The great volcano of Mt. Rainier loomed as heavily in my mind as it loomed over the city of Seattle. If I was going to climb the mountain next week, I’d better get used to exerting myself at altitude.
After hitchhiking from the Lost Coast back to my Jeep, I drove past the massive forest fires of Northern California into the lava fields north of Crater Lake in Oregon. My exercise regimen would begin in the middle of the sprawling Cascade Range, whose volcanoes have been sporadically erupting and gaining mass over the last thirty-seven million years. None of Oregon’s peaks reached the lofty heights of other colossal Cascade summits like Mt. Rainier or Mt. Shasta, but several hovered around the ten-thousand-foot mark, and these would serve to get me into shape, starting with Mt. Thielsen – the “Lightning Rod of the Cascades”.
Thielsen certainly possessed a spire capable of attracting lightning. The pinnacle was a remnant from the hardened core of a volcano that formed 300,000 years ago. Over the course of several ice ages, glaciers ground away at the mountain’s slopes, eroding the softer material. But since the central plug was made of harder basalt, parts of it survived.
This wouldn’t be my first attempt to climb Mt. Thielsen. On a previous adventure, mosquitos and debris from a windstorm had forced me to turn back. I still wasn’t sure if I would make it to the very top this time; I figured I would decide once I reached Chicken Point – a landing just below the summit where most reasonable minds chose to turn back.
First I had to scale the lower slopes, made from pumice and hardened ash left over from when nearby Mount Mazama exploded and formed Crater Lake. I had plenty of company along the trail at first, but the steepness began to increase exponentially and most of the other climbers dropped back. Soon, my only companions were three hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail who had ditched their backpacks to make the detour to the summit.
Once above treeline, the plume of smoke from the National Creek Fire Complex came into view. Firefighters had been battling the blaze since a lightning bolt brought it into existence ten days earlier. I wished them luck so they wouldn’t endanger themselves, but in truth, I felt rather ambivalent about their efforts. Fire has always brought diversity to the natural landscape. Seeds blow in from other lands, colonize the enriched soil, and in time, the forest renews itself.
While hitchhiking from the Lost Coast, I had heard many opinions about the role of government in fire suppression. One libertarian driver believed that the only fires that got out of control and caused widespread devastation were the “prescribed burns” set deliberately by the authorities to reduce fuel loads. He thought the feds were incompetent and should turn over public lands to private owners, who would be better stewards. Another driver was glad to have the forests protected by government, since unregulated logging by private companies had caused the streams in the King Range to be clogged with sediment and debris. A third man hinted that some fires were purposely set to divert the rangers’ attention when illegal marijuana groves were ready for harvest.
The rationale behind fire suppression efforts can be traced back to the beginning of the 20th Century. President Theodore Roosevelt and his chief forester Gifford Pinchot created the National Forests in order to slow the relentless transfer of public lands to the ownership of timber and railroad tycoons. These forests were meant to be protected from exploitation, but members of Congress with ties to extractive industries contrived to starve the Forest Service of funding.
It took a massive forest fire the size of Connecticut in 1910 for the political climate to shift. Gifford Pinchot had to suppress the principles of scientific reason and claim that his rangers could eliminate fire from the Western landscape if they were given proper funding. Of course, the Forest Service could never really stop major fires from happening, even with hundreds of mountaintop fire towers and their infamous Smokey the Bear ad campaign. They could only delay them for a time, allowing fuels to build up and making future fires hotter and more uncontrollable. By the 1990s, the results of the suppression policy had become obvious, and fires within National Forests and National Parks have subsequently been allowed to burn on a case-by-case basis.
Luckily, no thunderstorms were brewing today. I didn’t need the “Lightning Rod of the Cascades” to live up to its name, by any means, and I would soon have enough to deal with on Mt. Thielsen without having to outrun a lightning-sparked forest fire. After much exertion and many breaks to catch my breath, I reached Chicken Point and assessed the remaining distance. Only the tilted, eighty-foot spire remained - the literal thorn in my climbing ambitions. Reaching the top wouldn’t require just one or two difficult Class 4 or 5 moves… it was all obnoxiously difficult – a flat expanse of unrelenting awfulness. In my favor, the rock was made of solid material. Loose handholds wouldn’t be a problem, although slippery palms might very well do me in. I was no chicken. But how stupid did I want to be about this?
