Trekking to Renjo La

The Yak & Yeti isn't your typical Kathmandu hostelry. It's a palatial hotel, at least by local standards, set amongst beautifully landscaped grounds -- a Western oasis separated by only thin hedges from the surrounding noise and grit of central Kathmandu. Pascal and I were more than ready to embrace Nepali life, but it was perhaps appropriate that, at this early moment of transition, we met our fellow trekkers at the Yak & Yeti.

There was Anne, a rheumatologist from Kansas; her son Tom, a college graduate working in Kansas as a bartender during these times of bad unemployment; and her brother Bill, a very early retiree who lives in California. There were also David, a civil engineer from the Seattle suburb of Bainbridge Island, and his wife Caroline, an artist. We met as seven strangers, but would soon know each other's strengths and foibles more intimately than those of many long time friends. And there was Lhakpa, our Sherpa guide, who knows the Khumbu area of Nepal like the back of his hand, as well as the names and faces of virtually everyone living there.

We had a day in Kathmandu before the trek to get acquainted -- some Hindu cremations beside the river, a Buddhist stupa, pizza in Thamel, the trekker's paradise that is central Kathmandu. Some of us realized we weren't in Kansas anymore! As it were.

I had duplicated significant portions of the trek in 1995, but sixteen years can be a long time in this part of the world. Physically, there has been little change, but the Sherpa people seem better off, better dressed, more familiar with the outside world. Nowadays, the cell phone is ubiquitous. Also, the number of Western trekkers must be at least ten times what it was in 1995. Our trek was early enough in the season to beat most of the crowds, but two weeks later, as we came down from the mountains, we met virtual hordes moving up the trails -- hordes that, at lower elevations, created literal traffic jams.

But once above Namche Bazaar, we were back in a lightly populated, spiritually intense world that has changed little over the centuries since the Sherpa people first migrated here from Tibet. Tibetan Buddhist rituals continue unchanged at monasteries and in villages. Trails pass on either side of manis and chortens -- monuments that must always be passed on the left, even when doing so increases the difficulty of passage. Juniper branches burn in the morning in tiny shrines, offering their pungent fumes to heaven. Lachpa tells us stories along the trails of strange happenings, whether centuries ago or just last year -- encounters with yetis, place names based on a pregnant woman's unsuccessful attempt to find help for a difficult child birth, zombies. Yep, zombies.

Do you know why the doors in Sherpa houses are so low? For protection. Because zombies are unable to bend down when they try to enter. Zombies in the Himalayas. Lachpa tells stories of a lama who ordered the inhabitants of an entire village burned to death because of a zombie "infestation."

Does Lachpa -- an educated and worldly man -- really believe his own stories? We can't tell. Cognitive dissonance? Maybe.

Above Tengboche Monastery (12,664 ft.) we begin following the Dudh Kosi river upstream toward its source. This is all new country to me. The trail, on the east side of the river, is one rarely used by trekkers. We walk for hours without encountering another Westerner. The third day above Tengboche, we cross the river to the western bank. But not by a bridge. The river is now a broad glacier, covered by glacial till, and we cross it gingerly, climbing up and down, reflecting the 15,000 elevation in our gasps for breath. Ahead, to the north, Cho Oyu -- world's sixth highest mountain -- beckons us on. Keep at it, guys, he says. I'm worth seeing.

Having crossed the glacier, we arrive at the tiny trekker's hamlet of Gokyo (15,580 ft.), in the shadow of Cho Oyu. We spend two nights at Gokyo, acclimatizing. During our "rest day," we climb an adjacent hill, Gokyo Ri, a relentless zigzag up a barren slope to the summit at 17,990 ft. It ain't an easy climb, but the view from the top is incredible. Everest is in front of us, together with Lhotse (world's fourth highest peak). To the right, and in the distance, is Makalu. To the left of Everest is Pumori, from whose lower slopes -- the hill of Kalapatar -- Denny and I viewed Everest in 1995.

Denny and I climbed above 18,000 ft. to reach Kalapatar. Pascal has never been that high. Gokyo Ri is just ten feet under 18,000. Pascal is 6'2". He raises his hand. He leaps. His hand arguably pierces the 18,000 barrier. A personal best!

The following day, we climb to 16,700 feet -- Renjo La base camp -- where we sleep at the highest elevation at which I've ever spent a night. A beautiful camp site. We watch Everest and Lhotse glow in the sunset, and keep watching until the last beams of sunset die from the very tip of Everest. Hard to explain now that I'm back in Seattle, but it was a transcendent moment.

From the base camp, we "scampered" (yeah, sure!) over Renjo La (17,880 ft.), lingering in a small area at the pass from which we gazed at a reprise of the view from Gokyo Ri -- our final close-up view of Everest before descending steeply the western side of the pass into a new valley system with new and unfamiliar snowclad peaks. Once past Renjo La, we were definitely on our way home. It was all downhill, so to speak, to the monastery town of Thame, and then on down to Namche Bazaar, completing our loop. After a night in Namche, we trekked in a single day the entire path back down to the end of the trail at Lukla, from which we flew back to Kathmandu in our tiny and seemingly insubstantial Twin Otter.

My re-visit to the Khumbu was a richly rewarding experience, giving me perspectives on the area that I'd not experienced before. Traveling with a good friend, and meeting one of the most enjoyable group of fellow hikers I've ever trekked with. Lots of laughs, lots of political and economic discussions, interminable gin rummy tournaments at every altitude. We finally found ourselves back at the Yak & Yeti, eager to get back to our homes and families, but reluctant to separate from the like souls we'd grown so close to over a three week period.

The weather had been perfect. It had been raining in Kathmandu -- delayed monsoon -- up until the day we arrived. After we returned to Kathmandu, we learned that it had started snowing -- snowing! -- up at Namche. We trekked in a window of ideal weather. The gods had been kind to us. We must have displayed plenty of good karma.

And -- thank god -- we never did have a run-in with the zombies! It's good to be home, but I sure hope to return.

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To view 40 photographs of the trek that I've posted on Facebook, click here.

Don't go away, folks

And all that he could see,
And all that he could see,
Was the other side of the mountain,
The other side of the mountain,
The other side of the mountain,
Was all that he could see.

