Deer Park to Maiden Peak along the Grand Ridge Trail: A Birthday Dayhike

Two old friends head out on a blustery day hike in Washington’s Olympic National Park to celebrate  the younger one turning half a century old in late August of 2023

* NOTE: This foto-essay has 61 fotos & 8 short videos. Enjoy! *

Views out across Olympic National Park from the Grand Ridge Trail, Tuesday 29 August 2023.

Edan Z & William B on the “Happy Birthday Trail.” We had planned to celebrate Edan’s birthday together out in nature. Edan chose the hike, and I provided the car & gas. 

Yuppers, we’re only 50 & 64 years in age. Hey, do you like my bonnet? LOL! It’s a sun hat to help me prevent a recurrence of skin cancer.

Rugged old mountains shredding clouds in the wind.

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Ripples Sparkling in the Sunset

From a magickal evening at Lime Kiln Point State Park, San Juan Island, Washington

Ripples sparkle in the sunset on our honeymoon.

Faithlyn and I, newlyweds, sat in a restaurant on the edge of Friday Harbor and asked our server where do locals go to enjoy the best sunsets. 

“At the old lighthouse at Lime Kiln!” she blurted as she stood up straight with a grin. “My parents used to run the lighthouse there back when it was a real, working lighthouse.”

So that’s where we went. Continue reading

In Remembrance of Ellen

A wonderful friend from long ago passes on

Ellen died on Thursday 20 January 2022. Her transition was peaceful. She and her wife was surrounded by dear friends local to the area. Pancreatic cancer is a horror. So many people I know have battled cancer of all kinds. Some died, such as my parents, a grandfather, and my partner’s Mum. Cancer is an umbrella term for a complex of nightmarish diseases. May cures for all cancers be found. Put cancer in the past. Make it history. Kill it, dammit. Kill it! Because I miss my friend. Wish we’d had more time to visit. Last saw her in circa 1995 when she and Ron last visited me and Gwen at Orca Landing, an urban cooperative household in Seattle. They were on their way from southwestern North Carolina to bike the West Coast. Decades slid by in time. She and Deb were gonna come out and visit us in Seattle before heading into the North Cascades National Park Complex back in the Summer of 2020. The double punch of the COVID-19 Pandemic and megawildfires with smokestorms, unfortunately, caused them to cancel. So never got to reconnect in person. We texted a few times. She and Deb decided to get away into the Boundary Waters Wilderness instead. There they had a great time canoeing and camping, and that was the last I heard from her.

Yeah, I miss my friend. Ellen had a delightfully chuckley laugh that could range from a loud bark to a jolly trainwreck of silly giggles. Ellen loved animals and spent much of her later life rescuing and caring for them. Was an activist in PAWS. Born in New Jersey and worked in New York. Worked for Playboy even! For the corporate NYC side, that is. Was too much for her. So she met Ron and together they moved away from the big urban corridors for a life of outdoor adventure and rural, small-town living. She had strong opinions and fierce convictions. Loved exploring the wilderness by foot, by boat, and spent many long miles pedaling her bike. Ellen Kilgannon is forever unforgettable.

From my words to her on the Caring Bridge site: Continue reading

Coming Home to Spider Meadows, July 2009

A challenged family returns to a home in the wilderness during late July of 2009

Note geographical and grammatical purists conspire to punctuate conversations with comments such as, “Oh, you must know the correct term for the Upper Phelps Creek meadows prior to the uppermost Basin is Spider Meadow. The designation is singular without the plural “s.” OK?” ¡LOL! The greater majority of people, however, stick a wee s on the end as “Spider Meadows” rolls off the tongue with greater ease and verbal grace than “Spider Meadow.” Besides, there are multiple smaller meadows before and especially after the main meadow of the valley separated by little copses and fingers of forest and boulders and riven by small streams. Finally, English is an incredibly dynamic language as it is so expansive and unusually inclusive. So, we shall refer to those lovely high mountain meadows along Upper Phelps Creek as Spider Meadows with an s, thank you.

Mother and Daughter contemplate the Universe. Sunday evening in Spider Meadows, GPW, 26 July 2009. Foto by William.

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Beaver Hill Wild

Two crazy parents have fun getting their kid to do a steep, grunt hike up a local classic in the Washington Cascades, Saturday the 25th of July 2009

“I don’t wanna hike. I’m too tired!” Talia, my youngest, says as she lays down in the trail on the way up Beaver Hill. She’s rebelling, fussing, and laughing all at the same time. And she’s game! Tater Tot does make it to the tippity top. Her mom, Kristina, watches patiently before gently nudging her to stand back up. “C’mon, Bug, let’s go!” Kris finally says. Foto by William Bass.

We parked at the Phelps Creek Trailhead. Got out of the minivan to stretch and look around before opening the rear hatch to pull out our packs. The three of us were about to start our backpacking trip up into Spider Meadows when we realized something weird was going on like some kind of spacetime distortion from a shimmery syfy show. Because, what? Where were…hey, our backpacks aren’t in the car. What?!? I was so flabbergasted and confused I even peered up into the bushes. Darn! Where were OUR PACKS! Even peeked underneath the car. Ugh, not there either. OK. How? How could I forget? I’m SO CAREFUL and METHODICAL! It’s how our post-multiple divorce, remarried, extra-blended, postmodern, post-polyamorous family managed our logistics amidst chaos! Truth was we’d forgotten the packs. Nope, I’d forgotten the packs. Me. I failed to doublecheck back at the River House, our base in the Greater Leavenworth-Lake Wenatchee-Plain-Spider Meadow area. My goodness, was I upset! Mad, despondent, but also laughing at the absurdity of it. Deep down I felt grateful, tho, as a menacing tumult of heavy, dark clouds rolled in, the wind blew, and a few raindrops fell. Kristina thought it all ridiculous, and yet so divinely perfect as we didn’t have to camp in the rain. She was more peeved at how grumpy I was. Talia threw back her head and rolled her eyes in her most perfect act of pretend delirium. 

Stormy skies thunder into the Glacier Peak Wilderness here at the Phelps Creek TH where the hike up to Spider Meadows begins.

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Overnight to Lake Josephine

Two friends reconnect during the COVID-19 pandemic after first meeting 20 years earlier…with nature as much as with themselves…and must one confront the Trail to embrace the Wild?

*Note: This foto-essay has 103 fotos and 13 short videos*

Lake Josephine from the Icicle Creek Trail in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, WA. We left the PCT to head downhill to the lakeshore.

The magic of this adventure surprised me as I rarely go on overnight backpacking and camping trips. Once one has experienced going out for several days and nights it’s difficult to go back to merely one or two nights out. Such trips can be a lot of work and takes time to prepare for and to clean up afterwards. Edan had invited me to go with him. He’d encouraged me, and chose a fairly easy trip with low mileage as we both felt out of shape. Having had a surprisingly wonderful time overnighting solo on the PCT a month earlier, I agreed. Glad I did. Rediscovered the joy and ease of overnighters. Turned out to be one of my most favorite backpacking trips ever. We had balmy Autumn weather with a burst of Indian summer conditions. The scenery of Washington’s Alpine Lakes Wilderness is magnificent. And two long-time buddies, both divorced with kids all grown up, got to spend some rare time together in a place neither had been to before.

Edan Z and William B, friends for 20 years, pose at the Trailhead. The author’s on foto right holding the camera. Sunday 4 October 2020.  We left parking lot on foot at 11:18. Bit of a late start for an overnighter, but not as late as those we encountered later in the dark. All’s well, tho, as such a later start isn’t ideal. Yet we were well-rested from a good night’s sleep. Edan drove, and we were determined to enjoy the journey anyway.

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On the Kendall Katwalk Between the Sun and the Moon

Unexpected surprises on a short journey to a long-sought destination

(This is an unfinished work in progress. Welcome anyway, thanks for your patience, & enjoy what’s here in the moment.)

Sunset alpenglow from the Kendall Katwalk on the Pacific Crest Trail, late afternoon/early evening of Tuesday the 1st of September 2020.

Video Sweep of Snoqualmie Pass, Washington, Cascadia, on Tuesday afternoon the 1st of September 2020 C.E @ 14:31:31. Love this place! Gateway to great rock climbing, skiing, backpacking, dayhikes, camping, & yummy food & more!

Hello! I’m William, the author of this piece. Enjoy!

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Dirtyface Love: Sweaty Romps up Dirtyface Peak

Two eccentric, adventurous lovers hike, scramble, and explore a rough and tumble mountain in the backcountry of the Greater Leavenworth – Lake Wenatchee – Stevens Pass Area one frosty midweek day in February 2007 and again one blazing hot Saturday in July of 2008. For love is a choice, and a relationship may be as strong and as fragile as one’s trusty, old, hiking stick.

Dirtyface Views. Saturday 26 July 2008. Fotos by the author & his partner.

Kristina on top in the bright, bright sunshine.

William Bass on Dirtyface.

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A Family Dayhike up Little Si Mountain one July

Part of a Postmodern Age blended family goes for a hike & scramble up a small mountain near Seattle as they wonder about the future amid echoes of the past, Sunday the 6th of July 2008

Talia, the stepdaughter I helped deliver and raise as one of my own beloved children, with her dog, Joline. We all called our doggie JoJo, tho.

Kristina, my then-third wife (now ex) atop Little Si. A few spires and avalanche chutes rise into the fog behind her on Mt. Si, aka Big Si.

Today is surprisingly chilly for July for a low mountain peak so close to the Sound. The damp fog, brooding clouds, and the threat of rain amidst silence of the unknown felt foreboding at times as the financial collapse of the Great Recession accelerated thru our lives.

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Father’s Day on The Mountain, June 2008

Snapshots of a family in the Great Outdoors playing in the shadows of volcanoes, Sunday the 15th of June 2008

The Mountain. This massive, majestic, and dangerous volcano loomed above us wherever we went this bright, sunny Father’s Day.

The author with 2 of his daughters: Foto Left to Foto Right: Katie (10 & a half+), me (49), & TaTa (6). Kate performed over 30 cartwheels nonstop earlier this day, her personal record. We all encouraged her, of course, coached her, too, and, to be clear, it was all hands off. Left us in awe. As did being up in the snow at Paradise in Mt. Rainier National Park wearing sandals and flip-flops.

Breakfast for Daddy! Red eyes for the camera & all! Kate & Talia surprise William for Father’s Day 2008. Foto by Kristina.

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Joshua Tree: Rites of Passage

Sun, Rocks, Sand, Stars, and Scuffling with Fear out in the Desert
Friday 24 March – Thursday 30 March 2006

*Click on any foto to open up & expand the picture.*

On the rocks in Joshua Tree National Park! Morgan (now Dylan), age 12, learning to rappel with her climbing instructor on Sunday the 26th of March. Gravity rocks!

Stepmother & stepdaughter grinning together in the desert.

At Joshua Tree looking across the California desert to the mountains beyond. March 02006.

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East into Winter Woods and Frozen Deserts

A wacky Father-Daughter Winter road trip East across Washington State into Cascadian forests around Lake Wenatchee and the River House then on into the deserts of the Channeled Scablands carved by gigantic Ice Age floods into vast, prehistoric lava plains, themselves formed by even more ancient basalt lava floods, January 2010.

Road Trip! Zooming deeper into Coulee Country in the Scablands of the Columbia River Basin, Monday 18 January 2010.

Lake Wenatchee in the Cascade Mountains on a beautifully gloomy day as more storms roll in this Sunday the 17th of  January 2010.

My oldest child, Morgan Hannah years before she became Dylan Blair, as she strides thru the icy edges of the Potholes Reservoir Lakes, Monday the 18th of January 2010. She’s 15 still, only two months shy of turning the Big 16.

Me, her Dad, at the River House on the Upper Wenatchee. In good spirits, too, as I love road trips & being outdoors. I’m only 50 here. Gosh, be 51 years in about 3 months. Foto by Morgan/Dylan. Sunday 17 January 2010.

Emerald Isle, Lake Wenatchee, Lake Wenatchee State Park. Sunday 17 January 2010. It’s a cold, cold late afternoon as dusk approaches.

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Day Trips with Li’l Butterfly

Remembrance of Journeys Past with my Stepdaughter across the last month of 2008 and the first three months of 2009

Talia debates going to the top of Kite Hill at Magnuson Park, Seattle. Tuesday 31 March 2009.

She was my third and last child, the stepdaughter I read to while she was in her mother’s womb and caught in my hands as she was born after long hours of struggle. Kristina, TaTa’s “Chee Chee Mommastina,” called her daughter, “Little Sitting Buddha Girl,” for she would sit still and quietly observe everything around her with precision and presence. As her “DaDa William,” however, I called her my Li’l Butterfly.

Distant Olympics on a ferry ship sailing across the upper part of Puget Sound as we traversed the Salish Sea, Washington. Sunday 4 January 2009.

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Kulla Kulla Blues for a Neverfind Trail

A dayhike into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness to a mythic lake with a friend doesn’t quite go…& we had a blast anyway, like, literally, as in Ka-POW, LOL!
Monday 1 October 2019

*This is an unfinished work in progress. Almost done, tho! Enjoy!*

Gazing across Washington State’s incredible Alpine Lakes Wilderness from the summit of Mt. Defiance (5,584 ft or 1,702 m). Foto from an earlier hike & climb. The largest lake below is Lake Kulla Kulla at about 3760 ft in elevation. Further over to your right is the next largest, Mason Lake at about 4,183 feet. As you can see, one doesn’t scramble 1,053 ft straight down. Ya gotta go up & over & down & around & then down. I took this foto on Monday 22 June 2015.

