trailtalk
The Trouble with Mount Rainier Our “scenery bias” and what it means for our landscapes By Craig Romano, Mountaineers Books guidebook author
Craig admiring Rainier from Emerald Ridge on the Wonderland Trail. All photos courtesy of Craig Romano.
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ising nearly three vertical miles over Puget Sound and visible from much of the state, Washington’s Mount Rainier is an imposing landmark. Shrouded in glistening glaciers, sprawling meadows, and impressive cathedral forests, Mount Rainier is a stunning place to hike, camp, and commune with nature. It’s absolutely one of the most awe-inspiring places in America - and that’s the problem. Rainier is just too damn spectacular. Don’t get me wrong, I love our iconic volcano and have hiked nearly every mile of trail within Mount Rainier National Park and its abutting wilderness areas. I have car camped, backpacked, ran, strolled, snowshoed, and skied the mountain. I have biked the park’s roads, too. Every trip I have taken instills in me the same sense of awe and wonder. Of course, I am not alone in those feelings; Mount Rainier has legions of admirers. Larger than life and surrealistic at times, there’s a reason Rainier is referred to simply as “the mountain.” And that’s the problem. For many, Rainier has become a barometer for natural beauty. Once you’ve seen Rainier, hiked its trails, and experienced its natural wonders, how can anyplace else measure up? But what we lose in that perspective is the deep understanding that in the natural world, beauty, awe, and wonderment are everywhere. The grandest places don’t hold all the beauty in the world. And many times, they are secondary when it comes to biodiversity and ecological importance.
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mountaineer | summer 2022
Beyond Rainier I recently returned from a 10-day trip across Southern Alabama, Mississippi, and Northwest Florida, and was blown away by the natural beauty and incredible biodiversity of the area. I hiked through cypress, tupelo, pine, and oak forests along the Tensaw River, and was amazed by the amount of plant, reptile, amphibian, and bird species I encountered. The delta was just as gorgeous and awe-inspiring as any mountain I have hiked. I was struck with a sense of reverence for its original inhabitants and all of its intricately inter-woven parts. It’s a place I want to return to so I can learn more, experience more, and continue to be awed. Don’t get me wrong, Mount Rainier contains some incredible biodiversity, but it pales in comparison to places like southern Alabama’s Mobile Tensaw Delta, a place dubbed by many conservationists as “America’s Amazon.” According to the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, “The Mobile Tensaw Delta represents one of the world’s richest aquatic environments, with what is likely the most diverse concentration of fish species in the temperate world, and the greatest diversity of mussels, aquatic snails and crawfish in the world.” Within this deltaic system, you’ll also find the greatest concentration of turtle diversity in the world. According to the foundation, it contains “what many believe to be the greatest