Our abject apologies to our readers. The Northwest Corner will not be found on your favorite news stands for the next three weeks or so. We have no rational excuse for this temporary shut-down, other than the fact that our Publisher has once more been seized with the compulsion to go over the mountain, to see what he can see. This happens on occasion. He returns to Seattle each time with noticeably fewer brain cells -- the result of totally predictable hypoxia.

Nevertheless we wish him well, and we look forward to rejoining Time, Newsweek, and National Enquirer in late October as a premier source of the nation's news and commentary.

With Francis in Nepal

Trekking in the Khumbu region of the Himalayas is about stunning scenery. And, with almost all of the trek taking place above 12,000 feet, it's about challenging hiking. But it's also about exposure to a foreign culture, the Tibetan Buddhism of the Sherpa people.

The Sherpas, originally from Tibet, belong to the Nyingmapa sect of Tibetan Buddhism. This sect emphasizes mysticism and -- contrary to most Westerners' concept of Buddhism -- has adopted many ceremonies, gods and demons from Bön, the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet. Among the deities worshipped by the Sherpas are ones similar to the minor deities worshipped by the common people in ancient Rome and Greece -- local gods of mountains, streams, forests, and caves.

After a couple of days in Kathmandu (a predominantly Hindu city), we begin our actual trek on October 4 -- coincidentally, the date on which Christians honor the life of St. Francis of Assisi.

St. Francis was a fairly sophisticated man for his time and place, but his time and place were early thirteenth century Italy. I suspect, therefore, that he would have been appalled if he had ever encountered the religious practices of the Sherpas. And the dramatic representations of gods and demons in Khumbu monasteries would have seemed Satanic.

But Francis was also a strong believer in the brotherhood of all men, not merely of all Christians. He visited the Sultan of Egypt in 1219, in an attempt to convert the Sultan to Christianity. He did not succeed, but he was received warmly and is said to have left a very favorable personal impression, a lasting favorable impression not only of himself but of his Franciscan order. He embraced poverty and simplicity. He believed that nature was the "mirror of God." He called the animals, as well as humans, his brothers and sisters.

I suspect, therefore, that he would have found much to admire in the Sherpa people, and much to respect in the spiritual values of Tibetan Buddhism and the manner in which it affects the lives of its adherents -- although not, of course, in its actual beliefs and practices. He would have sensed his kinship with monasteries that pray for the happiness of "all sentient beings."

St. Francis never wavered in his devotion to Christianity, but he sought out the good in all people. I can easily imagine his joining us, trudging along the trail beside us, ever interested in the lives and scenes he saw about him. Perhaps surprising one of the local monks by sitting down beside him with his own begging bowl, enjoying together a simple meal of dal bhat.

I'll keep him in mind next Tuesday as I begin my trek.

Back to campus

Class began today at the University of Washington. And, right on schedule, the Northwest's month-long drought splashed itself to an end. The rain poured down pretty much all day.

I wandered across campus in late afternoon, one of a few final days of fast walking I'm giving myself before leaving town Friday for my trek. All seemed calm and quiet.

Quiet as far as unusual activity went, I mean; but not devoid of noise. As my purposeful strides drew me closer to Red Square -- the heart of the campus -- I was practically knocked out of my hiking shoes by blasts of amplified sound. Whoever organizes such things had chosen to welcome students back with a performance by Macklemore, a Seattle hip hop performer. No complaints about the music itself, but the decibel level would bring tears of joy to an audiologist as he calculates the increased demand for hearing devices another forty years down the pike.

I also encountered a number of sadly scruffy figures shuffling about campus, gentlemen well past the average age of matriculation and seemingly carrying all their possessions on their backs. Some of the homeless have migrated to the U District from downtown in recent years. They may dimly recall having heard that students are more laid back than the general population, more welcoming, cheerfully communal with their possessions and cash. If so, I fear their arrival on campus comes a decade or so too late.

My take on today's UW students is that they are the product of much higher admissions standards; of a general increase in competitiveness within the student population; and of child rearing by parents who scheduled their kids' every free moment with studies and activities, an intense and active approach to life that the students have pretty well internalized. I hear a lot of articulate talk about classes, readings, problem sets, and exams. Nice kids, abstractly sympathetic to the homeless, but probably too busy to hang out with persons less motivated than themselves, let alone offer to share with them their pizzas and beer.

But then my mind returns to that crowd of young people, packed in tight around the Macklemore stage. Their faces appeared trance-like. They were waving their hands in the air. I cautiously wondered if there was some Golden Calf on the stage, something receiving their pagan worship. But this was the first day of school. Summer 2011 wasn't exactly the Summer of Love. A few kids may have been discreetly smoking a joint or two, but no clouds of incense-like smoke hovered over the crowd. No one called the Police "the Pigs," or suggested storming the Administration Building. The performance seemed politely received by students who -- behind their apparently entranced faces -- probably were half wondering where each of tomorrow's classes would be held.

Sure, it was noisy. But, I didn't really mind. As those bumper strips read: "If my radio seems too loud, you're too old." I sighed, pondering the profundity contained in that claim. I crept quietly off campus and walked quickly home.

Their man in Moscow

In our eyes, the Cold War tended to reduce the 1917 Russian Revolution to a morality play, with characters like Lenin and Trotsky marching about like cartoon villains.

The plot was thus: The Tsar was overthrown by the good revolutionaries, headed by Kerensky; the evil Bolsheviks stole the revolution and murdered all their opponents; the Western allies, appalled by the threat of World Communism, sent support to the good "White Russian" counter-revolutionaries. The tragic result was well known, and half the world map had been painted Red under a hammer and sickle.

The reality was more complex and more interesting; we in the West may now be ready to consider it more dispassionately.

The Western observer best qualified to analyze the Revolution -- by his background and training, and by his being in the right place at the right time -- was a young British diplomat named R. H. Bruce Lockhart. Lockhart was the British Vice Consul in Moscow at the outbreak of World War I, eventually assuming the role of Acting Consul-General when his immediate superior was transferred. When the Western allies failed to recognize the revolutionary governments after the fall of the Tsar in 1917, Lockhart remained in Moscow as a British agent, treated as a diplomat at times by both the British and the Soviets, but lacking diplomatic immunity. Following an assassination attempt on Lenin in 1918, critically injuring the Soviet leader, Lockhart was arrested and imprisoned awaiting trial. He was released in exchange for the release of Bolshevik detainees in Britain.