Finding Lake Kulla Kulla had a grip on me. Still does. Ever since I first saw it from the top of surrounding ridges and peaks. Especially from the top of Mt. Defiance on a day hike one Monday in May 2015. An attempt earlier this year in May with my middle daughter Kate stopped at Mason Lake. A later than anticipated start combined with choosing to return for a family gathering to say farewell to my oldest was the reason then. A couple of other planned trips including camping out overnight ended up being canceled for odd reasons.

Zooming in on Kulla Kulla from Mt. Defiance on the same trip in June 2015. Steep, rocky, brushy, & woody!

Kulla Kulla is an anomaly, remains a mystery, and as such I wanted to at least find a way to get down to its shoreline. There weren’t any trails on any maps except a faint, dotted line on an old map I found online for an overgrown fishing trail. Best reports indicate one turning off on a rough trail just before reaching Sir Richard’s Pond to follow a ridge sloping down to the lakeshore. The terrain is rugged, steep, and without any good beaches. Trip reports were scarce. A few were rambling, toppling over snowy boulders and logs snowshoe romps. One was a hilarious tale of woe and misery by a guy who claimed to have barely made it out alive. A Bigfoot family of hairy Sasquatch people was imagined to abide down in these remote sections of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. Yet it was a glorious lake with a stunning view. So I asked my friend Michelle RM, a coworker within the same outdoor adventure company, if she would join me in finding a way down to the lake from the main trail. Yes, of course, she replied. She was game! Woo Hoo! So off we went.

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A Mt. Rainier Dayhike with my Daughter Kate, 2019

A Ramble with my Middle Daughter on the Burroughs Mountain Loop Trails out of Sunrise Village, Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington,
Thursday 25 July 2019

Kate goofin’ for her Dad’s camera. Posin’ on the Burroughs Loop Trails at Mt. Rainier one hot Thursday in July of 2019 waaay back yonder in the early 21st Century C.E.

Ti’Swaq’, the Mountain that Wipes the Sky, or simply, The Sky Wiper, as the Alliance to Restore Native Names wants to call Mt. Rainier, looms above the surrounding Cascade Mountains to 14,411 feet or 4,392 meters in elevation. Taken from Sunrise Point.

Kate and I planned a dayhike, and it took awhile to jumble our stuff together into one car. I had to take a bus to the UW Huskey Stadium light rail station with my backpack, then take the train south to meet her at Rainier Beach Station while she drove north to meet me there. Logistics were barmy nutters. We grumbled and laughed and made things work out anyway. Especially as we had to scoot on back to North Seattle to meet the rest of our Seattle family for Dylan’s farewell picnic. My oldest was soon to ride across the continent with a friend and move to New York City for grad school. Meanwhile, however, Kathryn and I were in the here-now of Mt. Rainier National Park.

What happens when Daddy doesn’t pay attention to what shoes he grabs outa the closet in the dark. I didn’t realize this ridiculously comical error until I was in the parking lot at Sunrise Village. Ended up wearing my worn Chaco sandals I drove up in out on the hike. Glad Katie & I weren’t on a more serious climb! Worn my Chacos on plenty of hikes in the past. They’re old & worn out now, tho, & pebbles & grit tend to get caught between sole of foot & top o’ sandal. But how in the world?! Two Altra trail shoes! Same brand, aye, but for the same left foot and two very different models, HA!

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Family Beach Trip to Moclips & Pacific Beach 2006

Memories of a magical & unorthodox beach trip to the Washington Coast,
July 2006

*This is a work in progress. Most of the fotos of this place were lost in the 2010 house fire. Enjoy anyway!*

The Three Sisters playing in the sand. Morgan, age 12, who later changed her name to Dylan, sits partially buried on the upper center right. Kate, about 6 & a half, is on foto left. Talia, bottom right, is 4 years along. Tuesday 1 August 2006. Foto by Daddy William, age 47.

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Cape Disappointment Happy Blues 2007

Snapshots in time of a family in the wind

Early January 2007

Cliffs at this edge of ocean were forbidding, terrifying, and hypnotic in their power. We felt mesmerized as we watched massive waves roll in thru wind and rain to explode upon the rocks below and roar up cliffs into the sky. The Columbia River surged down from the Canadian and American bowels of Cascadia into the vast Pacific Ocean. River and sea currents smashed together to form one of the most chaotic, dangerous, and dynamic river deltas in the world, the Columbia River Bar. Kristina’s Dad goes out fishing in it all the time.

Bass-Katayama Family near cliff’s edge at Cape Disappointment, Washington. L2R: front row: Talia & Kate; middle: Kristina & Morgan (now Dylan); rear: William. Pics recovered from Kristina’s old camera fone. Tuesday 2 January 2007.

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Upside down in Snow

A romp in the woods with my lover at the time & two of our kids goes, well, upside down! Our winter ramble in Snoqualmie Pass, Washington, near where the old Mountaineers Cabin used to be one Sunday on the 22nd of January 2006.

Silly Daddy leads the way. Kristina laughed & refused to follow. “I’ll just take pictures. How about that?” she said & chuckled again.

Kate & Talia can’t wait! Kato’s in purple & purple, and TaTa’s in pink & polka dots. Sunday afternoon on the 22nd of January 2006.

Four of us rode up together in our blended family minivan. We all wanted to go play in the snow! Except for my oldest girl, Morgan, now called Dylan, and I cannot recall why she stayed behind. Probably because the future Dylan Blair preferred to pal around with her tween friends. Especially as she was 12 years old back then and soon to turn 13 in less than 3 months. Hmn. Never mind my pet baby name for her was my Li’l Twinkle Star. Katie Kate Kate could barely wait, tho, and she was already 8 years along. No longer was she just my Li’l Kitty Kat. Our youngest, Talia, or, ahem, TaTa the Tater Tot, as we called my Li’l Butterfly back then was still an adorable 3 years old. I drove thru the village of Snoqualmie Pass, known for its concentration of ski resorts, hiking, climbing, and even a small, rare cave system, and parked in a cleared-off lot near a snowy lane leading to where the old Mountaineers’ old cabin is.

Or was back then in January of 2006. Cabin is a misnomer. Aye, it was a palace in the forest! The Mountaineers Club, however, called it a lodge. Snoqualmie Lodge. Hey, this place was historic! Snoqualmie Lodge was a major hub for backcountry action for over half-a-century. A quasi-medieval frontier fort of a sort, the lodge looked ramshackle and all teeter-tottery after the snows melted, but altho rustic, it was built solid by engineers and carpenters. By men & women who knew what tools they held in hand, knew what they were doing, and if they didn’t, they knew how to work together to figure things out and make it so. The snow seemed to help hold it up, but truth is the snow exerted walls of pressure on the famous old building. This was before the Fires of Spring.

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Exploring Spider Meadows, 2006 & 2007

Two journeys deep into the Glacier Peak Wilderness, one alone with my lover Kristina in August of 2006, and together with our youngest in August of 2007. One was an erotic, lust-drenched, sweaty exploration of high alpine meadows & a rocky mountain pass above a dying glacier. The other was a family misadventure awry with unexpected misery, voracious, nose-stuffing flies, & insane giggles.

*This is unfinished, a work in progress. Most of the pics & associated journals were lost in a house fire. This help builds what remains. Thanks for being here. Enjoy!*

William & Kristina in Spider Meadows. Timed selfie shot from the top of a rock left in the meadows from some long ago avalanche. Sunday 13 August 2006.

Spider Meadows sprawls deep within the Glacier Peak Wilderness. Phelps Creek rushes down the middle of wild copses of dark woods and open mountain meadows to plunge down a gorge of its own making to eventually flow into the Chiwawa River. Glacier Peak is one of Washington State’s still-live stratovolcanoes and dominates as the central giant of the USFS Wilderness Area named after it’s Anglo-American name. The Native American tribes referred to it as DaKobed, among other names. The volcano rises as a giant pyramid cone at the head of the Dakobed Range to a lofty 10,541 feet or 3,213 meters, but one is unable to see it from Spiders Meadows. The meadows is edged by a ring of 8-9,000+ foot-high peaks. During August of 2006 I ventured into the wilderness into what became an alpine celebration of hot, lusty, forest love. A year later, however, proved harrowing and disorienting. Two very different trips! Such is the joyful, tearful, giggly ass messiness of Life!
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Winter Romp at Twin Lakes, December 2005

Taking my Seattle, Washington family to romp about old haunts from my youth at Twin Lakes State Park in rural Virginia, on the day after Christmas,
Monday 26 December 2005

Hey Hey Hey lookit us FLY! Kate & her Dad goofin’ off. Foto by Kristina.

Our family of five liked to play outside in nature’s Great Outdoors. We still do, altho we aren’t quite a family of five any longer. We had flown out to Virginia, the five of us, to celebrate Christmas with my Family of Origin. Especially my Mom. She lived alone as my Dad had died a little over a year earlier on the 1st of December 2004. Strange thing was the First was also the 3rd Anniversary of my relationship with Kristina. Mama lived on to pass on my brother’s birthday in November of 2006. This time, however, she was very much alive, her cancer in remission, and she couldn’t wait to see us. My brother, Joe, and his family lived down the road from our mother.  My sister, Beth, with her new husband and little daughter, had moved all the way from Arizona to the family farm to be near Mama. This day, however, just the four of us out in these Virginia woods. As our intertwining journeys of life played out, tho, this trip was the last one we would ever make back to my old Virginia homeplace as a Family of Five.

We somehow thought we would always be together other than the kids growing up and out. Such ideas seem a wee bit silly nowadays as we look back across the warping, moving fabrics of spacetime and timespace. I grew up in the 1960s and 70s on a family farm anchored in the dairy industry. Riverview Farm was located in Piedmont hills & gully country. It sprawled along the edges of the Sandy River drainage of Prince Edward County. The farm sat between the little country village of Rice to the East, Green Bay towards the South, and the town of Farmville towards the West. This place was home for me. It’s where I grew up playing in the woods and fields and swamps of my farm boy childhood. The area is haunted, forever, by the ghosts of slavery, Civil War and Reconstruction, racism and sexism and class warfare, religious intolerance, and the revolutionary turmoil of the 1950s and 60s. Many of those who lived there lived in denial of their own damn history. So I had to get outa there! But, where?

After a few spectacular adventures West of the Mississippi River, I knew the American West was where I must go and live my life. It was sad to depart my family of origins, and I did so anyway. My parents felt incredibly sad, the guilt ate at me, yet I felt compelled to follow my own heart and play my own drum. Made many mistakes along the way, still do, and, well, as you must surely know, life is a flippin’ mess sometimes. Most of the time I love it. Ended up in Seattle. Started out goin’ to California by way of Wyoming, but fell in love with Gwen from Virginia and ended up with her in Seattle, Washington instead of Alaska. Yeah, wanted to keep going north as far as I could get, but she refused. We headed back to Virginia, then North Carolina, paddled rivers and backpacked around the nation, finally returning to our beloved Pacific Northwest in January of 1992.

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Snakes & Horses! Lake Wenatchee Family Camping Trips 2005 & 2006

Memories & Restored Fotos from two family camping trips a year apart to Lake Wenatchee State Park and nearby Nason Creek Campground in the surrounding Wenatchee National Forest, May 2005 & May 2006

*This is an unfinished work in progress. Please enjoy anyway. Thank you.*

Snakes! Kate with a corn snake, Monroe, WA. Memorial Day Weekend, Monday 30 May 2005. Here’s she’s about 6 and a half years old.

Horses! Talia upon a horse in Lake Wenatchee State Park, WA. Sunday 28 May 2006. Talia had recently turned 4 years old.

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Morgan at Whitehorse Mountain, June 2010

A father struggles with PTSD as he idolizes his daughter in the wake of tragedy and before she changed their name to claim a deeper, truer identity

Dylan Blair, age 16, nine years ago as I write this, back when she was known as Morgan Hannah. She stands in a roadside field in the Stillaguamish River Valley below the bulk of Whitehorse Mountain.

Being outside in nature can kill you. Or nature can heal you. My family and I needed nature’s medicine. We lived in Edmonds, Washington at the time. Just north of long, skinny Seattle. Been there only three months. Moved in on the 20th of December 2009. Five hectic days before Christmas. Our large, rental house, a temporary abode in the wake of losing our homes and finances in the wake of job losses, embezzlement, and the Great Global Recession, caught on fire and burned down one Saturday morning in March of 2010. My oldest daughter, still called Morgan back then as she hadn’t yet changed their name to Dylan, was celebrating her 16th Birthday with a close circle of friends on the weekend following her actual birthday. I was out and away picking up her two younger sisters, Kate and Talia, from different sleepover parties at their respective friends down south in Seattle. Kristina, my third wife at the time, was at the vet with our dog, Jo. Apparently so much thick, toxic smoke rolled up from the basement rooms no one could get out the front door. Her friends, all high school girls in their mid-teens, had surprisingly expensive belongings downstairs where they had spent the night. The day was warm and sunny for March. Indeed, this Saturday the 20th was the first day of Spring.

The flames spread fast in a big house designed to function like a tipi merged with solar panels and a hot rock room. The home was a gorgeous experiment built on a steep slope near the head of a large ravine. It faced out to look west towards water and mountains, and had been designed by an already deceased husband-and-wife team of architects. Thick, toxic, black smoke billowed up the stairs from the lower levels where the kids had slept. The girls made a flurry of fone calls to 911 and to parents, but began to panic. They were desperate to race downstairs to retrieve personal items such as sleeping bags, clothes, shoes, gifts, smartfones, iPods, toiletries, luggage, school books, papers…when Morgan shouted at all of them they “all need to get out now! We need to get outa here now! That way! NOW!!!”

