When it came to the great outdoors for us, the year 1977 early on presented us with a trip that settled in E’burg rather than a few more hours on to Seattle. We found refuge in the Outrageous Taco, a freak center in an old beer hall turned pizza/taco/deli quiet with live music and free poetry journals to circulate … a sense of pleasant decay (a $2 movie nearby) … incense in the air, too. We would return frequently … a good selection of new and used books, too.
Homeward by the Canyon Road, walked over the swinging bridge at Umtanum Creek, Kitty screaming, scared, delighted, a future point for a hike …
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The Yakima River Canyon stretches 27 miles through three major ridges between Yakima and Ellensburg, with summits that rise more than 2,000 feet in places. A railroad and two-lane highway cling to the base beside the river.
In late February, we made our Umtanum ascent, including the bald eagle observation, the first in the valley in 25 years. It was the middle ridge, as I recall, and forms a pivotal chapter in my novel Nearly Canaan.
Thinking of my nature poems … man, the legions of demigods, takes something away, reduces the richness of the land … Nancy Trueblood’s “in the mountains I feel closer to God” … limits the diversity of the species, the expansive quiet, the wonderful circling weaves … in Indiana, my nature poems were often at the edge of the woods — the interface of man, land, and seasons … historical depth where farms sometimes expressed a harmony … a deep cold springhouse, a summer porch … the mountains here, ever green or, like our desert ridge, light brown, are something else … and man adds nothing …
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10 July, Sunday
Drove along Sauk Creek to Stevens Pass … [north of Ellensburg]
Gold-mining remains … introduction to Leavenworth and then the North Cascades …
Leavenworth, with its Swiss Alps festive mood … shame that something similar cannot be created/sustained in “American” or Native authentic theme … maybe something to do with America’s lack of holy rivers and mountains or maybe our flat “Christian” approach to life … (Swiss Calvin not withstanding)
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18 July … apricots gone
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31 July/First-day evening
No entries in a week —
Last Sunday, left early for Seattle (after a midnight Saturday shift) to meet Bill and Mig Dietz and Curtis and Jacquie. The whole port city bit: winos, sailors, loggers, porno shops (me, buying newspapers!), Blacks and students, crowded Sunday parks, jazz. Got to know Curtis better, though their planned North Cascades backpacking got jettisoned by Jacquie’s emergency retinal surgery. His gentleness and humor, plus his Seattle friend Bob Green. Our disappointment with the Seattle art museum, then learning it was cut in half, with anything modern at City Center. The aging freaks and the strangest cats.
Met the Dietzes for dinner at Ivar’s, pier 54. How beautiful these people are. Bill’s ability to melt Kitty’s sharp questioning from Jacquie …
Had salmon, scallops. [Not crab?] The Yakima, a sleek new ferry, in the next pier. Seagulls and seafoam.
Heard of one Friend’s decision to go to Australia, though she didn’t have enough cash to get a visa. Hitched to SF, her first ride was with a trucker who CB’d ahead, starting a chain that got her safely, quickly down the pike — always the next ride waiting. Got to the SF consulate office, sat outside till she got a “hardship” visa. Got her case heard. And went on her way, after staying at Friends House.
The uncommonly filling spirit at our parting. So high, elated from this visit, happy to be together, laughing aloud on our long drive home with a new moon.
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Fremont lookout
Rainier National Park
7,200 feet sea level
Kitty joined me in the ascent from Sunrise; thought she’d stop at Frozen Lake but seeing children’s tracks felt shamed into continuing. Amazing Alpine natural gardens …
Clearest day one could hope for: Adams, Goat Rocks sharp view from the trailhead, yet a violet haze layer over Puget Sound from Olympia to Mount Vernon.
Next page a sketched panorama map showing Mount Baker, Glacier peak, and the Stuarts … plus notation, “Olympics a blue ragged line riding above the haze.”
Sitting up here’s just like riding a cloud.
And thus we are cloud-riders being ambushed by ’monks,
the fearless chipmunks attempting to ride our lunch …
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From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
Jnana's Red Barn 