In 1932, Lockhart wrote a memoir of his years in Russia, based on his extremely detailed diaries, entitled Memoirs of a British Agent. The book became a best seller when released, and was made into a movie by Warner Bros.

Lockhart's memoir is well worth reading now, simply as his candid account of his early years as a young, personable and sociable vice consul, and for his descriptions of Russian landscapes, personalities, and pre-Revolutionary society. He became highly fluent in Russian, which gave him a significant advantage over other British diplomats, including the ambassador himself in St. Petersburg (the tsarist capital).

But even more interesting to us today are his observations of the causes and course of the March and October Revolutions. The cause of the Tsar's forced abdication, to Lockhart, was simple: the ineptitude and corruption of the tsarist government, qualities that lead to enormous Russian losses in the war, and disastrous defeats.

What it is important to realize is that from the first the revolution was a revolution of the people. From the first moment neither the Duma nor the intelligentsia had any control of the situation. Secondly, the revolution was a revolution for land, bread and peace -- but, above all, for peace. There was only one way to save Russia from going Bolshevik. That was to allow her to make peace. It was because he would not make peace that Kerensky went under. It was solely because he promised to stop the war that Lenin came to the top.

Alexander Kerensky, the Social-Revolutionary leader after the March revolution, was, for the first four months, "worshipped as a god." But he and his government made the fatal mistake of trying "to drive back to the trenches a nation that had already finished with the war."

The sole concern of the British Foreign Office throughout this period, with respect to Russia, was to keep Russia from making peace. Britain was fighting a war of attrition on the Western Front. She was desperate to keep Germany distracted by a threat on its Eastern Front. But Kerensky eventually lost the confidence of the people by his support of the war, and Lenin struck at the opportunity. ("History will not forgive us if we do not assume power!") Promising to end Russia's involvement in the war, the Bolsheviks seized control in November 1917 (by our calendar).

The British at the time did not oppose the Bolsheviks because they were Communists -- they didn't take Lenin and his party seriously, believing they were a rabble that would fall within months. (Many in the Foreign Office -- showing their total ignorance of the political situation in Russia -- suspected the Bolsheviks of being German agents.) Britain's sole concern with the revolution, again, Lockhart emphasizes, was that it not prejudice Russian status as an allied belligerent.

After the Soviets signed a separate peace with the Germans (Brest-Litovsk, Feb. 1918), Lockhart remained a lonely voice in Moscow, urgently trying to build ties between the Western allies and the new Soviet rulers. He argued that Britain had nothing to lose in maintaining correct relations with the newly neutral government, especially since its leaders showed some interest in leaning as neutrals toward the West and away from Germany. The Allies, however, since before the revolution, had troops stationed in Archangel and Murmansk to protect allied shipping, troops that they now used to occupy and control those critical Arctic ports. The Foreign Office insisted that Lockhart pressure the Soviets into permitting intervention of allied forces against the Germans, passing from those ports through Soviet territory to the German front.

While Lockhart attempted to deal with Trotsky (at that point, his primary Soviet contact), the Allies were secretly planning to intervene in Russia, with or without Soviet permission. Lockhart's reasonably friendly personal relations with the Soviet leaders faded as suspicions grew as to Allied intentions and, therefore, as to his own integrity. The planned Allied intervention was wholly unsuccessful, the number of forces committed to the action being ludicrously small. In the summer of 1918, the assassination of Lenin was attempted, almost costing him his life. Lockhart and other foreign nationals were arrested, and "the Terror" against suspected opponents of the government was underway, a campaign conducted in direct retribution for the shooting.

The unfolding in Russia of these threatening and historic developments, described against the background of Lockhart's personal life and his rapidly deteriorating relations with his own Foreign Office, makes gripping reading. His observations of many of the well known Russian and Bolshevik leaders¹ -- such as this description of the contrasting personalities of Lenin and Trotsky -- are perceptive:

Trotsky was all temperament -- an individualist and an artist, on whose vanity even I could play with some success. Lenin was impersonal and almost inhuman. His vanity was proof against all flattery. The only appeal that one could make to him was to his sense of humour, which, if sardonic, was highly developed. ... Trotsky was a great organizer and a man of immense physical courage. But morally, he was as incapable of standing against Lenin as a flea would be against an elephant.

When Lockhart returned to Britain at the age of 31, after being released from Soviet detention, he had virtually no allies left in the Foreign Office. Playing Cassandra is no way to make friends among your superiors, especially when your views and advice have been proved correct in virtually all respects and your powerful superiors' obstinancy and blunders have resulted in disastrous consequences for your nation.

Lockhart performed occasional services for the British government during his remaining years -- but his career in the foreign service was ruined and finished. He had been sentenced, in absentia, to death in Russia. He could never return to the country he loved, in which he had spent the most exciting and productive years of his life, and in which he had left behind many friends. He died in 1970 at the age of 83.
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¹Also perceptive are his portraits of Allied, including American, officials. Although American troops did contribute to the joint occupation of the Arctic ports, America in general played little part in the Russian drama during the time Lockhart was there. In general, the Soviet leaders were less hostile to the Americans than they were to the British, French and Italians. Lockhart describes the American ambassador, David R. Francis:

He was a kind, old gentleman, who was susceptible to flattery and swallowed any amount of it. His knowledge of anything beyond banking and poker was severely limited. He had a traveling spittoon -- a contraption with a pedal -- which he took with him everywhere. When he wished to emphasize a point, bang would go the pedal, followed by a well-aimed expectoration.

Nature's beauty

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower ...
--Blake

That photograph of the Himalayas that I added to yesterday's posting keeps drawing me back. It reminds me of something that I'm apt to forget, sitting here at home -- how incredibly beautiful are the Himalayas, how overpowering their presence when they surround you.

This sensation of being overawed by natural beauty can be almost religious in its intensity. It's easy to understand how pagans, experiencing this ecstasy in the wilderness, were led to believe in great unseen gods living atop their mountains. Christian theologians suggest that the beauty of nature is a pale reflection of the beauty of God himself, our souls' foretaste of heaven.