Following her lead, they raced across the house towards the back, the side facing water and mountains. There the teenagers climbed up over a wooden railing and jumped off the deck. Jumped off wearing a mix of t-shirts, underwear, pajamas, gym shorts, socks, and bare feet. Depending on the incline, the deck was anywhere from one to half-a-story up in the air. They were terrified! Fire and smoke and poisonous stench and crackling, crashing noise seemingly everywhere. Within moments after all of the teens climbed over the wooden railing and jumped off, possibly within seconds, the whole back deck, the one facing down a wide ravine to look out across the Salish Sea and the Olympic Mountains, collapsed in fire and smoke and disintegrated.

Foto of our house in Edmonds erupting in flames moments after the birthday party girls jumped off the back deck in picture left and fled before it collapsed.

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Back to the Olympics! Wacky Family Fun in the Great Outdoors, 2008

A blended family returns to Olympic National Park and surrounding areas again and yet again in the Year 2008

*This is a work in progress. Enjoy anyway, woo HOO!*

Kate & Talia playing in the stinky seaweed. Makes Morgan retch, so she hangs back outa site. Friday 8 August 2008.

The Olympic Peninsula is almost a separate state from the rest of Washington. Kinda like West Virginia is to my native Virginia. It’s small, compact, remote, and rugged. Unlike West Virginia, however, it’s bordered by the Pacific Ocean on one side and the Salish Sea on the other two. Kristina, born in Seattle, grew up out there. Her dad, a dentist, a loner, and a survivor of US internment camps for Japanese-Americans, took her on numerous fishing trips deep into the river canyons of the Olympics and out into the straits even in stormy weather. We can see the peaks of Olympic National Park and the surrounding national forest wilderness areas from across the water in Seattle. I am always in awe of the everchanging views, even those of rain and clouds, whenever I gaze across the Salish Sea toward yon Olympic Mountains.

The ONP is also where Gwen & I came together as a couple back in the Summer of 1986. The wild combination of mountains, forests, glaciers, whitewater, meadows, and seashore made the ONP my favorite national park to explore. The proximity of the Olympics to Seattle is a primary reason Gwen & I raised our kids out here in Washington State as well as why Kristina & I continue to return there. At the same time, however, the Olympics are so close to Seattle yet so far away. Transportation times are long with the combination of big-city streets, ferry ships, and congested, winding, two-lane roads. Didn’t matter. For years we returned there time and again to nurture our blended families.

This little essay is my recreation of journeys and experiences in which many of the things often used to jog our memories and anchor ourselves across the fabric of timespace were destroyed in a 2010 catastrophic house fire. So many fotos were lost. So many journal entries and kids’ drawings were burned up or blotted out by smoke and water damage. If you see more pictures of some people more than others, well, the ones you see were those salvaged from the watersoaked ashes of the fire, not any judgment or demonstration of preference. The remains of recollection hereby present themselves. Enjoy anyway, and may we all learn even more from the many lessons experienced from living the lives we choose to live.  

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Twin Falls on a February Sunday: A Dog, Kids, Love, & Waterfalls

A Family Dayhike into the Twin Falls Natural Area, Olallie State Park, Washington,
Sunday 13 February 2005

*This is a work in progress as rediscovering “lost” stories, documents, & pictures salvaged from the 2010 Fire continues. Have fun anyway! Click on each foto to blow it up big. Enjoy!

The Author & his kids & the family dog at one of the overlooks along the Twin Falls Trail in Olallie State Park. L2R: Talia (in pink jacket), Katie (just behind her), me, William (in back), Morgan (who now goes by Dylan), & Jo, short for Joline, our English Springer Spaniel. Foto by Kristina. Sunday 13 February 2005.

We were a blended family, a goofy family, & we loved to get silly. We faced many challenges of blending post-double divorce family born of a wild and yet strategic mix of polyamory, intentional community, and devotion to conscious parenting. Kristina & I sought to ground our blended family outdoors in nature and indoors with fellow communitarians. For us, deep relationship was a spiritual practice, a challenging practice, and one demanding constant practice with ever-evolving self-awareness. In the moment, however, hugs & fun & even an, “Uh, Dad, what is going on?” is everything. And now, with the passage of time, forever gone.

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Mowich Lake Snafus: A Family Camping Trip goes off the Rails

Everything fell apart, we grumped and fussed, and we all laughed anyway. Laughed some more, too! Ahhh, what a strange misadventure into the beauty and awe of Mt. Rainier National Park, September 2005

*This is a work in progress with more pictures to be recovered from the wake of The Fire. Enjoy anyway! More awaits.*

“Hello, I see you!” Talia, my stepdaughter I’ve raised since birth as my 3rd & youngest daughter. Her cold weather clothes got left behind at home sho she had on my 1986 wool shirt and Gwen’s old anorak from the Appalachian Trail. Life is funny. Life is messy. Yes, it’s cold outside, colder than it’s supposed to be for summertime, and, hey, we’re having fun anyway!

Sometimes everything goes wrong. Nothing is as expected. Certain private fantasies and anticipations get pushed aside. Expectations turn upside down like toddlers flipping bowls of wet, mushy food. Whatcha gonna do, huh? Call Ghostbusters? From many miles deep in a national park? Where there aren’t any payphones to “quarter out” from nor cell towers for cellphones to connect thru? Well, you share everything you have, take a deep breath, grin, giggle, and chuckle at the gauntlet of predicaments until hysterics take over, and laugh. Laugh at the silliness of the living as we live ones sort out our messes from being too busy living without paying attention to…well, as most parents may understand, parenting children in the midst of everything else provides those perfect storms where focus scatters when priorities themselves become distractions. How in the world does that  happen? No matter. Gotta go potty. Real bad, too! Figure it out on the way there and all around trying to get back from lost, not-lost. As we did back in the Summer of 2005.

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Snow Lake 2019: A man hikes with his oldest child on Father’s Day

William & Dylan (formerly Morgan) hike up to Snow Lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness on Sunday the 16th of June 2019

*This is a work in progress. Click on fotos to blow up big. Enjoy!

Snow Lake from the rocky overlook on the trail up from Alpental, Snoqualmie Pass, WA. Sunday 19 June 2019.

Father & Child…William Dudley Bass & Dylan Blair Bass, formerly Morgan Hannah… Selfie-shot atop the ledges overlooking the lake.

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Experiencing Pete

Well, for starters, the farewell tribute to Pete at our company Winter Holiday Party made me cry. I couldn’t stop crying either, darn it. About a quiet and humble but fierce man of fish and shoes. No, no jokes about walking in the shoes of the fisherman. The slideshow was especially wonderful. I felt moved to see all those changes in the life of a man and his family. And seeing pictures of his younger daughter, whom as an adult worked for a time at the same place her dad and I did, seeing her as this li’l bitty ol’ thang out in the woods by the river moved me, too. Then more pics of her growing up long hair and all was fun to see as most of us know her as one with very short hair. I felt both sad and happy as I was reminded of the many changes my own daughters went thru as they grew up into young adults. Plus, alas, even a little sad for myself as I head out of my middle age years into whatever comes next. 

Yes, this slide show was as evocative as it was inspiring. Aye, kudos to those who worked to put it together! After all this was about an Inspired Guide who steered his family thru the ups and downs of living life all out with the sorrows and joys of lives fully lived. The slide show wasn’t just about Pete, tho. Heck, it wasn’t even about fish! Instead it was about all of us sharing our common essence as human beings. We all resonated with his story as we remembered our own stories. Continue reading

The Strange and Beautiful Mundane: A Rare Father-Daughter Dayhike to Mason Lake

*This is a work in progress. Enjoy anyway!*

A 60 year old dad & his 20 year old daughter go on their first hike together in nearly 4 years, just the two of them without any other family & friends. Double selfie shot on Thursday 30 June 2019.

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Smelled a flower today

An urban vignette

The flower.

Stopped and smelled a flower today. Just now. Moments ago. A magnificent iris flower! A densely purple blossom on the edge of the sidewalk here in Seattle. Smoofed it this Sunday afternoon at about twenty minutes to five. I mean I walked over there, bent over, and sniffed the darn thang. No, no snorting! Stuck my nose into its blossom, tho. Like a lover too embarrassed to be seen mounting his beloved in public. Gently, slightly, carefully yet a bit brusquely I plowed my nose between its petals until they barely touched my cheeks. Lingered a moment all too brief in time, then pulled out quickly lest anyone among the general public would think I was a flower snorter or some kind of foolish and possibly dangerous nutter. 

Oh my goodness, the scent of these blooms stimulated my mild synesthesia. Made me horny as a dog, too! This iris smelled so intoxicating I felt lost in enchantment. For a moment I could barely move as I smelled colors and saw smells and felt sounds all around. As light and shadow turned inside out beneath the brightness of day on a planet spinning toward night, right here within the next moment already passing I realized just how much of a ghost I’ve become. Aye, a damn ghost! Been ghosting thru life as if I was some broken and forgotten clumpenproletariat of chunky concrete abandoned against some godforsaken wall of a cobblestone alley in a rundown factory town on the edge of perpetual shadow. Continue reading

From Nights of Darkness to Days of Burning Light: Family Adventures in Olympic National Park 2011

*Note this is a work in progress. Enjoy anyway!*

Saturday 27 August – Thursday 1 September 2011

Kate & Talia running along the edge of the Hoh River in Olympic National Park, Sunday evening of the 28th of August 2011.

Recollections and dynamics of a strange and beautiful Family Camping Trip to Olympic National Park and surrounding areas, including the Elwha & Hoh River Valleys including the Hoh Rain Forest, back & forth thru the village of Sekiu, out to Lake Ozette & the Ozette Triangle with Cape Alava on the Wild Olympic Coast, & finally, the Upper Sol Duc. At the time our family was recovering from a series of personal catastrophes and severe financial losses related to the Great Global Recession and a house fire. We felt great disruption and distress as a household. As I look back after nearly 8 years, it’s clear to me now all of us in our own way unconsciously used this grand adventure to reset our blended family. Families are, after all, constant works in progress, and being outdoors in nature was the primary way our family found to heal our relationships.

We looked for light in a dark time. I speak for myself, of course, but share what I sensed in those who lived with me back in those days and nights. Perhaps I am wrong, and being wrong is acceptable. Such is life. As I experienced those years of Hard Times, we searched for anything to give us hope. Ironically, however, we weren’t the type of people to usually waste time “hoping” for something to happen. We took action steps. So for us to hope back in those times was a measure of our collective despair.

Life is messy from birth to death. Struggling to choose freely regardless of our circumstances, we sought to focus on beauty and joy and to let go of dread. This road trip into a spectacular and diverse national park was not a distraction for our family but a trip of purpose to reclaim our fractured identity as a family. We sought to heal amidst nature. There was a drive to redefine what and who we were as individuals, as a family, and as part of a larger network of communities. We sought to anchor ourselves in a national park we all had been to many times in the same way people venture forth to those special sacred places on pilgrimages as physical as they are spiritual. I was, unfortunately, particularly prone towards melancholy and rumination back then as I did not understand depression as disease. These group and individual deliberations were not necessarily conscious intentions at the time but arose from the understandings of hindsight.

Perhaps we forgot the journey itself was as vital if not more so than the destinations, although deep down I sense we all knew somehow the destinations were internal and buried so deep as to feel unreachable. Indeed this road trip of sorts into the Wild was a build-up to an intense Native American Church house blessing ceremony for our then-temporary home. This was the one we had moved into following the losses of our previous homes including one to a devastating fire only to have the “new” house damaged by a natural gas explosion in the house next door. Led by an NAC group inspired by the Rainbow Hoop Prophecy. These events both past and planned loomed over this family adventure into Olympic National Park. At times I felt haunted, lost in what could have been, and at other times I felt joy in the present moment and felt by coming together with others for such a significant ceremony we were in action to accomplish results.

My then-now-ex-third wife Kristina, the mother of my stepdaughter Talia, grew up just outside of it in Port Angeles where she spent much of her youth exploring the national park and surrounding areas with her parents. Her father took her fishing up every stream in the peninsula it seemed. The ONP is also where my then-girlfriend and eventual second-ex-wife Gwen spent the Summer of 1986 back after we began to date earlier in the spring. She worked at Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort during those magickal months. This incredibly varied national park is where the two of us grew into a couple. Gwen showed me the Pacific Ocean for the first time during a camping trip to Second Beach on the Wild Olympic Coast. Years later we had children, first Morgan (now goes by Dylan) and then Kate. We kept returning anyway, Gwen, Kristina, & I, in various combinations with each other, our children, and our friends.

Yes, all six of us experienced many trips to the ONP with our children and sometimes other friends. Camping and hiking trips into the Olympics were a regular odyssey for all 3 of my daughters. Kristina and I wanted to create a sense of continuity and normalcy for the kids, but our different approaches began to clash more and more as we struggled to emerge from the strain of mounting crises. 

As such this 2011 adventure proved to be especially bittersweet in hindsight as it was the last journey to the Olympics for this particular Bass (Katayama-Bass) Family. We had many adventures on this one crazy fun trip anyway. All of us felt blessed to have shared these great road trips together as a family with so many wonderful memories of camping, hiking, swimming, roasting marshmallows, and, yes, even arguing. So…Enjoy!

