JANUARY 2016 • VOL 14, ISSUE 1 THANKS TO OUR ADVERTISERS, IT’S STILL…
FREE!
Welcome to
2016!
NORTHWEST
The Best of the Pacific Northwest!
STORY AND PHOTOS BY MATT COFFEY FIND MORE AT WWW.RAMBLINGRAVENDESIGNS.COM OR ON FACEBOOK AT HTTPS://WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/THECOFFEYCHAIR/
M
y goal was a nameless peak on the western edge of the Cascades. Almost exactly four thousand feet in elevation, with a small summit rock, and a jumble of talus sloughing down its southeastern slope, the peak’s anonymity was understandable. Looking south from the tiny summit, I could quickly identify nine other small mountains, all named, many accessible by trails, and a few popularized by area guidebooks. The banality of my destination was unavoidable and it was exactly what I had hoped for. Parking at the eastern terminus of the S2000 road, between the Siouxon and North Siouxon creek valleys, I made short work of a chilly, thirty-minute hike uphill along the 126 trail towards Huffman Peak. Stepping off the footpath a bit before the intersection with the 129 trail, I was pleased to find the slope of the peak’s western spur as gentle as the map promised, allowing a short, pleasant climb up through the timber. Thankfully my timing was accurate, and I reached my goal an hour before sunset. I had ample time to establish a quick camp, and chose a viewpoint for the moonBACKGROUND PHOTO: Fresh sunlight begins rise set for nine that night. to color Mt. Adam’s southern climbing route. Peaks of the Indian Heaven Picking my way around fallen Wilderness sit just off Adam’s right flank. trees on the way up, I was disapINSET PHOTO: Sunrise, a new day begins. pointed to find that a tussle of Noble
I HIKE
Firs blocked the view Mt. St. Helens, Sugarloaf, and Mount Mitchell. Fortunately, a rock shelf protruded from the summit just enough to see the sequence of Huffman Peak, Siouxon Peak, and Mt. Adams, all waiting for the moon to rise from their common axis. A strong, cold, southeast breeze blew across the snow on the summit, forcing me to abandon my camera tripod and wait for sunset in a small leeward pocket. In time, Venus appeared in the sky, along with the lights of Clark County and Portland, as the sun sank behind Oregon’s Coast Range. A brief glint of sunset hit the waters of the Columbia River and Merwin Reservoir as the glow from Longview and Kelso faintly backlit Lakeview Peak. Three hours later, my time on the snowy summit came to a close. The nearly full moon had changed from a light yellow to full white, as it chased the sun’s path up and across the sky. Chilled to the point of lightly shaking, I gathered my things and began a planned retreat to the shelter of the treeline. Just before stepping off the summit rock, a prolonged wind halted me with brief deja vu. I spontaneously smiled in the darkness at the wind’s reminder of my irrelevance in the context of larger forces. Within hours, that light wind would kill me if I chose to remain still and endure its pain. I had experienced that same visceral, wind-driven joy nearly ten years before, near a nighttime field in Woodland’s bottoms. As on the summit, that
BECAUSE I AM
SMALL
SMAll—cont’d on page 6