And yet, when you try to analyze the experience, it tends to evaporate. What are these mountains? Just protuberances of the earth's crust, either uplifted by tectonic collisions, like the Himalayas, or by volcanic action, like Mt. Rainier -- protuberances covered by layers of water in its opaque, solid phase. Interesting scientifically, certainly, but why "beautiful"? Why "awe-inspiring"? Whence this feeling of being so moved, at times, that you feel almost heartbroken?

The beauty is not inherent in the mountains themselves, is it? It somehow exists within our brains. But our brains evolved through natural selection. What was the evolutionary value of developing a sense of beauty? Does aesthetic appreciation help us seek food or avoid danger? Does it help us attract mates and reproduce? Not so far as we can tell.

Some anthropologists have noted that we feel happiest either when we are in an enclosed "cozy" space, or when we are somewhere above our surroundings, some place with a great "view." These sensations, they suggest, may just be displacements of our evolved instincts to find a safe cave and to seek out a viewpoint where we could observe available game and threats from predators. But these familiar but mild sensations -- the comfort of a happy evening at home by the fire, the pleasure of a great view from your living room window -- aren't really what I'm talking about.

Some scientists say that our emotional response to various phenomena of nature --"beautiful!" "awe-inspiring!" -- may be nothing more than useless neurological artifacts left over from the evolution of other, more useful instincts -- perhaps the search for a cave and a view, discussed above, or perhaps qualities related to sexual attraction. They are thus "accidental" parts of our emotional equipment, misfirings of our neurological systems, enjoyable but meaningless from an evolutionary perspective. (Similarly, some scientists suggest that even our sensation of being conscious and self-aware is evolutionarily accidental and meaningless.)

We have no definitive answers. All we know is that beauty is indeed in the eye (brain!) of the beholder, but that we all seem wired to see beauty in similar phenomena -- in high snowy mountains, in wild places, in deep lakes, in waterfalls, in starry skies. It's a mystery, but a mystery that adds much to our human lives.

Into thin air

It seems like just yesterday that I was exclaming, "Only three more months!" And now, Pascal and I are only twelve days from flying from the West Coast -- Pascal from San Francisco and I from Seattle -- and converging at Seoul, whence we fly together to Bangkok. A short night's sleep in an airport hotel in Bangkok, and then a morning flight to Kathmandu.

Total flight time of 20½ hours, with a one-hour layover in Seoul and about twelve hours overnight in Bangkok. We'll step off the plane in Nepal with dazed and weary grins on our faces, eager to meet our five fellow hikers.

I've done enough of these treks that you'd think I'd have all the equipment I'd ever need. But the equipment lists we're provided always come up with new items, and stuff I already own gets worn out, out-dated, or -- most often -- misplaced. I found myself wandering around REI yesterday with a shopping list in one hand and a shopping basket in the other, busily increasing the size of the co-op rebate I'll receive next spring. (Pollyanna me, always focused on the silver lining!)

I'm now pretty well set to go. It's just a matter of squeezing everything into my duffel, and making sure I don't exceed the maximum allowed weight.

The itinerary has changed slightly since we first signed up for the trip. We now plan to trek the same route that Denny and I followed in 1995 as far as Tengboche monastery (12,867 ft.), instead of branching off at Namche Bazaar (11,286 ft.). From Tengboche, we'll diverge from the Everest base camp trail and head northwest toward the Gokyo valley.

I would have preferred the original route, because it would have eliminated one day of duplication with my earlier trek, but the trail to Tengboche is very scenic, and it does give Pascal a chance to see the rather impressive monastery. We camped in a tent on the monastery grounds in 1995, and it was awe-inspiring to be awakened at sunrise by the blowing of extremely deep horns, the pounding of drums, and the eerie chanting of the monks. I'd never known my teenaged nephew to jump out of bed and get dressed so fast -- without being ordered or urged to do so! We rushed over to the monastery to see what we could see.

The weather forecast for Kathmandu for the next ten days calls for daily thundershowers. We'll be arriving in Nepal at the tail-end of the summer monsoon. I'm hoping for dry weather by the time we're on the trail. Pascal and I ran into one day of heavy rain at exactly this same time of year -- two years ago on the Annapurna trail -- when the monsoon was abnormally prolonged. But even on that trip, most days were dry and sunny.

As usual, at this point before a trip departure, I'm excited and trying to keep myself from obsessing over various things that might go wrong. I've been trying to keep well exercised, without somehow spraining an ankle. I remember a bike trip I was on once. We were missing one poor guy, a dedicated soul who had religiously maintained his daily bicycling regimen as long as possible. He crashed and broke his hip the week before he was due to fly out of Seattle.

And on that happy note, I'll say a small prayer for my own safety! Readers of this blog will hear all they ever wanted to know -- and more! -- about my experiences after my return in late October.
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Photo: Tengboche monastery (stock photo). Click on the photo for an impressive close-up view.

Take me out to the hot dog stand

I never learn. Back in March, a friend who buys Mariners' season's tickets each year once again gave me a chance to buy in for a few games. Wow, I thought (as I'd thought so many times in the past): a home game against the Yankees in September. Two division leaders showing us a preview of the play-offs! Or, at worst, a battle for the wild card.

Last night was the game. Pat M. and I walked to the stadium from downtown. The Yanks had carried out their side of my plans, holding a nice four-game lead over Boston. The Mariners? Uh oh. Not so much. A 62-86 season to date, and lolling about comfortably in the division cellar.

Again. For another year. The crowd was underwhelming (see inset).

Make that record 62-87, because they lost again last night, 3-2. But, I have to admit, it was an interesting game, as the score suggests. The game wasn't lost until Ichiro was picked off stealing second, with two out in the ninth inning.

But there's more to baseball than the score. Or, in fact, more than the play on the field. In terms of square footage, I'd guess that as much space is allotted to the concourses running around the exterior of the stadium, including the dozens of concession stands, as is to the seating itself.

