109. Mount Adams

            Another mountain that has always gained my admiration is Mount Adams, another of the Cascades between Mount Rainier and Mount Hood. It’s in the southern section of Washington’s Cascade Range. While I have never tried to climb Adams, I have spent plenty of time on its slopes picking huckleberries and enjoying the forest.

            Like both Rainier and Hood, Adams is cloaked in snow and glaciers. The thought of climbing it sounds a little more appealing to me, however, because it doesn’t require too much in the way of technical skills. You would probably want cleats and an ice axe to help yourself hold on in places, but there is no need for ropes or anything too technical. That would be manageable for me because I’m averse to the idea of hanging to the side of a mountain by a thread when I am so fearful of heights.

            Mount Adams gets the image of a horse on its side that you can see from the Yakima Valley in the end of summer. The snow gradually melts away to reveal the ground beneath in the shape of a horse. In fact, it looks very much like one of those Celtic horses that the ancients carved into the chalk downs of southern England. The difference is, of course, that Adam’s image is not created by any person and the body of the horse is brown from the earth instead of white from chalk. The white of snow surrounds the image instead.

            I don’t know if I’ll ever actually climb to the summit of Mount Adams, but the idea will continue to intrigue me. I’m getting old enough to realize such a climb is still easily in my grasp but there are still plenty of other things I want to do in the increasingly limited amount of time I have. Still it is one of those mountains that I love and hold onto as a citizen of a country that I love and feel privileged to have such mountains to climb. Mountains like Adams offer the possibility of ascending above the petty distractions that our country seems to use these days to try to divide itself. Great mountains like Adams and the others I’ve mentioned bring me great encouragement in a time when people would lead you to believe hope is fleeting.