Family tree hug around a giant Sitka spruce! L2R: Kristina, Morgan, Kate, Talia, & me, William. Foto by an enthusiastic stranger with my Nikon D90. Monday 29 August 2011.

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Sailing in a Porta Potty gripped with the Semiahmoo Bloos

Once upon a long time ago, at least it felt so, felt so for me, I spent a full day sailing upon the Salish Sea, tipped a sailboat over so much the outermost lip of the starboard-side gunwale dipped underwater, and I ended up rocking a porta potty across the deep inner sea. It was a perfect summer day blessed with happy yellow sunshine and cool breezes. Sublime views of mountains, islands, and sparkling seas reaffirmed our decision to move out here to Cascadia. Gwen Hughes, my wife at the time and one of my exes today and still a dear friend, had moved together with me to Seattle from our native Virginia. We had previously been out here for parts of 1986-1987 and wanted to get back West. After living in North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and briefly even Vermont, we said farewell to the East Coast with our 1991 thruhike of the Appalachian Trail. In January of 1992 we returned to our beloved Pacific Northwest.

Gwen had worked for a small, model toy sailboat company during her earlier time in Cascadia. Tippecanoe Boats was founded in 1983 by a lovely, wackyfun couple from places back East. These were anti-electric motor toys back in those days, too, real sailing model sailboats, not merely whirring, radio-operated, mechanical robots. Years later, however, the company evolved into making exquisitely crafted, stunningly gorgeous, radio-controlled model sailboats. Back in the 80s, tho, Gwen helped cut and sew the sails from real nylon spinnaker cloth, pack and load up inventory, help sell the boats at art fairs, craft shows and outdoor festivals, and lots of grunty-grunt work.

Even I did some work for a few short weeks, soldering rudders plus a few other things. I was a lousy solderer, however, as too much made the rudder too heavy. Such distortions left the toy model sailboat off-balanced, and while my clumsy efforts became more refined as I progressed, even earning an occasional kudos, Will, the primary owner, and I realized I wasn’t playing to my strengths. The cool thing was Chris, one of our other T-boat workers, also worked at the magnificent Honey Bear Bakery. Occasional treats came our way, and even more as the primary owner of Tippecanoe disliked ingesting yummy bearilicious refined white sugar products. Aye, those were halcyon days for us early migrants to the then-Emerald City. The worldwide Cold War had ended, the forever Global War on Terror was a ways off, smartfone and socmed addiction was yet to be, and there were mountains to climb, trails to hike, and seas to sail! Continue reading

Travel Quickies: Need a new pack? What kind of hiker are you?

The first question I ask anyone who seeks help with being properly outfitted for outdoor adventure and travel is exactly what type of activity do they want to do? Not in three to five years, but now for today and tomorrow and this year. Often they’re looking at laptop bags instead of hiking packs as they’re imagining themselves rambling down trails thru forests and deserts. Or they’re looking at mountaineering packs with lots of straps while dreaming of zipping around Europe or East Asia on planes and trains. Sure, one can do most anything with any kind of pack, and, yes, one can argue gear is so hypercompartmentalized these days. This means more choices for a better fit, however, and so once I’m clear what they want, then off we go!

You want to go hiking and camping, right? Backpacking, too? Great! It’s beautiful out there! Even in the rain! OK, what kind of hiker are you? What kind of camping do you want to do? What’s your big dream you’re gonna make come true this year?

Let’s have five quick looks at five different broad categories of hiking. So whatcha wanna do? Continue reading

Ghosts in the Forests: Family Adventures in Olympic National Park 2004 & 2005

Memories from Family Adventures in the Mountain Forests

*This is an unfinished work in progress. Enjoy anyway!*

Long ago memories: Talia before a downed tree in Sol Duc Campground, Olympic National Park. Kate is on the distant left. The boy on foto right is one of their new “campground buddies.” Summer of 2005. Foto by Morgan Bass.

Our blended family enjoyed many adventures into the wilds of Washington State. We spent more time in Olympic National Park than in any other national park or wilderness area. Memories of these trips, while wonderful, flitter like ghosts in a sad happy kind of way. Most of this is due to the disruption caused by the March 2010 housefire in particular. We lost about 90% or more of our print fotos, slide transparencies, and digital pictures from the time before the Fire. We had many hundreds, almost 2,000 pictures from family trips to the Olympics after the Fire such as from the Summers of 2010 and 2011. Only a small few images remain from some of our adventures before then. In some cases, however, nothing survived the Fire.

These losses led to a blurry fragmentation of memories as we all struggle to recall what happened when. These pictures, for example, stem from two family camping trips to the Olympics, including both Salt Creek Park – Clallam County Recreation Area and the national park as well as visits to other local gems in the area. One set of fotos is from our August 2004 trip there and the other from 2005, possibly August as well, altho the those pictures stamped February 2006. They clearly were taken in the summertime thus placing them back in 2005. These digital images have been copied and shared several times. Often the time dates reflect the time copies of the now-lost original images was shared, saved, recopied, reshared, and saved again. My family’s story here is as much about our relationships to our memories of places, times, and people as well as the road trips and camping adventures we found ourselves upon. Sometimes all this feels as if we’re chasing ghosts thru the forests.  Continue reading

Smoke, Rocks, and Trees: Four Days on the Wonderland Trail

Record of an attempt to thruhike around a massive volcano as wildfires raged in the forests nearby. I went to grieve, to mend a broken heart, and to walk my own talk with the Divine. Hiking thru deep grief was an initiation. In doing so, however, I also made new friends, one of them a dog. I struggled with aging as I pushed thru smoke and dust, darkness and light, and came face to face with…myself.

*This is a work in progress. Feel free to enjoy in the meantime. Thank you!*

Click on any image to enlarge the foto. Enjoy.

Wayne & I gaze up into the smoke-choked Tatoosh Range from where we stood along the banks of the Nisqually River, Mount Rainier National Park. Tuesday morning the 5th of September 2017. May the fires stay far away! May the long-promised rain finally fall!

Wildfires burned along the eastern edges of the national park, spilling out from the Norse Peak Wilderness from lightning strikes during a short but severe mini-drought. Even so, aye, even so, the Trail beckons and calls my soul forth to walk these paths thru mountain forests. I felt the energy of the area shift when I walked thru this place between trees. Felt like I passed thru a portal in spacetime. This is a section of the Wonderland Trail on the western flanks of the park near Longmire, Day 1 of 4.

The Sun burns thru smoky haze in the late afternoon at Klapatche Park on the Wonderland Trail, Day 2 of 4.

Tahoma Creek thunders below the infamous swinging bridge across the gorge. In the morning of Day 2. Felt like I was walking into the apocalypse and all was beautiful anyway. Living and dying are but processes as we move thru our experiences toward wholeness. Isn’t what we do as we choose how to live, however, what really matters as we journey along the way? 

I went into the wilderness to grieve. My attempt to thruhike the Wonderland Trail, one of the most celebrated of the short long-distance trails, wasn’t to conquer nature or rack up another win on a list of long-distance hiking trails. In fact I didn’t even trail for this expedition as I have rigorously done so for all previous adventures. I trusted in my extensive backcountry experience and felt confident enough to push thru any pain. My bodymind would adapt. Right? Wouldn’t my broken heart still be heart enough to carry the rest of me onwards? Even with guts? The intention was to immerse myself in solitude so as to engage the Divine one-on-one with what the hell happened and why. Especially while deep in the backcountry far away from crowds of people. Truth is I went into Nature to heal, to heal my soul, to heal my capacity to open to love no matter what. An adventure hiking the famously beautiful and difficult Wonderland Trail provided the canvas of nature to paint my sorrows and joys upon.

This solo backpacking trip would be my own Walk ‘n’ Talk with God & Goddess, so to speak. For while I didn’t always show it, I remained in deep pain from the heartbreak of being ghosted and feeling abandoned not quite two months earlier by an otherwise extraordinary woman whom I loved and adored and, it appeared at the time, she, me. At least she seemed to love and appreciate me in the beginning of what was to be a remarkable and unusual albeit short-lived relationship. The irony is she was a bit of a globetrotter herself. She sought out long-distance hiking trails to heal and in doing so strip away the faux veneer of urban civilization. Aye, in many ways we were so much alike our similarities felt uncanny. Yet it was not to be. Nor did I see the end coming. 

Life goes on for the living, however, and tears heal. Grieving is healthy albeit painful for those grieving. It’s uncomfortable for those around the bereaved. So I chose to hike around the massive bulk of a giant volcano as my way of moving forward in this life. For as I took one step after another and one breath upon the next the immediacy of the Trail demanded such total focus as to push out all thoughts of anything else but the next breath and the next step and the next bite to eat and water to drink. These demands plus the threat of rapidly-spreading wildfires during a short but severe drought in the wake of record breaking snowfall and flooding all became part of my healing process.

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Sunset & Darkness: October on Granite Mountain

An afternoon Autumn hike up a mountain to watch the sunset turns into one cold scramble back down towards midnight in 2017

*This is a work in progress. Feel free to enjoy in the meantime. Thank you!*

Click on any image to enlarge the foto & enjoy.

Grunting up to the summit late in the afternoon of Monday the 9th of October 2017. All fotos by the Author.

Gazing deeper into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness from near the mountain summit.

I seem to end up hiking in the dark a lot lately. One reason I always bring a headlamp with extra batteries for me. Today was one of those gorgeous fall days of Indian Summer bright with autumn foliage amidst the evergreens. Winter awaited me at the top of the mountain, however, and accompanied me back down into darkness. There wasn’t any ambush. Instead I embraced the elements and went into it. All the way into it, too. Yes, it was a glorious day.

“Epic!” another climber declared as he hiked back down as I scrambled up. Low-angled beams of waning sunlight lit up the mountainside in shades of fiery golden reds before the encroaching shadows of sunset.

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Golden Leaves of November

Walking back to catch the train home after a dentist appointment brought unexpected surprises as a late blaze of Autumn glory swiftly turned into a fierce storm in mid-November of 2017

*This is an unfinished work in progress. Please enjoy what’s here as I complete it. Thanks!*

Click on each picture to expand it. All fotos by the Author.

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Midwinter atop Hurricane Ridge

One cold, sunny day in Olympic National Park in January 2016

*This is an unfinished work in progress. In the meantime please enjoy what’s here. Thank you!*

Click upon any foto to enlarge the image.

Gazing across mountain wilderness from Hurricane Ridge (5,242 ft / 1,598 m), Olympic National Park. Sunday 24 January 2016. All fotos by the Author.

The Mt. Olympus Massif, heart of the Olympic Mountains. This crown jewel of the maritime Pacific Northwest stands at the elevation of 7,969 feet or 2,429 meters.

After visiting a troubled and isolated friend afflicted with both a chronic autoimmune condition and agoraphobia outside of Sequim, Washington, I drove alone towards Port Angeles. In addition to catching up on life together and cheering her up, I interviewed her about what she believes to be extraterrestrial or intradimensional beings and creatures creeping around her house when she was lived with her parents and siblings many years ago. She declared those series of events felt as if they occurred just yesterday. When it came time for me to leave and return to Seattle, I invited her to join me on a Sunday drive up to Hurricane Ridge. My friend declined. She felt fragile and all those people and wide, open alpine spaces filled her with a dread she couldn’t explain other than as a highly sensitive person she felt unusually vulnerable. So I drove alone, feeling a little sad, and began to reminisce about my own trips into Olympic National Park with my ex-wives Gwen and Kristina and our children Morgan, Kate, and Talia. Oh, how I miss them! And yet I grew to appreciate my time alone with only myself and the world. Up the icy mountain road I drove deep into my own Dreamtime.

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Dreams of Sasquatch: Solo to Mason Lake & Mt. Defiance

Conversations with the Invisible on a day hike to Mason Lake then climbing up to the top of Mt. Defiance in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness of Cascadia

*Click on any picture to expand the foto. Enjoy!*

This is an unfinished work in progress. Feel free to explore what’s already here. Thanks!

Looking down from atop the summit of Mt. Defiance (5584 ft / 1702 m) into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. Lake Kulla Kulla is in the lower left. Mason Lake beyond over in the right center. Bandera Mountain rises behind Mason Lake, followed by Pratt & Granite Mountains further back towards center ridge side. Foto by the author. Monday 22 June 2015.

Gazing deeper, steeper from Mt. Defiance into the belly of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

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Spider in Autumn

A large female Cross Orbweaver Spider, Araneus diadematus, becomes the Queen of the Front Porch where we lived in Green Lake during Autumn’s last gasp before the onset of Winter, 21 November 2014.

This is an unfinished work in progress. Feel free to explore what’s already here. Thanks!

Queen of the Porch

She scurries quickly.

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Bandera Mountain: Solo in the Mountains for a Day

Bandera Mountain: 5245 ft / 1598 m
False Summit (West Peak) of Bandera: 5157 ft/1572 m

This little adventure turned out to be medicine for mind, body, & soul. Record of a stiff dayhike & a madcap scramble up a modest but steep peak in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness as I nurtured my spirit and trained my bodymind for more demanding adventures. 

***Unfinished work in Progress. Please enjoy what’s here to see & read, and thank you for your patience.***

*Click on any image to blow it up big for a larger view. Enjoy!*

Mason Lake from the summit of Bandera Mountain. Several good campsites lay in the woods below beyond talus & scree.

Summit selfie from later in the evening. Sunday 31 May 2015.

Seattle is surrounded by exceptional outdoor adventure riches. An hour’s drive east took me to a trailhead into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. I was off work and alone on this Sunday at the end of May 2015. I chose Bandera Mountain for a steep dayhike. Part of my training for challenging hikes and scrambles in the mountainous backcountry of Cascadia. But really I went to heal my body, mind, & soul. This short, little, madcap adventure allowed for all these things to occur.

