Day 2 On the Mountain

Ok this may be the only other separate day I post...lots to share!!


Day 2 on the mountain was just as jamb packed and fun filled...


The morning lecture included safety and day preparation: sunscreen, plastic bags for your day pack, first aid, sunglasses, map, water, lunch and to be prepared for weather changes...at this point we would like a weather change, one that included some sunshine...lol...


We also had group participation on the 10 essentials for being out in the wild: water, first aid, warmth, tools, navigation (compass and map), the ability to signal, food and the knowledge to use all...


Lucia Harrison our other instructor had us practice our drawing using some of the tools from "Drawing from the right side of the Brain". A couple of quick sketches later we took care of camp life and got ready for our afternoon hike..


The Trail of Shadows is located just north and across the highway from the Longmire Inn. Longmire is a Historical District surrounded by old growth forests including Douglas Fir, Red Cedar, Western Hemlock to name a few.


This was my first hike utilizing my "write in the rain" notebook, draw a map and write down interesting species along both sides of the trail. Being an over achiever the map took up both sides of a page and certain highlights were numerated on map with corresponding text in the notebook. I would learn later that all of my species descriptions were supposed to go in a separate section by themselves thus reducing my daily entry to a few pages vs. a small tome. But then again...I hadn't gotten that far in the Grennell Field Journal textbook...no worries...


There was a plaque commemorating John Muir and I love the quote on it..." When you try to change any single thing, you find it hitched to everything else in the universe."


Later that afternoon we had a talk by creative writer and TESC Writing Center representative Sandy Yannone. She read the poem "The Fish" to us several times with instructions to listen with different criteria each time. By the end of the Poem I felt the presence of my Mom...cool and sad at the same time...


After dinner, we had a lecture by Ken Tabbutt, provost from TESC and Geologist who of course spoke on the Geology of Mt. Rainier. Some of the information I studied before, but then there were a few notes on this specific mountain that made me realize how different this volcano was to say Mt. Shasta in California. He passed around different samples of volcanic rock specific to Mt. Rainier: Granadiarite and, Andracite. May the goddess help me I did not write down the third type of rock...He also spoke of Lahars...cohesive and non cohesive. Cohesive Lahars are not volcanic in origin while the non-cohesive are. With all the glacial ice up there, it doesn't matter how the Lahar starts the results could be devastating to the lower regions of the Puget Sound. Apparently one brought debris all the way down the mountain to Tacoma...ok then campers


In So Cal you have earthquake drills, in the midwest Tornado drills on the gulf and east coast huricane drills...up here people we  have Lahar drills....


So know where your high point is and keep those car keys handy...


Cheers