As I hiked up Mount Rainier’s Paradise Glacier with its scores of eerie and gurgling ice caves, rocks tore loose from the upper flanks and cracked down sheer cliffs to the wrinkled ice nearby. I began to sense a living presence in this mountain while standing on what John Muir called “God’s ice tool.” When I spotted an entrance to an ice cave carved by a gushing stream, I entered the cave to enjoy a glacial symphony of trickling rivulets, along with gurgles and dripping water sounding something like the abstract expressionistic music of Austrian-born Arnold Schoenberg. I crawled deeper inside until I could no longer see sky. All sorts of thoughts flooded through my mind as I listened to rolling and grinding stones of an inner stream. They became my voice as I began to think like a mountain even in my sleep much later that night back at camp.
Sincerely,
Mount Rainier National Park
Majestic Mount Rainier is the highest peak in the Cascade Range and an active volcano with more glaciers than any other mountain in the United States. Just an hour's drive from Seattle, the park's wild landscape feels much further from civilization. The forests, parkland, wetlands, lakes and rivers offer 260 miles of trails and varied habitat to dozens of plant and animal species.
State(s): Washington
Established: 1899
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