And, like the kid I am, I gave as much thought to what was available out in the concourse as I did to the game itself. My own personal score card for the game: Start of the first inning -- jumbo dog with sauerkraut and condiments, bag of Fritos and coke. End of third -- soothing draft of IPA. End of sixth -- cup of tiny ice cream balls, mint chocolate. (I passed up the opportunity offered by vendors to buy my choice of pink or blue cotton candy.) I have, in fact, eaten more steadily throughout games in the past, but Pat was restraining himself last night putting some brakes on my own dreams of gluttony.

In my near future, no doubt: a Lipitor prescription.

My second and final game of the season. Not like the old days, when I might go a half dozen times a year. Baseball's a great game. But for a fair-weather fan like myself, twice a year is about all I can persuade myself to attend, so long as the team's sporting a 62-87 record. C'mon guys. You don't even have to get into the play-offs, but you've got to give us fans some reason to keep up our hopes right down to the end of the season.

But, as an excuse to eat all that great junk food that I'd never be seen eating "in real life," the night was a treat and complete success.

It means "Stop." Period.

Government is Evil.

Those words have come to be America's mantra during this past decade. Not only is government evil when it oppresses other nations by an aggressive military policy, or when it oppresses citizens at home by invading their civil liberties, as liberals have always argued. Conservatives now claim that it's evil when it seeks to tax anybody at all, including the wealthy; when it implements public efforts to help the poor; when it tries merely to fund and maintain long existing and until now widely accepted governmental programs.

And now, it appears, it's evil even when it simply tries to enforce traffic laws.

Communities all over the nation have adopted modern camera technology to catch and fine drivers who speed and run red lights. The camera does what a cop would do if we had enough of them to watch over every intersection.

Many citizens are enraged.

In my home town, Josh Sutinen -- a seventeen-year-old who had only recently obtained his own driver's license -- successfully gathered enough voter signatures last spring to put the city's camera program to a referendum vote in November.

"These cameras are really just another big government attack on our rights," Sutinen said in an interview. "It's just taxation through citation."

The young man is enthusiastic and idealistic. I admire his interest in public affairs. But the question that comes to my mind is, exactly which "rights" is the government "attacking"?

The right to run a red light? The right to violate speed limits? The right of drivers to have a sporting chance of getting away with it when they don't see any cops around?

Frankly, I don't get it. In August, the local superior court ruled most of the referendum off the ballot, holding that repeal of traffic laws was not a proper use of referenda under state law. All that's left of the referendum is some sort of advisory vote on the issue. But similar binding measures remain on the ballot in at least two other Washington cities.

The town's mayor admits that he hadn't been all that enthusiastic about the use of cameras until he heard complaints from citizens about numerous speeding and red light violations.

The city began a one-year trial of the cameras this year, and Mayor Kurt Anagnostou said the program has made people more aware at intersections.

Sutinen is certainly aware. He avoids the traffic cameras at all costs, taking detours that extend his three-mile commute to five. Even before he had a driver's license, Sutinen said he hated the idea of the cameras and sought help from Eyman, who provided the initiative's wording.

Tim Eyman is a gentleman, notorious across the state, who has made the sponsoring of initiatives and referenda in Washington his profitable life's work. He has used the procedures to fight every tax and fee levied by state or local government, bringing the state to the point of budgetary crisis.

If it's illegal to run a red light, it's illegal regardless of whether a police officer catches you. If it's illegal to make a right turn on a red light without first coming to a full stop, it's illegal even if it's only a camera that observes your violation. If it's illegal, and you did it, I fail to see the difference between being caught by a police officer or being caught by a camera. In fact, the camera would generally be the more reliable witness.

The fact that it's profitable for the city to fine violators -- one of the battle cries of those opposing camera enforcement -- hardly seems relevant. We aren't talking about concealed speed traps. The location of cameras is announced by signage. The objective of the cameras and the announcement of their presence is to deter violations, not to profit from them.

If after paying the expenses of the program, the city still makes a profit from the fines -- so what? It's an ideal tax, from the taxpayer's perspective. You don't have to pay it. Just stop at red lights. And don't gun the engine when you see the light ahead of you turn yellow.

I've come close to being broadsided by an idiot who apparently thought red lights were advisory rather than mandatory, and who then failed to see my car approaching. Anything the government can do to deter and punish these idiots has my full support.

I offer my best wishes to the teenager who started the petition drive. He's clearly a great kid, no slacker, who has a lot of initiative (pun unintended) and enthusiasm. I hope he finds better projects in the future in which to pour his energy.
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Quotations taken from tdn.com

Dirty Harry's Balcony

I sat on Dirty Harry's Balcony, and gazed down at the twin ribbons of I-90 as it headed toward Snoqualmie Pass.

No, not that "Dirty Harry," of course. Dirty Harry's the name given to a gyppo logger named Harry Gault, a guy famous in his day for building logging roads no one else would attempt and hauling out the timber. The name wasn't entirely a compliment, I gather.

As I sat here on his balcony -- a rocky ledge hanging over the valley -- this morning, I vowed to learn more about the gentleman as soon as I returned home. My own, barely-remembered grandfather was also a gyppo logger in his prime -- go in, throw up a sawmill, cut 'em down, haul 'em out, shut down the mill and get the hell out, leaving scalped hills and stump-littered meadows behind. In the course of his lifetime, he made and lost fortunes several times over. Unfortunately, like a Las Vegas gambler, he never quit while he was ahead.

I'm sure he would have rolled his eyes and splashed down a shot of bourbon if he'd known his eldest grandson would grow up to be a Sierra Club tree hugger.

Unfortunately, there isn't much to learn about Dirty Harry on-line. His story is told in passing by a number guidebooks and articles describing the hike to Dirty Harry's Peak. But they all seem to rely on each other as source material. I'm not even sure when Harry did his dirty work -- the source that sounds the most authoritative simply says that he logged the area "several decades ago." The lower part of the trail is now shaded by fairly mature second growth fir and cedar, so it's been a while since it was logged. The higher you hike, the more alder you encounter, suggesting that the higher areas were logged recently enough that evergreens have not yet taken over.

The trail today -- which is what has evolved from Harry's logging road -- forces some grudging respect for his efforts. During much of its length, it resembles nothing so much as a dry, rock-strewn creek bed, just waiting for the first rain to turn it into a raging torrent. The footing is difficult and the hiking is steep.