Mt. Rainier amid turbulent late Spring skies from my grunt up Bandera Mountain.

The weather was warmer than normal as an extended drought persisted, most of the snow usually around was gone. With so much going on in my everyday life, I felt a deep-seated need to get out onto the trails into the backcountry. Even felt compelled to push off-trail thru rocks & vegetation to find sanctuary for deep inner peace amidst outer beauty & physical hardship. The woman I was dating at the time, Little Sky, had to work this Sunday. My friends were already busy, and all of my kids were away doing their own thing. My oldest daughter, Morgan, was back east thruhiking the Appalachian Trail. While I would have preferred some company on the climb, sometimes going solo is the most satisfying way to go. So solo it was!

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Solo among Crowds: A Dayhike to Bridal Veil Falls

Dayhike up Mt. Index to Bridal Veil Falls on Sunday the 10th of May 2015

Low water already & it’s only May…Bridal Veil Falls in the 3rd year of a drought.

 

 

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A Slime Mold comes to Visit

Two Weeks in the life of one Fuligo septica in Pictures

Meet Bobby Sue, a beautiful Dog Vomit Slime Mold, who chose to visit us in Green Lake for a month. Bobby Sue appeared on the edge of the front steps around the 10th of May 2015. This foto was taken on Tuesday the 12th of May after the slime mold had already crept a short distance.

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An afternoon ramble into the Alpine Lakes one day in May

The author tramps into the woods with an urban friend to show her a taste of the Wild with a view of mountain lakes

 

Olallie Lake from the ridge connecting Pratt & Granite Mountains, Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area, Washington/Cascadia. Monday 25 May 2015. Foto by the Author.

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Great Blue Heron, Descendant of Dinosaurs

Great Blue Heron, Descendant of Dinosaurs, landed in the Wilds of Green Lake, a park in northern Seattle, Washington State, Cascadia, one day in May.

Ardea herodias dinosaurus avianus

The large, elegant bird stood as still as a Buddha, except this Buddha was a predator. All action froze as matter flowed thru time except for those ripples in the lake and around us in the air. In the still point left unturned, my mind awakened from the erotic distractions of being with a new lover those early months of 2015, already a bygone year bereft of present moments. This great blue heron, however, this Descendant of Dinosaurs and as regal as an Avian monarch, brought everything into a focus as sharp as the spike of its beak.

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In the Wake of the Storm: A Winter Journey into the Coulees of the Scablands

A Chronicle of a Father & Daughter’s Changing Relationship as they travel deep into Mose’s & Frenchman’s Coulees in the Channeled Scablands of Cascadia’s Washington Desert searching for connection as much as for adventure one long February weekend in the year 2015.

***This is work in progress with apologies for the delay. Go ahead & enjoy anyway! The rest shall come.***

See! My daughter does love me, LOL!

Moses Coulee expanse from the old, two-lane highway, Monday 9 February 2015.

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Travel Quickies

Attitude over Gear


Hey there! Wow, an entire planet to explore! Cool, huh? So, welcome. Let’s go! Let’s have fun! Because adventure travel can be pretty darn hard sometimes. Difficult, dangerous, even scary, and always incredibly rewarding. Furthermore, it’s OK to make mistakes! Life is messy. We all mess up. So own it, OK? Own it now! Make mistakes & learn from ’em, but don’t mess around. We don’t want anyone to get sick, hurt, or worse.

Oh, my goodness, lookit! Leave all that heavy stuff at home, LOL! Quickly, too, before I start typing in blankety-blanks here.

Think about it. Your pack’s gonna be your home away from home. So treat it with respect. Protect your home as you would your body as the temple for your soul. You wanna be light and nimble on your feet. Even lighter if you’re on crutches. Here we’re gonna dive into a warren of rabbit holes crawling with Cheshire Cats.

You are invited to give feedback and share from your own experiences & knowledge. Consider we’re all in a way forming a community here online. We’re on the same team! We’re certainly all on the same planet. So share & bam bam boom it out across all yer socmed platforms. I’d appreciate you doing so. Don’t worry about not looking suave & professional either. No worries! Yeah, no worries there, and no worries here. Bring yourself and share your stories, too. After all, life is messy! Let’s go make a few more messes, woo HOO!

Thank you.

Update:

Travel Quickies was originally an idea for a new category and page section for a series of short articles geared toward preparing for trips to travel in different countries or into the wilderness in your own. A dynamic customer named Christina inspired me to take such an approach after I worked with her and her fiancé to travel into both cities and the backcountry. She thought I should do YouTube videos, and I hesitated as I didn’t want to be bound by their rules and cybersecurity concerns. Anyway, the process morphed into mini-articles. So moved this into posts as an article. 

“Travel Quickies” encourages a way of thinking about one’s self and others when one is traveling whether by foot down a remote wilderness trail, a train abroad, or in a megacity on the other side of the world. It’s more attitudes, aye, more for mindsets and even heartsets (hey, coined a new word there!) than it is about gear and clothes and luggage. Such is always changing even if so much appears to remain the same.

Enjoy the journey!

William Dudley Bass
Saturday 17 September 2017
Friday 17 April 2020
Seattle, Washington
USA
Cascadia
Sol

Image Sources:

*Top Image: https://pixabay.com/en/earth-earth-at-night-night-lights-11595/ CC0 Creative  Commons.

*Bottom Image: https://pixabay.com/en/earth-planet-front-side-back-11593/ CC0 Creative Commons.

 

Copyright © 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.

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Facing Fear (Your Deepest, Innermost Fears around Love)

Sometimes the Dragons we must eventually face hide within the wilderness of our own hearts

Often in the pursuit of adventure and facing one’s terror amidst avalanching mountains and flooded whitewater rivers, one may forget the Hardest Work and the Greatest Challenges lay not at Death’s Door in the Wilderness but in being with people including those we love and those who love us. Much of the time, however, it’s face to face with the mirrors of your own self.

This speaks especially with those we love or used to love. Our most difficult practices arise within the relationships we form among ourselves, with other people, and especially our selves.

The greatest Dragon we must someday face is not some monster in a cave abiding over those hearts we treasure the most. No, the greatest Dragon is us as we face our own shame, anger, & fear, yes, fear of turning back around to look those Others in the eye and atone for the consequences of damaging our relationships with them. Perhaps the hardest work is facing those whom we have hurt and wronged. Oh, the messes I have made! And cleaned up, too. It’s a neverending process at first, and, over time, the more one practices the easiest such practices become.

“Everyone says love hurts, but that is not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. Everyone gets these things confused with love but in reality, love is the only thing in the world that covers up all the pain and makes someone feel wonderful again. Love is the only thing in the world that does not hurt.” – Liam Neeson

So, yeah, listen up. Love doesn’t stop. Who turned it off? Stop pretending. Do the fucking work. Stay with the pain. Transmute it with breath and blood. Face me. Let me face you. Choose to keep on loving no matter what. Awaken into the Oneness we once shared and, yes, still exists. Whether or not you believe in Twin Flames and the Twin Flame blues is up to you, and besides, doesn’t change what we had felt so true. Keep the fire burning before the last flame blazes out taking with it every precious memory of what was & what almost could have been.

 

William Dudley Bass
Thursday 10 August 2017
SeaTac/Seattle, Washington
Cascadia

NOTE: The quoted statement from Liam Neeson was borrowed from Wild Earth @ http://wild-earth.tumblr.com/post/136230670895/everyone-says-love-hurts-but-that-is-not-true.

The image of the red dragon & heart is a Free Download from Public Domain Pictures, License CCO Public Domain, @ http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=4445&picture=dragon-heart.

This essay/cry out was first published to my Facebook page on the evening of Thursday the 10th of August 2017.

Copyright © 2017 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship of and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.

 

Swarm of Ants on a Sunny Day in June

Ants swarm upon a sidewalk in Wallingford.

I wanted to walk home from work at least once as one way to say goodbye to where I’ve lived at the time. Finally did so one sunny Saturday in late June of 2017. At the time I lived in the Tangletown-Latona neighborhoods of the Green Lake area in North Seattle. Lived there for a little over four years in an informal cooperative household.

For various reasons of timing, I didn’t make the walk to where I worked in the old Cascade neighborhood of South Lake Union. Today, however, I declined the offer of a ride home and chose to proceed on foot instead. And I did. Walked all the way home. Passed thru the long, strung-out-along-the-water neighborhoods of East Lake, skirted the edges of the U-District, and crossed under I-5 into Wallingford. Eventually passed north thru Wallingford into Tangletown-Latona.

Took me about an hour and 45 minutes. Could’ve walked it in an hour and a half or less, but I dawdled at viewpoints and took my time before spurts of speed. I felt at peace in and with nature and enjoyed my little adventures along the edges of the urban wild. Continue reading

Baby Spiders!

“Facebutt” is deluged with videos of silly, cute videos of kitty cats & puppy dogs. So much torment to sit thru, LOL! Well, shit, then, here’s a short video I recorded of sweet little animal babies doing what cute little animal babies do:

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Deep into Mountains Beyond the River

(***This is a work in progress. All is Copyrighted. Enjoy!***)

William & Morgan’s Father-Daughter 50-mile, 7-day Backpacking Trip in Olympic National Park with Way Too Much Weight,
Sunday 31 August – Saturday 6 September 2014,
or
A father & daughter rediscover each other on the Trail before tripping out on the edge of the Ocean

*Click on each foto to blow it up big if you like. Enjoy!*

White Creek Meadows along the O’Neil’s Pass Trail, Olympic National Park, 3 September 2014, Day 4.

Picture of goofy Dad by Daughter. Enchanted Valley, Day 2.

Picture of Daughter by Dad. Upper Quinault, Day 3.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morgan was born in the bed at home of an apartment in Seattle a little over 20 years ago before our first backpacking trip together. Both experiences were initiations. I didn’t realize the latter was one, too, however, until a couple of months later. Backpacking with my oldest of three daughters changed my life. It changed hers, too.

This journey was a spiritual and deeply physical reconnection with nature and wilderness. I was also compelled to drop down into deeper levels of awareness of what and who I am as both a self-aware man and as consciousness beyond self. This was my first backpacking trip in 7 years. Suffered from my most severe blisters ever, and I’m the kinda of guy who rarely gets blisters and when I do they’re little bitty thangs.

This trip was also Morgan’s longest backpacking trip up to this point. She was concerned about old injuries flaring up. This trek was a big test for her for she planned to attempt a thruhike of the Appalachian Trial in 6 more months. Most precious, however, was a Father and his Daughter re-creating their parent-child relationship as adults. Being halfway up a steep mountainside with a river below you miles and miles from civilization does things like that to people in a hurry to do-do-do.

Afterwards we both admitted we were afraid we wouldn’t get along, would argue constantly, and wouldn’t find anything to talk about or for. We laughed as those fears didn’t even come close to materializing. Plus this proved an incredible adventure in its own right. Wild weather, bizarre people, magnificent scenery marred by global climate disruption, and unexpected surprises including stumbling into a psychedelic festival on the edge of the ocean made this end of summer backpacking trip unforgettable.

An invisible dynamic was the complex relationships we had with her mom and step-mom, both whom were also my ex-wives. Gwen Hughes, Morgan’s mother, and I thruhiked the Appalachian Trail all the way from Georgia to Maine back in 1991. Gwen and I were known as The Pregnant Rhinos back in our halcyon thruhiker days.

We did an estimated 3,500 kilometers or almost 2,200 miles plus about 150 to 200 miles of crazy ass side hikes. The length of the AT keeps changing. It’s 2,190 miles per 2016 but was 2,168.1 miles in 2001, 2,179.1 miles in 2010, and was about 2,000 miles in 1937. It was 2,184 miles when Gwen and I thruhiked the AT in 1991, and 2,189.2 miles when Morgan attempted her thruhike the following year in 2015.

The Pregnant Rhinos on the AT! aka Morgan’s parents before she was born. 🙂 Here Crazy Gweeyin buzzes off Yeldud the Mad’s hair while he pretends to be scary. This is during a crazy stop at Rusty’s Hard Time Hollow on the edge of the Shenandoahs in Virginia sometime in early Summer of 1991. At the time of this picture, William is 32 years along & Gwen is 26. Foto by Weathercarrot.

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The Moaning Pad

A Nutty Vignette

A group of us men and women worked steadily in the cavernous chill. We stood and shuffled around large, crated boxes of outdoor adventure travel products. These items were all returns, i.e. customers had purchased them from the retail company we worked with and for whatever reason returned them. We prepped them for a one-time clearance sale and marked down the prices with metallic silver ink pens. It was early in the morning close to the Winter Solstice. While it wasn’t freezing, we were in a large concrete cargo bay where it sure felt icy as Hell. Cold, dank, clammy, and gloomy, too. We kept ourselves warm by wearing layers of funky colorful clothes in all combinations borrowed from where they were heaped up in those crated boxes. I didn’t even check to see if I had on a woman’s or a man’s fleece jacket. One person pulled on a kooky mix of pants under two padded, insulated skirts and giggled. We quickly discovered a certain rhythm and worked hard. At the same time we entertained ourselves by reading the return tags to see what reasons people used to justify returning an item.

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Farting Uphill to Poo Poo Point

A Tiger Mountain Adventure,

Or, rather, a Meditation on Relationships

Mount Rainier aka The Mountain from along the Chirico Trail on West Tiger Mountain on Monday the 26th of January 2015. Furthermore, it’s time to restore The Mountain to her Native name: Ti’Swaq’ … the Sky Wiper!

