims from the brush onto the road, where there is sky.

The rest should be a piece of cake, but isn't. I shuffle along like a stroke victim until I come to a little stick across the road. I stand there staring at it head down like a run out old mule until finally rousing myself, lift one foot six inches off the ground and painfully set it a foot away on the other side, teetering precariously the while, needing the stick.

This goes on awhile that would seem long if there was hurry, anything better to do, anything better period. The body cries but comes alive.

"Take my picture."

The purpose of that photo is to remind me not to make another attempt, but it’s not working. I’ll go again and alone when I feel no need to come back out.