I climbed up to the "balcony," from which I took the photo above, and then another mile up the trail to Museum Creek. The creek is named after "Dirty Harry's Museum" -- the rusting remains of a large amount of logging equipment, including an entire logging truck. It's all back there in the forest somewhere, the hiking guides assure us, but they add that it is disappearing into the vegetation (like Angkor Wat, I suppose), and that many hikers waste a lot of time looking for it unsuccessfully. I admit, I didn't bother.

It would have been another mile horizontally and 2200 feet vertically from Museum Creed to Dirty Harry's Peak, but I called the creek my destination. My guidebook says that the peak is a high point on a forested ridge. It's difficult for a hiker to know when he's actually on the peak, and there's no panoramic view to reward his exertions. I'd had both my view of the valley and my history lesson. I was ready to pick my way back down the boulder field they call a "trail."

If Harry actually ever sat gazing out from his balcony -- I gather he wasn't much one for introspection and aesthetic appreciation -- his view would have been different from the multi-lane freeway that dominates the view today . Until the interstate highway system was built, cars followed the same route on a simple two-lane road (U.S. 10) through the Snoqualmie Valley and up over Snoqualmie Pass.

Going back to territorial days, the first wagon route was completed over the pass in 1867. Most passengers and freight crossed the pass by railroad, once the Northern Pacific finished tunneling and laying track in 1883, Apparently, some intrepid soul actually drove an automobile over the pass, using the rutted wagon road, in 1905. In 1915, the state constructed the "Sunset Highway" through the valley and over the pass, designated officially as State Highway 2. It became part of the U.S. Highway system, as U.S. 10, in 1926.

Under whichever name it was called, the road was slow, and eventually made slower by installation of traffic lights in the valley towns through which it passed, until I-90 was completed.

I'm not sure what Harry would think now, sitting on his balcony and watching the flow of traffic below. As long as he could get at those trees with his equipment, he probably wouldn't give a damn.
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Photos, top to bottom:
Snoqualmie Valley and I-90 from Dirty Harry's Balcony
Sunset Highway, piercing the valley's then-dense forests, ca. 1915
Sunset Highway, switchbacks going over Snoqualmie Pass, ca. 1915

Bak 2 skul

I strolled over to University Village around noon, basking in the mid-day sun as I walked, so I could pick up a book describing local hiking trails. (I have several such books already, but they tend to go out of date as fast as you can shout, "Forest clear cut!) I noticed something different, as I did so. No kids.

Nope, today's the first day of school. And I'm sure the bitter irony has not escaped notice by the young scholars.

As whiny earlier posts noted, Seattle was having a year without a summer. Actually, this is our second straight year with a sub-standard summer. But during the second half of August, the gods began to relent. The sun's been shining, the temperature's been hitting 80 most days, my lawn's all dried up. It's been beautiful.

When we get good weather from late August through September, it's a special treat. The sun may be blazing, but not with a white heat; it lights up the scenery with an autumnal golden glow, as it moves farther each day to the south. Even when the temperatures reaches the low 80's, and the sun feels hot upon my skin, the air feels slightly cooler and less humid than it would have earlier in the summer. The temperature drops into the low 50's each night, even after a very warm day, so my bedroom's comfortable while I sleep. There's a pleasant chill to the air when I get up in the morning.

A chill that's agreeable, because I see the sun coming up and know it's going to be another great, warm, sunny day. It's a morning chill that doesn't preclude my donning shorts and a t-shirt in anticipation of the day to come.

Which brings us back to the students. Their school vacation is ending after nearly three months, of which only the last couple of weeks was anything like proper summer weather. They trudge off to school as the hot sun rises in the sky. They see the ten-day forecast in the newspaper, with a bright yellow sun marking each coming day. And they feel cheated.

And they may well be. I've always wondered why schools in the Northwest don't close from July through September. June is usually rainy around here; September is usually one of our nicest months. The University doesn't re-open until the last Monday of September. That makes sense.

But, meanwhile, the public school kids are learning a valuable lesson they've no doubt heard about before: No one ever said life is fair!

Accepting uncertainty

The mass media rarely carry articles dealing with religion in a truly thoughtful manner. Insofar as they deal with religion at all, newspapers are more apt either to discuss sensational religious events ("Rapture didn't happen; we're all still here!), or to provide comfort to the religiously comfortable ("President lights up White House Christmas tree!").

Last week, however, USA Today ran an interesting feature article based on the thought of physicist and Anglican priest John Polkinghorne. Polkinghorne's work in the field of elementary particles led him to play a role in the discovery of quarks, and he has conducted advanced theoretical research in other areas.¹ Theoretical mathematicians and physicists typically do their most important work by the age of 30. When Polkinghorne felt his best work had been done, he began studies for ordination to the priesthood.

But the USA Today article focused less on his unusual combination of vocations, and more upon his thoughts concerning doubt and uncertainty. No one has ever seen a quark, the article noted. We "believe" in them because their supposed existence is necessary to make sense of the empirical data. The existence of quarks has not been "proved." In fact, no scientific theory is ever proved -- including evolution, as fundamentalists like to point out. If new data suggest a better theoretical model, scientists of course reconsider their "beliefs."

Similarly, Polkinghorne points out, we don't have empirical evidence of God's existence. The traditional "proofs" offered for the existence of God suggest reasons to believe, but do not constitute mathematical or logical proofs.

In other contexts, Polkinghorne has pointed to scientific or cosmological evidence that make belief in God reasonable, or even compelling, but the evidence does not logically demand belief in God's existence.

As we go through life, we are constantly forced to believe or not believe in logically possible conclusions based on our judgment of the conflicting strengths of the evidence and the repercussions resulting from making the wrong judgment. If we don't "believe" in global warming and so ignore it, for example, what are the consequences of being wrong?

Polkinghorne says that, as a thinking person, he naturally considers the possibility that God and Christianity could be human inventions with no basis in reality.

"It's [i.e., belief in God] a reasonable position, but not a knock-down argument," he said. "It's strong enough to bet my life on it. Just as Polanyi² bet his life on his belief, knowing that it might not be true, I give my life to it, but I'm not certain. Sometimes I'm wrong."