Mount Rainier aka The Mountain from along the Chirico Trail on West Tiger Mountain on Monday the 26th of January 2015. Furthermore, it’s time to restore The Mountain to her chosen Native name: Ti’Swaq’ … the Sky Wiper!

Monday 26 January 2015

Our day hike had two purposes: to spend time together reconnecting as father and daughter, and for my daughter to train for her upcoming attempt to thruhike the Appalachian Trail. Morgan and I are both rather eccentric. We both know it, too, and value such in the other. We both appreciate being outdoors and nature is a spiritual connection. Otherwise it feels like night and day to me. This day, however, we were late getting ourselves together as we made the gravest error of making busy work a priority. Especially me.

“Hurry up, Dad!” Morgan shouted. “Jeezus, Dad! You’re always yelling at me to hurry up and let’s go and all, and here you are texting old girlfriends and stuff!”

Except I didn’t have any girlfriends at that point, old or otherwise, as I was divorced and still single.

At this point our hike had to meet several criteria so as to qualify both as quality bonding time and provide at least SOME training. First, both drive time and trail mileage had to be short. The trail also needed to be steep as all get out to make up for being so short. We also wanted a trail we haven’t done over and over again.

Ah! Poo Poo Point! Yes!

“What?” Morgan asked with a scowl. “Poo Poo Point? Ew, gross, Dad. Like what, horses and cow poop and stuff?”

“No, it’s a short, steep hike up the side of Tiger Mountain from the back side of Issaquah. You’ve done it once before with Kate and Talia and me and Kristina back when Kristina and I were married. We watched paragliders sail off the cliff top.”

“Oh. Yeah, I remember now. OK, let’s go.”

What many call the Poo Poo Point Trail is really the Chirico Trail. This locally notorious footpath drives straight up the slopes of West Tiger Mountain. It’s steep and sweaty sweet before unraveling into rambling twists and turns. Two open, grassy meadows high up near the summit provided launch jump-offs for hang gliders and paragliders. Well, one doesn’t see hang gliders much anymore as paragliding has won out as technology advanced. Hiking thru wintry trees, however, one can look south upon the mighty leviathan bulk of Mt. Rainier, or as the Native Americans prefer, Ti’Swaq’ the Sky Swiper!

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At the Bottom of The Mountain

A Winter Day Trip to Mt. Rainier in the Throes of Climate Change,

Monday 29 December 2014

Morgan (L) & Anne outside the Nisqually Entrance to Mount Rainier National Park.

Morgan (L) & Anne outside the Nisqually Entrance to Mount Rainier National Park. Normally the snow is deep and there isn’t much frozen snowmelt on the road. Not the case here this time nor up around the bend.

On the last Monday in the Year 2014 Common Era, I drove three of us to Mount Rainier National Park. The other two were my oldest daughter Morgan, a few months shy of turning 21, and her maternal cousin, Anne, of about the same age but a little older. Morgan had recently moved back to Seattle from Bellingham to prepare for her journey along the Appalachian Trail. Her mother Gwen Hughes, Anne’s auntie, and now my ex-wife tho still dear friend, and I had thruhiked the AT once upon a somewhat long time ago back in 1991. Gwen and I, originally from Virginia, still lived in Seattle, Washington. Anne was from Florida, and had not ever been to Seattle or Mt. Rainier before, and wanted to go. Woo Hoo, Mt. Rainier! Off we went. We didn’t make it past the bottom of The Mountain.

We determined to have fun anyway.

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Lyman Glacier Melts Away: Global Climate Disruption in One Local Spot

Global Climate Disruption as exemplified in one solitary place in the Glacier Peak Wilderness of the Washington Cascades from a hiker’s perspective

Modified from Image of Mt. Chiwawa's Lyman Glacier melting away across 118 years between 1890 and 2008 per glaciology field research by Nichols College based in Dudley, Massachusetts.

Modified from Image of Mt. Chiwawa’s Lyman Glacier melting away across 118 years between 1890 and 2008 per glaciology field research in the North Cascade Glacier Climate Project by Nichols College based in Dudley, Massachusetts.

In August 2006 and nine years later in July 2015 I climbed up Spider Gap and looked down the flanks of Chiwawa Mountain upon the dirty ice of Lyman Glacier. I was shocked to behold how much snow and ice had vanished across such a relatively short span of time. This short article is my attempt to record this one example of Global Climate Disruption in one solitary spot thru my words and pictures. Far fewer pictures exist for 2006 as most of my then-extensive fotograf collections were destroyed when my house burned down back in March of 2010. For the record, the science is clear human pollution is destructive to our planetary biosphere and affects our global climate.

Lyman Glacier melting and dropping rockslide debris into Upper Lyman Lake, Glacier Peak Wilderness, Tuesday 28 July 2015.

Lyman Glacier melting and dropping rockslide debris into Upper Lyman Lake, Glacier Peak Wilderness, Tuesday 28 July 2015. This and all subsequent Fotos by William Dudley Bass & are copyrighted with all rights reserved, thank you.

Older controversies regarding global cooling have already been addressed, resolved, and discarded. Now, however, newer material emerges as we’ve become aware our solar system is undergoing numerous widespread changes as it speeds thru a section of the Milky Way Galaxy currently dense in cosmic radiation. It appears this galactic-solarial interaction may be having a much greater impact upon Earth’s climate than human pollution. This process is also not understood, and our pollution clearly makes our destabilized global climate worse. In addition, long-term planetary history demonstrates periods of global warming are followed by ice ages. Which means we really don’t know what the hell is gonna happen next. Right now, however, we in the American Pacific Northwest are entering into the third year of a drought. Although snow has recently fallen in our alpine elevations, an unusually powerful El Nino system in the wake of the Pacific Blob anomaly promises a wild, warm ride into the unknown. Continue reading

Dragonfly People: Coming together in Nature for Adventure and Community, 2002 – 2003

A real Dragonfly Community in Nature.

A real Dragonfly Community in Nature.*

Dragonflies are small animals and ferocious predators. They live all across the planet except Antarctica. Prehistoric ancestors of today’s dragonflies were huge insects with wingspans of almost 30 inches or 7.6 centimeters across. The Dragonfly is also a symbol of transformation, power, adaptability, and poise. A number of us communitarians came together from different urban cooperative households across Greater Seattle to explore new communal possibilities. Some of the early meetings held anywhere from 20 to nearly 50 people. A few individuals, including Syd Fredrickson, known as a major player within the intentional communities movement, helped facilitate many of our early sessions. Eventually some of us moved to form a new intentional community. Our new family came to be known as Dragonfly or the Yellow Dragonfly House. We chose this majestic, wild animal as our spirit totem with a focus on personal and group transformation.

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TRANSFORMATION: a 150 foot long dragonfly crop circle apparently created overnight in England, the U.K., in June of 2009.**

What came to be known as simply Dragonfly or the Yellow House was established in October 2003, but the process of community formation began much earlier. People from older groups such as Orca Landing and The Barn began coming together in 2001 to determine what was next for them as individuals, families, and communities. Some of them were monogamous families. Others were engaged as a polyamorous cluster. And a few were single. Several shared children between them. All were deeply spiritual and engaged in profound personal and professional growth, training, and development. Most were ethical stands for love, communication, and for community. Those who were not left Dragonfly of their own accord except for one person, initially intensely involved, who was asked to leave upon being a fraud and a manipulative con artist.

During the years of 2002 – 2003 the members of Dragonfly embarked on a series of trips to spend time together in nature and to strengthen the bonds of community. Not every member of Dragonfly Community went on every adventure. The following fotos are from six of our trips including our major outings. Some of the earlier members and candidates are not in any of these fotos. The core ones are celebrated within. These pictures survived the 2010 burning down of my and then-wife Kristina’s post-Dragonfly home. I took most of these fotos, and some were by Kristina, and others by friends who gave us copies after the fire. I edited most of those images. They captured moments in time and space representing the forging and celebration of relationships amid the great outdoors of America’s Pacific Northwest. These pictures represent a perspective of Dragonfly history as captured by cameras. This article is not about the record of meetings, finances, interrelationship dynamics, conflict resolution, coparenting children, politics, religions, and such. It does, however, illuminate such challenges and joys via the surviving pictures thru the lens of the cameras with my historical point of view as author and participant. Enjoy!

Dragonfly Backpacking & Camping Trip to Second Beach, Olympic National Park, Thursday 4 July – Sunday 7 July 2002:

L2R: Talia, William, Atreyu, Edan

L2R: Talia, William, Atreyu, & Edan.

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Solo into the Glacier Peak Wilderness, July 2015

Fotos & Reflections from my 65-mile Solo Backpacking Trip into
the Glacier Peak Wilderness,
Washington State/Cascadia, Monday – Friday 27 – 31 July 2015.

Trinity – Dusty Roads – Spider Meadows – Lyman Lakes – Cloudy & Suiattle Passes – Image Lake – Miners Ridge – PCT – Buck Creek Pass – Liberty Cap – High Pass & Triad Lake – North Fork Napeequa River – Upper Napeequa Valley – Little Giant Pass – Chiwawa River – and the Inner & Outer Worlds of Mind, Heart, and Guts

*Click on each foto to blow it up big. Enjoy!*

Views of Image Lake and of Glacier Peak and surrounding mountains from deep in the Wilderness on the morning of the Third Day, Wednesday 29 July 2015.

Views of Image Lake and of Dakobed (Glacier Peak) and surrounding mountains from deep in the Wilderness on the morning of the Third Day, Wednesday 29 July 2015.

“Off the Grid & gone. Solo. Well or unwell. Glacier Peak Wilderness will swallow me up. Reemergence in about a week. Been planning for a year. Going into the Deep High Lonesome. Adios.”

Those words were my Facebook post for Monday morning on the 27th of July before I left Seattle for the Glacier Peak Wilderness. Before my adventure was over, it had turned into a middle-aged man’s Hero’s Journey, a strange Quest of sorts, and on the last day there was a time I realized I might not make it out alive. I did, of course, despite developing what turned out to be rhabdomyolysis, as I share these words and pictures with all of you. My travels into the Deep High Lonesome proved transformative in slowly unfolding ways, ways I am aware of as I write these words well over a year afterwards.

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Chiwawa River.  Looking upstream from a roadside campsite in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest towards the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area. Day 1 on Monday the 27th of July 2015.

Another roadside campsite beckons, but I stop only to stretch my legs, relieve myself, and smell the fresh forest air of mountains & rivers.

Looking across the Chiwawa River into the Glacier Peak Wilderness from the same campground. The river’s running low, and the temperature’s rising. I’m the only person here at the moment. 

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Dusty ass road walk with sand traps and dust devils. At least there wasn’t any mud! Parked my car at the Buck Creek Trailhead at Trinity (792.50 meters or 2,600 feet) and walked all the way back and then up the long Phelps Creek Road (USFSR#6211) towards the Phelps Creek Trailhead (1,066.80 m/3,500 ft) then on to Spider Meadows. I started walking from Trinity about 15:00 or 3:00 pm PDT in the afternoon of Day 1, Monday 27 July 2015.

Was reminded of the words of Doug Scott, the British mountaineer from Nottingham, England, who once pointed out when one goes into the mountains one must be prepared to die. Not wanting to die, of course, but mentally understanding and accepting the risk. Didn’t plan any alpine mountaineering, tho, as my intention is to trek and scramble cross-country in a physically demanding and remote part of this journey.

The section I planned to traverse off-trail from Buck Creek Pass up into the alpine zone towards and then down into the Upper Napeequa Valley was expected to be the most daunting. Scrambling thru High Pass on the way was one of the highlights I looked forward to experiencing. The Napeequa was notorious for being remote, difficult, fly-infested, and spectacular.

As I contemplate the possibility of dying amidst such magnificent beauty, however, I know I’ll be fine. Just what’s going thru my mind. In case this proved relevant for any search and rescue, which I hoped there wouldn’t be any need for. So, here I am, very much alive and ready for more. 

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Selfie shot standing in the hot, dusty ass Phelps Creek Road. Gusts of wind swirls dust devils and flying sheets of grit. Even so, it is a beautiful day in the backcountry. I’m grateful to be here in the Great Outdoors.

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Hiking & Climbing up Mt. Rainier to Camp Muir

Foto Essay of a Day Hike & Climb

Up thru Global Climate Disruption & the Movement to Restore Native Names

to the Mountains

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Global Climate Disruption leaves Mount Rainier bare, baked, and dirty. Even so, it’s time to restore The Mountain to her Native name: Ti’Swaq’ … the Sky Wiper!

“Saw something beautiful Tuesday I’ve not ever seen before. During a dark, early morning drive to Mt. Rainier, the upper half of the massive volcano appeared to spout clear yellow flames without smoke. Weird. And pretty! The top half split into a dozen scimitar slices of bright golden pink. Ahhh, sunrise! The mountain’s glaciers, bereft of snow due to the drought, revealed giant crevasses open wide and staggered one above the other up the side of the volcano. These steep-sloped glacial crevasses of undirtied ice caught the dawn reflections. Traffic was too heavy to snap a pic, & I hate shitty pics. So I drove on. We ended up hiking up to Camp Muir at about 10,180 ft. Needed crampons. Hard blue ice. And dirt. No snow. True gold was the morning Light as it fell from the heavens into the open jaws of Earth.”

~ From my Facebook post of Thursday 8 October 2015 “at 5:20pm.”

