ABC Wednesday-U

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for ABC Wednesday

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U was hard for me. The other day I said to my hubby, "I know what I will do for U. Upsit Creek." Somehow that didn't ring right, and I remembered that it is Ipsut Creek.

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So I realized that I would fall back on two Us that are always available.

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The first of these is Under.

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It is exciting to watch to see what is under things around you as you hike at Mt. Rainier, or anywhere.

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Like these mushrooms growing under a bit of grass along the Rampart Ridge trail in August last year.

Or the Ohanapecosh River rushing under this footbridge. You really have to watch what's under your feet here.

And sometimes you have to hike under a leaning tree, such as this one that was on the Grove of the Patriarchs trail last November.

Early last July we did a bit of shoveling on a bridge near Shadow Lake...

...to reveal that in this particular spot under the snow was the bridge. There was concern that hikers not knowing exactly where the bridge was were crossing where the only thing under a crust of snow each side of it was the creek.


U is also for UP.

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When in the Old Growth Forest at Ohanapecosh it's not hard to find a reason to look up.

Here on the Frying Pan Creek trail last October we hiked a long way up.

The fog was hovering over this peak (from looking at the map, I think it is Eagle Peak) near Cougar Rock Campground the other day. It would be quite a hike to go up that. There is a trail that goes up around the other side of it. On the map it shows a lot of switchbacks to get up there, and it doesn't go to the top.

Here we were looking up toward Little Tahoma Peak. I found the elevation of that since I featured it last week for T. It is 11138 feet (3395 m) and considered on its own would be the third highest in Washington.

But the ultimate Up is the mountain itself. Mt. Rainier. At 14,410 feet, it is only about 80 feet short of California's Mt. Whitney, which is the highest in the 48 contiguous states. (Alaska has several that are higher.)

So would you climb up that mountain? Many do. Some ten thousand a year attempt and about half complete the climb. When I was much younger, I didn't even consider it as my fear of heights would have paralyzed me. Now, that fear of heights does not bother me as much, but at my age, I think I will stay where I can look up.

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Once, while hiking as National Park Volunteers, we visited on the trail with a couple who told us their story of climbing the peak 36 years earlier along with their two oldest children. After we parted, by the time we put the arithmetic together to decide that they must now be well into their seventies, we looked after them and saw that they were far out of sight up the trail.

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So there you are. Don't forget to look under and up.