Quarks may be a fiction. Fossil evidence of dinosaurs may have been planted in the ground by a capricious God to lead prideful men to question Genesis. The universe, as I discussed in an earlier post, may have been a child's toy -- like a model train set -- cobbled together by a young super being, a toy that he left running after he went off to college. The world we observe by our senses may even be the dream of some Matrix-like pod people.

But based on the evidence known to him and on his life experiences, Polkinghorne has made a conscious decision to accept the existence of God and the message of Christianity, and to base his life on that decision. As Christian doctrine traditionally holds, belief in Christ would not be meritorious if it were forced on us by logic. Christian belief is not contrary to logic, but the merit adheres in our voluntary decision to assent to its message of love and to live our lives in accordance with that message.

Polkinghorne's own message goes beyond these age-old arguments between atheists and theists, however. If even devout Christians such as Polkinghorne are forced to admit the logical possibility of being wrong, how much more should those of us dealing with the more mundane, human questions of politics be willing to admit at all times that we know nothing with certainty, that our political and economic convictions are merely hopeful theories, and that we may well be thinking and acting in error.

Oliver Cromwell's exclamation to the Scottish church, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken," applies to all facets of life. John Polkinghorne, Ph.D., professor of mathematical physics at Cambridge, President of Queen's College (Cambridge), and Canon Theologian of Liverpool Cathedral has issued our world a call for intellectual and emotional humility, a reminder that there is little if anything in our universe about which we can claim absolute certainty.

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¹He has "researched the analytic and high-energy properties of Feynman integrals and the foundations of S-Matrix theory," according to Wikipedia.

²"Michael Polanyi (March 11, 1891 – February 22, 1976) was a Hungarian–British polymath, who made important theoretical contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and the theory of knowledge. In his philosophical writings he argued that positivism not only gives a false account of the practice of science, it also, if taken seriously, undermines our highest achievements as human beings."
--Wikipedia

Camp Muir

If you're looking for a day hike that will give you some of the most incredible views available in the Pacific Northwest, as well as fully test your endurance, head for Camp Muir.

Camp Muir is the staging point for 90 percent of the summit climbs of Mt. Rainier, including those run by the Park's official guide service. After struggling from the roadhead at Paradise (5,400 ft.) up to Camp Muir (10,080 ft.), carrying 40 pound packs, you "enjoy" a few hours of sleep on wooden shelves inside a crowded, noisy shelter, built in 1921 and never redecorated, before being roused at about 11 p.m. to begin the climb to the summit (14,411 ft.)

But Camp Muir itself makes a nice day hike destination. I gave it a try yesterday, partly for the scenery, partly to help condition myself for my Nepal trek in October.

As those of us in the Northwest Corner are all too aware, we had a heavy snow pack this past year, and -- until the last two or three weeks -- an unusually cool summer. As a result, even the labyrinth of paths that the Park Service provides for car tourists -- paved in asphalt and designed to let families wander up above Paradise Lodge without too much effort, giving them an opportunity to view the wild flowers and wildlife -- remain covered by snow fields in many places. These paths are usually free of snow by mid-July. But the snow fields on these lower slopes aren't steep, and have foot paths etched into them, so the tourists were still out in force. A major attraction this year, one that I've never noticed before in this area, was a large number of large and unintimidated marmots, rolling and frolicking about beside the trail like a bunch of playful kittens.

The paths become more ambitious and dedicated to leading hikers to specific destinations once you reach a couple hundred vertical feet above the Lodge. The highest point reachable by trail is Pebble Creek, at 7,200 feet. Once past the creek, you find yourself on the Muir snowfield, a massive, undulating field of year-round snow that continues unrelentingly upward, all the way to the buildings at Camp Muir. While the trail to Pebble Creek is fun to walk for a number of reasons, the snowfield beyond is simply a long, exhausting slog. You do it because you have to, if you're a summit climber, or, for hikers, because you've told yourself that Camp Muir shall be the day's destination. The scenery becomes ever more spectacular, of course, as you climb higher -- but I suspect that scenery watching and photography become for most hikers mainly excuses to catch one's breath. That was certainly true for me, at least.

After you hang out for a while at the Camp, scoping out the views and perhaps feeling somewhat envious of those who are there for the summit climb, there remains the descent. I had departed from Paradise somewhat later in the day than I'd intended, and didn't start down until after 4 p.m. The snow was starting to ice in places, which made the descent less carefree -- and slower -- than I had hoped. (A number of falls, painful only to my dignity.) Also, I was wearing shorts, which made seat-of-the-pants glissades, a popular activity in the steep areas, not really feasible. I envied a large group of Indian or Indian-American tourists who had brought plastic garbage bags with them for use as sleds. They were descending more swiftly, and with a lot more noisy fun, than was I.

But the scenery was magnificent on a bright sunny day, and the temperature was moderate so that the hiking was comfortable. I took a bunch of great photos. And my muscles and cardiovascular system certainly got the workout I'd hoped for. Four hours up, and two and a half hours down. A highly satisfying day.

Rubus fruticosus

When I moved to my present house, the city block on which it's located was essentially one large plantation of blackberries. Each back yard was a space carved out of this plantation -- space stolen from the domain of the Mother Bramble, if you will. Where many city blocks might have an alley, we on 26th Avenue were separated from the houses behind us on 25th by a tangle of blackberry vines, growing on lots facing both streets, a tangle that towered above us. The Mother Bramble also shot out extensions, like pseudopods, between adjacent lots as well, so that my backyard was protected on three sides by walls of barbed vines.

Fences make good neighbors, but we had no need for wooden fences. We had our blackberries. And our "fences," unlike those built of sterile cedar planks, produced fruit. Quite tasty fruit, especially about this time of year.

But change came to the 'hood. More and more upward-aspirational techies and professionals moved in. The alluring photos in Sunset magazine didn't show back yards surrounded by blackberry vines, and Sunset magazine (or some more upscale version thereof) was the garden bible for the new immigrants.