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The One Place on Earth to Go

One of many travertine falls in Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia, European Union. Photo by Donar Reiskoffer in the Public Domain. 2013.

One of many travertine falls in Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia, European Union. Photo by Donar Reiskoffer in the Public Domain. 2013.

What is the one place down on the surface of Planet Earth’s crust should everyone go visit at least once in their life? As gorgeous as they are, it’s not those beautiful lakes that fall one into the other in the picture above.

So many people pass thru Seattle these days and night, coming and going and going and coming, from somewhere to nowhere to everywhere. It seems Seattle is now the one place to go, or it’s what I hear from so many tourists. Which surprises me. Seattle is booming, yes, one survey earlier this year counted 80 construction cranes dominating the Downtown and Belltown areas alone. Despite the magnificent scenery of the Salish Sea and the Olympic and Cascade Mountains, however, Seattle isn’t The One Place On Earth One Must Go. I love Seattle, tho.

During the Great Recession I worked in retail at the Downtown Seattle REI Store, its largest flagship, and met people from around the world. Still do. Love working here at REI. Many fellow human beings from all over Cascadia, too, came and went and come and go as they tell stories about past trips, excited or in some cases afraid of upcoming adventures. Many people come into REI to buy supplies on their way to help out others, whether it’s devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal, supertyphoons in the Philippines, giant mudslides in Latin America, or the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

At work I am usually in sustained motion. When it’s slow, I either stock products or stand briefly and people watch. Engage and talk. Ask questions and listen. Help them find appropriate products, or if we don’t have them, suggest other places. Once there was a man from Yakutsk, the capital of the Sakha Republic in Russia’s Siberia. He was of Turkish-Mongol-Siberian ancestry, was unusually tall, and was in the United States for the first time. Dressed like a cross between a tweedy college professor, a backcountry woodsman, and a steampunk engineer, he was in quiet awe of the amount of merchandise in every store, including North American grocery stores. He was especially in awe of REI’s depth and breadth in outdoor adventure travel.

Claiming to be among the numerous proud descendants of Genghis Khan’s warriors, he said I should visit Siberia. I’d love to go, I replied. Siberia! One of the wildest, most extreme regions on Earth! The vast boreal forests of the Siberian Taiga, deep and mysterious Lake Baikal, hungry brown and black bears raiding villages, gigantic rivers pulsing towards the Arctic Ocean, bitter subfreezing temperatures, exploding scary ass methane craters in Yamal, the wild, remote, volcanic Kamchatka Peninsula, meteorite-hit cities, huge mountains and isolated deserts, southern steppes and northern tundra, Eurasian ethno-cultural blending amid ancient, little-known ruins, and the longest railroads in the world. O, Siberia!

But, no, not even majestic Siberia. There’s another place even more incredible everyone must try to get to. Yes, everyone.

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Sleeping with Ghosts on the Appalachian Trail

Ruminations, Romance, and the Lives of a Family Long Dead

Story and Photographs by William Dudley Bass

With extra stories & photos added later about recovering the original 2001 published article with related media controversies, found 1991 pictures once lost, new history of the old homestead with a “new” trail shelter, and of the Pregnant Rhinos’ eldest daughter’s 2015 attempt to thruhike the AT. There’s often more to a story than the tale itself.

Ruins of the old Sarver Homestead along the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, May 1991.

Ruins of the old Sarver Homestead along the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, May 1991.

In late May 1991, almost three months into our odyssey along the Appalachian Trail, my wife and I planned to sleep among ghosts. Old-timey Virginia ghosts. It seemed like a fitting thing to do while walking across our home state, a journey as rich with rumination as it was with hardship and joy.

Gwen and I had embarked on the first day of spring from the top of Springer Mountain in northern Georgia to backpack the whole Appalachian Trail end to end. The AT, as we hikers called it, or simply “the Trail,” stretches more than 2,000 miles northwards across 14 states to the summit of mile-high Mt. Katahdin in north-central Maine. Almost a quarter of the Trail passes through the Old Dominion, making Virginia home to the longest section of the AT, more than any other state. Gwen and I took six-and-a-half months to backpack the whole Trail, climbing Katahdin in early October on the day after our third wedding anniversary.

Rich in both history and wildlife, the Appalachian Trail is an intersection of people and wilderness. Those who backpack end-to-end in one push are known as “thruhikers,” while those who attempt to complete the whole thing in stages are called “section hikers.” Most take on trail names. Gwen and I were thruhikers, as such a distinct minority among the day hikers, weekenders, and picnickers. We called ourselves the Pregnant Rhinos.

Our trail name arose from a backpacking trip out West the previous year, when we got teased about the huge new internal-frame expedition packs bulging from our backs. “Damn, y’all look like a coupla pregnant rhinoceroses,” exclaimed a teenage boy, his own rickety, external-frame pack jangling with pots and pans and sloppy blankets.

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Big Belly Cigarette Smoking Man Swimming in Winter

The Author staring across Puget Sound towards the Olympics from the beaches of Carkeek Park, Seattle. This foto is not from the same time as the essay, it was taken years later on 6 November 2011 by Kate Bass, but it captures the chill of the story as the slide fotos of the actual event were lost in the 2010 house fire.

The Author staring across Puget Sound towards the Olympics from the beaches of Carkeek Park, Seattle. This foto is not from the same time as the essay as those pictures, original slide transparencies, were lost in the 2010 house fire. This foto was taken years later on 6 November 2011 by my middle daughter Kate Bass. Even so, Kate’s picture captures the chill of the story.

One bitter cold sunny day I came upon a tall, balding man standing on the beach wearing nothing but a skimpy Speedo swimsuit and smoking cigarettes. He had an enormous belly, a tremendous leviathan of a belly; the kind of tight power belly a big man could even feel proud of. Yet he moved like James Bond in the movies. He smoked like Humphrey Bogart used to in the movies, too. Him and Katherine Hepburn, remember? This man stood barefoot before me in sand, pebbles, and broken seashells as he gazed across the Salish Sea from the shores of Carkeek Park. I estimated he was a youngish sixty. An icy breeze sliced through my coat and stung my cheeks.

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A Wild Kayak Adventure Down Slickrock Creek

Wanna hammer down a creek few have ever paddled? Flush through crooked, boulder-strewn chutes and delicately pick your route down Class 5 Wildcat Falls as you drop off the edge of the world into forever? Then throw away your guidebooks and come south prepared to hike in with your boat. You won’t forget this big, open secret as you rassle with the River Gods to turn it loose. This little bugger roars.

April 4,1989. We were deep in the lush, virgin forests of the Joyce Kilmer – Slickrock Wilderness putting onto a stream we knew very little about. None of us had hiked it, and we only knew a handful of other NOC boaters who had paddled it. Rain had been falling steadily, and we were looking for something different. Steepcreekin’ in Appalachia is Southeastern tradition, and part of the fun is seeking out and paddling remote and seldom run descents. As thunderstorms rolled over the mountains and feeling as if we were in a jungle, we knew we were in for dangerous adventures in a mysterious whitewater gorge.

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Overflow! Reflections on Kayaking Class 5 Overflow Creek

Jeff going "singless" running Singley's Falls.

Jeff going “singless” running Singley’s Falls.

We expected extreme whitewater. We knew we were all skilled paddlers, climbers, and hikers and could handle ourselves in the wilderness. We were trained in river rescue. We just had no idea our party of four kayakers would get stuck in a confrontation with the Grim Reaper deep in a remote Appalachian gorge as the Sun slid down behind the tallest trees.

In the pages of North Carolina Canoeing, Bob Sehlinger and Don Otey write of the notoriously wild Chattooga River, “If Section IV bores you, try Overflow Creek.” They declared it was for  “boaters with…a little insanity.”

Such crazy madness was the predicament the four of us found ourselves in one sunny, warm afternoon: were we really all that bored with Section IV? Heck, after all, the Chattooga was at a romping 2.8 feet on the gauge. In the end we figured we were indeed bored with Section IV and probably not quite all there in the head, either. Though we were much more of a humble and calm team. We were just more on the spiritually cool side of gonzo.

Truth be told, we mainly wanted relief from rowdy crowds congregating along Section III that day for the recent International Peace Rally hosted by the Nantahala Outdoor Center. As much as we enjoyed partying with the Soviets and Costa Ricans, when it came down to the water, we were seekers of solitude. So off into the wilderness of North Georgia’s Chattahoochee National Forest we went.

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It’s Time to Rethink Swimming

With more and more people becoming involved in whitewater, it’s time to rethink swimming. Many steepcreekers have been swimming differently for years, and their experiences can improve the swimming techniques for both those who take a once-a-year commercial raft trip and the average weekend paddler of Class II, III, and IV rivers.

During recent years there has been an increase in drownings and injuries among even experienced boaters as well as casual rafters, which could have been avoided, had they swum differently. Of course we all go out there thinking and hoping we’re not going to fall out of our rafts or come out of our boats. But let’s face it: sooner or later we will all swim, and swim again. Swimming is an integral part of whitewater, and just like combat rolls and eddy turns, it should be done properly and safely. It should even be practiced.

Swimming aggressively instead of floating passively is the key. A number of paddlers have been killed or injured in a variety of river conditions from long, continuous rapids to fairly small rapids. There are numerous cases of flush-through drownings where boaters were swept for extended periods while maintaining the old float-with-toes up position.

Earlier this year in a different type of incident a tandem open boater drowned in Nantahala Falls, a Class III rapid in North Carolina. He and his partner had quickly gotten into the traditional swimming position: toes up, head upstream, floating on one’s back with the arms out to slow one down. His partner shot along the tongue of the falls to safety, but he dropped over a ledge in the steeper section and pinned. His feet and lower legs became entrapped in a crevice, and he drowned. In the same incident, a would-be rescuer also trapped his foot in the same spot and nearly drowned as well. It is likely the victim would be alive today if he had swum aggressively.

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The Other Nantahala

Big Kahuna - Nantahala Cascades - est flow 950 cfsLooking at the Great Kahuna, crux of the Nantahala Cascades, from a photo dated November 14, 2009 when the Upper Nantahala Gorge was running about 950 cfs.
NOTE: This foto has since been removed and the server is often unaccessible.

 

The Nantahala River is one the most famous whitewater runs in North America. Most people, however, know it merely as a scenic but beginner-level run. Only recently has word been getting out about “the Other Nantahala,” the river of the Class V-VI Cascades, frequent floodstage big water, of shooting the Horns of the Ram into the maw of Big Wesser Falls. Carving a deep gorge across an earthquake fault through some of the steepest mountains in the Southeast – mountains so rough they have earned the dread of many Appalachian Trail thruhikers – it is home to the paddleheads of the Nantahala Outdoor Center.

Located deep in the boonies of Southwestern North Carolina, down there where Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina all butt up against the Tarheel State, the “Nanty” runs year round. Most of the recent International Peace Rally-Nantahala ’90, featuring competitors from around the world including the Soviet Union – were held in the Nantahala’s narrow, heavily-forested gorge. Right before the rally, the Nantahala raged up to a near-record 9.5 ft.

After several years of unrelenting drought, the Southeast has been in the whitewater limelight since heavy rains and frequent flooding returned in January 1989. While disastrous in the eyes of many, the high water has been a boon to paddlers. It has been a special boon to water-starved boaters of the Nantahala area.

Rising high in the Nantahala Mountains, the small river and its headwaters drop into an artificial impoundment, Nantahala Lake. Here Nantahala Power and Light Company (NLP) pumps water through 5.6 miles of pipe and releases at the generating plant about 13 miles downstream.

Most boaters put in below the powerhouse for an exciting dash through continuous Class II-III rapids as the river drops a mellow 33 feet per mile. The icy waters clash with the warm air to create thick ribbons of fog through which one spies bobbing multicolored helmets. In fact, the word Nantahala is Cherokee for “Valley of the Noonday Sun.” The river crashes on until the run culminates in Class III Nantahala Falls, 400 feet above the takeout.

This is the normal run, great for beginners to learn and for intermediates to hone their moves without fear. In the summer the river is often crowded with rafters.

But for others there is the Other Nantahala, the Nantahala of frequent high water. For a time in 1989, NPL was releasing from the lake itself. Water continues to pour down the spillway even now. In both 1989 and 1990 there were numerous extended releases on White Oak Creek, a major tributary of the Nantahala. The character of the river changed as boaters came from all over to experience the Upper Nanty, the Cascades, and Big Wesser. Or even the regular run during high water.

For many miles below the dam, the Nantahala runs through dense willow thickets, gradually widening and descending. The rapids begin to build up to Class II, sometimes III, becoming more continuous and technical. The river plunges over three jumbled waterfalls known as the Upper Cascades and finally merges with White Oak Creek to form the famous Upper Nantahala run. The stretch above the confluence is only rarely run due to the congestion of brush and the fact that the Class IV-V+ Upper Cascades are runnable only when the rest of the Upper Nantahala below is just too high, thus prematurely ending the trip.

White Oak Creek deserves mention. It is one of the hardest hair runs in the Southeast. White Oak flows through continuous Class II rapids through a gentle valley into a small NPL lake. Below the dam the bottom drops out as it plunges for several miles through a tiny gorge with continuous Class II-V rapids. Halfway down is Triple Drop (or Becky’s Catapult), a nasty Class VI three-tier waterfall choked with jagged rocks, vertical pins, and shallow pools. It has been run only once to my knowledge. Becky Weiss, one of NOC’s best hair boaters, catapulted end over end, miraculously without injury.

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Running from Mad Yellow Jackets

Two Days Later... (Click on all images to enlarge.)