I've always regretted the felling of the great American forest by the pioneers and those who came after. Something similar happened around these parts, as homeowner after homeowner cut his way deeper and deeper into the blackberry jungle. I'm not entirely immune from peer pressure, although more immune, perhaps, than my neighbors would prefer. I, too, eventually hired workers to root out my blackberries, to sanitize my backyard, to show myself as a civilized man in a civiized neighborhood.

The blackberries were gone, but, like Adam and Eve after the Fall, we now felt ourselves naked. The fellow next door quickly hid himself from his neighbors by building a fence around his yard to replace the blackberry barriers. I countered his starkly utilitarian fence, shielding it from my view, by planting a laurel hedge. My yard now appears reasonably tidied up. Just like everyone else's.

I have met the enemy, and he be me.

But there's a postscript. Blackberries don't surrender gracefully. They may concede the battle, but not the war. In corners of my yard, they spring back to life whenever my back is turned. Before I really notice, they begin reasserting themselves with renewed vigor, claiming territory as theirs by right. Just as the medieval church discovered, the battle against heresy is never won, because heresy always raises its ugly head when vigilance is relaxed.

And like a new convert to orthodoxy, my horror at each reappearance of blackberry vines exceeds the bounds of reason. I've been inspecting my backyard each morning with pruning shears in hand, ready to cut down each timid blackberry sprout as it emerges from the soil. My strategy is psychological -- the hope that I can convince the blackberries that resistance is futile, that they will be utterly destroyed the moment they appear above ground.

Punishment does not take place primarily and per se for the correction and good of the person punished, but for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit

as the 1578 handbook of the Inquisition so adroitly phrased it.

Soon, I shall have extirpated the species entirely from my domain, and will live in a totally domesticated and controlled environment, with only those plants authorized by the editors of Sunset growing in my closely watched soil. I have conquered not only the wiles of Rubus fruticosus , but also my own earlier weakness and unhealthy tolerance of heterodoxy.

I think I'll celebrate by going to Safeway and buying a $4.99 carton of blackberries to heap on my mornng cereal.

Kidnapped

Some people, after returning from a first trip to Hawaii, can't resist reading James Michener's novel about the Islands. Or they visit Paris, and come home to read Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. Within a week of my return from Scotland, I found myself rummaging through my childhood books for my copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped.

I read Kidnapped as a boy -- my folks had bought it for me along with Treasure Island as a matched set -- and, as I recall, it seemed kind of boring at the time. I read it several years ago as an adult, and found it more captivating. But after visiting Scotland -- having hiked in and about many of the same regions described in the book -- the novel is infinitely more interesting.

Kidnapped is a first-person tale narrated by a Scots teenager from a small town near Edinburgh. The plot is simple. In 1751, David Balfour, having lost both his parents, is cheated out of his inheritance by his uncle, who essentially sells him into slavery to work in the tobacco fields in the American colonies. He is shanghaied aboard a sailing ship, and the first half of the book describes life -- and David's horror and despair -- aboard ship. The ship is wrecked in the Hebrides, off the Isle of Mull. David survives and allies himself with a Highlander named Alan Breck Stewart, a real historical figure.

David and Alan are present when a Campbell clansman -- the Campbells being a clan that willingly acted as agents of the Crown in seizing the property of members of the dissident clans -- was shot and killed upon the highway. The so-called Appin Murder was a national sensation. Warrants were issued for the arrest of both David and his older companion on charges of murder and accessory to murder. The remainder of the story describes their grueling escape from the authorities by way of a circuitous path through the Highlands, back to Edinburgh. It ends with David's being restored to his inheritance.

After an awkward and halting farewell, David walks away into the glittering and busy streets of Edinburgh, well-dressed, with a prosperous life lying ahead. He leaves Alan in hiding, facing a dangerous sail for France, his sole hope for avoiding the noose. David is a well to do Lowlander; Alan, whose unwavering friendship kept David alive, is a dispossessed and despised Highlander.¹

I let the crowd carry me to and fro; and yet all the time what I was thinking of was Alan at Rest-and-be-Thankful; and all the time (although you would think I would not choose but be delighted with these braws and novelties)there was a cold gnawing in my inside like a remorse for something wrong.

The novel was serialized in a boys' magazine in 1886, but has always appealed to adults as well as kids. David, a reserved and conscientious "Whig" Lowlander, and Alan, a flamboyantly argumentative Jacobite Highlander, learn to appreciate each other's strengths and overlook each other's weaknesses. The story is satisfyingly biased in favor of the Highlander cause, and the book forces us, and ultimately even David, to root against the English authorities and the quisling Campbell clan.

What's fascinating to me -- aside from the vivid portrayal of one version of real historical events -- is the description of the same countryside that I visited some 260 years later, and of the lives and personalities of the people who inhabited it. Stevenson has his Highland characters speak in dialect when they're speaking English (or Scots, as the dialect is called), as opposed to Gaelic. The author said later that he had anglicized the Scots dialect somewhat to make it more readable, and my edition has a few footnotes defining unfamiliar terms; even so, I suspect that the language would pose a challenge to many kids reading it today.

In fact, the book is impressively sophisticated in language, description, motivation, and characterization, compared with much of what passes as Young Adult fiction -- e.g., vampire books -- today. The long days aboard ship, and the difficulties of hiking secretly through the bracken and heather of the wild Highlands rarely elicit sudden bursts of adrenaline,² as more modern readers may demand, but rather paint a picture, layer by layer, of the dangers and hardships of life and politics in 18th century Scotland, and the growth of a friendship between two protagonists from opposite backgrounds.

With that caveat, Kidnapped is worth reading for anyone, young or adult, who has an interest in history, and in the traditional life of the Scottish Highlands.

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¹Historically, Alan Breck Stewart was tried in absentia and sentenced to hang. He was never hanged, but no record exists as to his life after leaving Scotland. His father was tried in person as an accessory to the murder. Although no evidence was produced that the father intended the murder or had any part in it, he was convicted by a jury of Campbells and a Campbell judge, and was hanged. Recent historical studies have absolved both Alan and his father of any guilt in the killing. (David, of course, is a wholly fictional character.)

²Although the chapter in which David and Alan singlehandedly mutiny and seize control of the ship headed for the Colonies -- shortly before it runs onto a reef and is wrecked -- is exciting by anyone's standard.