Two Days Later… (Click on all images to ENLARGE.)

There it is ... Pandora's Garbage Can.

There it is … Pandora’s Garbage Can.

I pissed off a blizzard of yellow jackets the other day. They were the Mask of Death rising up without any forewarning or expectation. The Grim Reaper swung out his scythe in warning as I jumped high, and we both whirled away in opposite directions. Death by surprise with the horror of a thousand toxic stings. Except it wasn’t my time to pass on through to the other side…yet.

On a sunny Tuesday afternoon in early October 2012, on the 2nd of October to be exact. I stepped outside into the backyard to help clean up some trash and debris. I’ve been staying with my friends Gabriel and Joy in Shoreline, just north of Seattle, as they settle into their “new” home. The backyard was a glorious overgrown wood with tall, beautiful trees and thick bushes bunched around an urban meadow of shaggy grass and dandelions gone to see. In the corner set an old, abandoned metal garbage can. The lid sat somewhat ajar. Bits of trash hung out over the rim. One long, blue length of twine spooled down and out and lay snarled in weeds and sticks.

Behind me on the upstairs balcony Gabriel and his little boy, the one I call “Young Master,” were cleaning up, too. They watched from above. And they just as easily could’ve been out in the yard, too. Young Master could’ve been walking right there with me to peek inside the old garbage can with the same curiosity that possessed me. After all, he was out there messin’ around a couple days earlier over the weekend.

I carried two bags of trash and one of compost. Without much thought I strode up to the ugly old can squatting among the bushes on the edge of the woods. My hand reached out, grabbed the lid, and lifted.

My eyes caught a quick view of what looked like gray paper. Immediately, a monster swarm of bigass yellow jackets rolled out in a thick curling cloud. These were plump, end-of-summer demons all fattened up to die in another month or so. They came together in the air like a biological chainsaw, like a living robot from the Transformer movies, and they were enraged. When I lifted up the lid, apparently I’d ripped their nest apart.

For a moment so brief yet so long I stood there on hyperalert seeing the massed swarm of buzzing yellow jackets pouring out of the can into the air around me. Everything seemed to move in slow motion, way slooooww mooooshunnn. I felt as if I was inside The Matrix movie.

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Crazy Fun Family Bike Trip on the Iron Horse Trail

Our Blended Family Bike Excursion on the “Iron Horsie Trail,” Washington State, during the Summer of 2006

Biking down into the Center of the Earth, or so it seemed at the time... Katayama-Bass Family Self Portrait, Sunday 20 August 2006

Biking down into the Center of the Earth, or so it seemed at the time… Katayama-Bass Family Self Portrait, Sunday 20 August 2006.

Woo Hoo!!! A Wild Family Trip with William & Kristina and the Kids! Yeah!

We pulled it off! Our wild and crazy family mountain bike ride across the Washington Cascades! Well, sort of. At times we felt we descended beyond the Gates of Hades on our own nutty journey into the center of Planet Earth. But a fun journey. It was a logistical workout, and blessed with a treasure of memories. Originally Kristina and I planned a 3-day family bike ride with all 3 kids along 40+ miles of the John Wayne Pioneer Trail thru Iron Horse State Park in the Cascade Mountains. We’d planned to carry all of our gear and camp along the way. We were unable to work out the logistics to our satisfaction, however, as we didn’t want to take two cars.

So we turned it into a different sort of trip and just took off on Friday 18 August 2006. By then all the campgrounds were full. We whimsically drove up winding National Forest Service roads and stared over cliffs toward dramatic mountain scenery. In grim, puzzled silence, we rumbled past a weird, old man living out of a rusty, red car who tied plastic bags up in the bushes alongside the road. He turned and stared at us as if he could eat us all up for supper. Imagining great and terrible things then giggling like embarrassed maniacs, we drove on around the rocky corner.

Many a dusty mile later, we found a lovely, open spot among the woods, rocks, and overgrown logging slash. There we wild-camped near the top of Amabilis Mountain. Arid conditions and clear skies greeted us. Big, wide-open skies. The Milky Way seemed to cleave the heavens in half like some incandescent sword. A meteor shower was in progress, too. Beginning every late July and stretching into the middle of August, the Perseid Meteor Shower is a treat out here in the clear, arid skies typical of our Northwest summers. Several spectacular shooting stars and flurries of little ones blazed across dark skies every night. Friday night there we slept.

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Barreling Across America with my Daughter Morgan

Morgan gears up for The Long Ride, April 2007.

Morgan gears up for The Long Ride, April 2007.

Diary of a 7-Day Journey with my Daughter Morgan:

Morgan jounced along with me as I drove across the Continent from Virginia to Washington State in a moving truck crammed like an old-fashioned peddler’s wagon. My parents had died fairly recently, Daddy in late Autumn of 2004 and Momma about two years later in 2006. As a result of their passing, I inherited many of their possessions. The last time I’d driven a moving truck packed with so much heavy furniture and jangly stuff cross-country was back in 1993. This road trip also signaled a completion of a cycle of death-journeys back and forth from Seattle to rural Virginia around the deaths of both parents.

Catching Daddy droolin' one night sleeping in the Truck, April 2007. Photo by Morgan Bass.

Catching Daddy droolin’ one night sleeping in the Truck, April 2007. Foto by Morgan Bass.

Morgan and I arrived with all belongings in the wee hours of Saturday morning, about 2:30 AM, on 14 April 2007. It was quite a trip. And it was a special trip, a long overdue opportunity for some father – daughter bonding. Morgan is my oldest daughter of three and my only biological offspring. She had turned 13 a month earlier. I love her dearly, and it was painful to stand aside and watch her grow up and apart. I didn’t expect it to happen so soon, but at 12 she started taking off.

As my eldest daughter, she was but a sprout compared to her grandparents who recently died in their mid-70s. Dad passed first, dying on the 1st of December 2004, the third anniversary of my partnership with Kristina. After a few false starts, Mom finally followed on my brother’s birthday, 15 November 2006. My sister Beth had successfully navigated between doctors, lawyers, accountants, funeral home directors, tax preparers, insurance agents, courts, gravediggers, bankers, and stressed out relatives. Beth performed difficult job with perseverance and excellence, all while working full-time, raising a daughter, and settling in from Arizona back into Virginia.

The closure of this entire mess o’ dying proved to be an adventure yet.

Through the Windows over the Mountains

Through the Windows over the Mountains

Saturday 7 April – First, flying from Seattle, WA to Richmond, VA via Chicago was uneventful and smooth, albeit we landed at 11:30 PM that night. Ray Hinde, my sister’s second husband, was generous to pick us up at the airport as our rental car plan fell through. He had just driven to the airport the night before to pick up his son and daughter by his first wife. They had buzzed in from Arizona.

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Morgan goofin’ up de plane.

On the plane I read David McCullough’s history book 1776 and was struck by the irony of me, a Virginian living in Washington, reading about George Washington, himself a native of Virginia and in whose honor my adopted state was named after. And Morgan is a native of Washington and is visiting Virginia. The events of that gripping narrative, however, describe a situation that changed history. If the American Revolution had failed there would be no “Virginians” living in Washington.”

Even so, we paid my Aunt Helen a midnight visit down in the Fan, the Bohemian area of Richmond. Helen, my daddy’s Big Sister, had a box of gold-rimmed china from her mother to give Morgan, who is Mary Yeatts Bass’s great-granddaughter. Helen, a morning lark, was kind enough to stay up late for us to visit. It was stunning to walk into her home in the Fan. On every wall was beautiful and vibrant art. On the table was another project in process.

Helen excitedly led us into her basement art studio to show us a number of fun and expressive pieces she was crafting from a mélange of seashells, driftwood, stones, beads, and paints. And also where she tripped over a cord and smashed to the floor. Morgan was thrilled to see Helen again and it was her first visit to Helen’s organic and living in-home museum and studio. I wished we could all visit more often; tough to do when we lived 3000 miles away. Helen, thank you for being such a gracious host beyond the Witching Hour. And Morgan feels awe to receive her great-grandmother’s china.

Ray drove us on back to the old Bass farm outside Rice. He and Beth have a new home on a hill overlooking the lake formed by the Sandy River Reservoir. He took us to my deceased parents’ empty house. Morgan and I spent the remainder of the night there, wondering if we would see ghosts. I slept very poorly.

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Swimming in Avalanches

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Lightning Storms are common in the Mountains. Photo from a free wallpaper/stock photo set.

Lightning Storms are common in the mountains. Foto of multiple plasma strikes in the Rockies from a free wallpaper/stock photo set.

Lightning struck the mountain as the heavens cracked with thunder. Snow and ice burst loose like boiling water and swept me down the couloir, a steep gulley plunging down the north flank of the mountain. Runaway snow felt like galloping wet sand and hissed like snakes. Shit! What a hell of a way to spend a summer vacation. Aye, one of the best ever!

Mid-July 1986 in these big, Western mountains was colder than Winter in the South. There I was in the Wyoming Wind River Range toward the end of a 30-day Mountaineering Course with NOLS, the world-famous National Outdoor Leadership School. Headquartered on the edge of the range in the cowboy town of Lander, Wyoming, NOLS was the premier outdoor adventure school of my time. Once I was on purpose to become a NOLS Instructor. At least I was until love, romance, and a broken-down car got in the way. Nevertheless, this NOLS mountaineering expedition proved to be one of the most pivotal points in my life.

Back then I planned a career in outdoor adventure and sought concentrated training in hard skills such as alpine rock climbing and glacier travel and in soft skills such as teamwork and leadership under pressure. Along with those skills NOLS also taught natural history, science in the field, environmental responsibility, wilderness navigation, and backcountry first aid, all knowledge I desired. I had one semester left in grad school, too, back east in Richmond, Virginia. And, to be sure, what I most wanted as an ol’ farmboy from Virginia was an immersion adventure in the Wild American West. And I got it.

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Little Red Boots

I loved my little red boots. Little itty-bitty cheap plastic boots with plastic rubbery pull-up handles. They were so RED! And I loved red. I felt so PROUD! Cuz I wore them, or rather lost them, in receiving (remember, medals of honor are not awarded to winners but recipients!) my very first concussion, which was also the first time I fell out of a tree, and the very first time I broke through the ice over frozen water. Now, one can imagine little red boots venturing foolishly out onto the ice, but what in tarnation where they doing up in a TREE?

Oh, by the way, this was back when I was a little boy. I was a bad, bad elementary school lad trying to tag along with those badder than worse pre-teen boys my Momma hated me playing with. Of course, we didn’t use “pre-teen” back in those halcyon red rock-throwing1960s. Back then we li’l kids call ‘em “the Big Kids.” I grew up, see, in rural Virginia, on my parents’ dairy farm outside the town of Farmville, yes, the real Farmville, halfway between Richmond and Lynchburg.

One day a long, long time ago, decades now, I ventured out after a long and terrible storm. In my little red boots, of course. The sun was shining. The birds were singing. And all the plants and everything else outside was slick and glistening wet. It must’ve been Spring or Fall because I do remember wearing a coat and a hat.

I climbed up into a tree. I loved to climb. That’s why I was up in a tree. I began playing in it the previous summer. It was a scrubby, bushy, shrubby tree growing wild around the corner of the yard. My parents just mowed the grass around it. It was a tangle of shoots with myriad branches forking forth in all directions. At one point I slipped and grabbed, stopped myself, and ended up with a mouthful of leaves. Apparently I used my mouth as an extra hand. No wonder I have jaw problems these days! Continue reading

Yellow Jackets Swarming Ants

A cloud of yellow jackets gathered over the yard as a dark storm of malevolent invasion. The black and yellow wasps were at once beefy and lean from a summer of feasting and hunting. They circled together in the air; then dropped to attack. God, they were FAST! I stumbled backwards in panic. Dozens of yellow jackets swiftly assaulted, killed, and ate hundreds of ants. The massacre was over in minutes. Life and death right there in my front yard. The ebb and flow of nature I unwittingly contributed to in a reminder we humans live within nature. Continue reading

Boomerang Tree

Once upon a time when I was a brave and crazy fool I rode a tree like a dragon. Armed with a homemade boomerang, I was a pretty young lad somewhere in that transition between preteen to true teen. My exact age and even what grade I was in remain lost to memory. What I do remember is a gusty, late afternoon storm with cloudy skies churning the color of dark green moss. It happened in Virginia where I grew up on a farm, and I thought I was gonna die.

I felt proud of my boomerang. I’ve spent hours carving and sanding it from a piece of wood. When I whipped it through the air across the cow pastures on my parents’ dairy farm, my boomerang actually returned. It would spin away from me whirling like a helicopter propeller. As my boomerang spun it rose high and higher still, turned, and came zooming back to me. Sometimes it flopped and dug into grass and dirt and skittered off rocks. At other times, however, I had to duck as it zipped over my head. I dared not reach out to grab it. Those were the best!

My buddy Jerry Vernon and I were out in a huge cowpasture on the Gates Family Farm. Jerry’s dad worked for the Gateses milking cows and fixing fences, so we played a lot. My brother Joe, six years younger, also hung with us that day. Our dad ran the Bass farm for his uncle, who was cousins with the Gateses and further down the road the Bruces.

It was one afternoon after school, and I can’t remember if it was November or March. The weather felt heavy with a cloudy-late-afternoon-right-before-supper-time feel, and we had one eye out for bulls. Rumor had it the Gateses had turned loose a bull into the pasture to impregnate the cows, and he would snort, charge, stomp, and gore you all to bloody pieces if he discovered you simply existed. We were terrified of bulls.

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