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.

The first time Kristina and I attempted Dirtyface Peak was one cold afternoon during a romantic, Valentine’s Day getaway in February 2007. We were so horny! Didn’t get very far either. Even as we crunched thru hard, crusty snow, over fallen branches and frozen leaves, pinwheeled thru long, slanting sunbeams, and stepped around piles of rock, we kept carousing each other in PDAs visible only to the wild gods and goddesses of those mountain forests. There wasn’t any one else on the trail to see the two of us couldn’t keep our hands off each other.

Such getaways from our blended family were rare. Yes, our 3 daughters were precious and still are. We appreciated our community, worked hard, long hours in a stressful international business, and we needed time away from all of that to, well, mount each other like wild beasts in heat.

The two of us have been lovers for over five years by then. So we relished this rare romp in a forest without anyone else around in sight. The fear of a troop of early birds jouncing back down the mountain trail or a straggle-gaggle of night owls popping up from the trailhead parking lot to catch us in the act proved an unexpected thrill, too. Yet temperatures were dropping. The snow was deeper the higher up we went, the shadows grew longer as the sun slid down behind mountains and trees, and the trail was littered with blowdowns. The forest was predominantly a mix of big leaf maples and ponderosa pine trees. Light was already fading away into darkening woods. We realized we would not reach the summit in time even tho we were properly dressed and carried the famous Ten Essentials. After a few more playful escapades on the side of the mountain, we turned around and headed back down Dirtyface to the minivan.

Drove back to the cute little cottage we had rented, a romantic little cabin by the name of The Osprey Nest in the vicinity perched in a grove of large, evergreen trees overlooking a bend in the Wenatchee River below where the wild Chiwawa flowed into it. We enjoyed one of our most memorable getaways nestled down here in the shadows of Dirtyface Peak. There we made plans as a couple, I worked on one of my book manuscripts, and Kristina strategized different possibilities and probabilities.

She was known as a woman who dreamed big and gifted with an uncanny ability to hyperfocus as a sorceress would to actually manifest her desires into reality. Me, I would sometimes get lost in my dreams. She was a Scorpio. I was a Taurus. We were nine and a half years apart in age. I grew up in the Southeast as a native Virginian with my ethnicity twisted up in Celtic and Germanic origins. She grew up in the Pacific Northwest as the daughter of a European-American woman and a Japanese-American man. She had lived abroad for ten years and traveled to dozens and dozens of different countries and cities. Me, well, I’ve been all over the USA and visited more national parks, climbed alpine peaks, backpacked long trails, crawled thru caverns, and spent more time in the wilderness than Kristina. I was the consummate outdoor adventurer who buried myself in books and creative writing when not outdoors in the wilderness. She, however, possessed a savvy sense of business coupled to a driving ambition to break thru glass ceilings of race, class, and gender to generate financial freedom for herself and her family. During these years she was the classic introvert and I an extrovert.

Were we an attraction of opposites? Many who knew us commented despite overt differences we also had a lot in common as two eccentric people. The two of us were rooted in number of shared values such as an appreciation for education, health, outdoor adventure, travel, and spirituality. Together we valued alternative approaches to romantic relationships, family, and community. Sometimes, yes, we even lusted after one another. There were also differences, however, that grew to eventually split us apart as old cracks in a massive stone foundation eventually burst thru and shatter the castle after one earthquake too many. 

Eventually we bought a home in the area, a larger, mountain lodge style cabin down in the woods in another bend of the Wenatchee River. Wasn’t far from the little Beaver Valley village of Plain, Washington. Purchased our dream home in October 2007 while maintaining the Yellow Dragonfly House in Seattle. A new Recession was already on, but at the time we didn’t know it would be “Great” in scope of loss. Couldn’t see ourselves engulfed in such a catastrophe. Mistakenly thought we’d ride it out. In the meantime wanted to tackle Old Dirtyface again. So one hot, sunny day in late July of 2008 we set out together with Jo, our family dog, for what would be our last hike and scramble up Dirtyface Peak. The following pictures are from those long, wonderful hours from our little romantic adventure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Story of a Stick:

In my early hiking days I scoffed at hiking sticks and trekking poles. Perhaps because I first came into the wilderness as more of a climber and a paddler than merely someone who hikes to hike. I used to carry an ice axe on the steeps, and desired the liberty of two arms with two hands free to do whatever was deemed necessary. Sometimes I would bend over and grab up a stick from the forest floor, and after a few miles or so would toss it back into the woods. Or leave it behind at the trail head leaning against a sign.

When Gwen, my second ex-wife, began preparing in 1989 and 1990 to backpack the entire Appalachian Trail in 1991 from Georgia north to Maine, I decided to use a staff of some kind. Chose to make one myself rather than buy a pair of trekking poles or use a beat-up, old set of ski poles. I wanted to keep one hand free and be able to switch back and forth between arms with one prop. Besides, I’d developed a bad habit of walking with both arms bent upwards with both thumbs hooked beneath my shoulder straps. Made me look like a banged-up praying mantis as I wibble-wobbled down the trail.

First thing I did was saw down a hickory sapling on my parents’ dairy farm in Prince Edward County, Virginia. Trimmed it then sanded down the nubs where my fingers, palm, and thumb would go to grasp the shaft of the former little tree. Hickory is the hardest commercial-grade hardwood with a reputation for strength and durability. One of 18 species from the worldwide genus Carya, hickory made the best firewood per its capacity to store energy. This wood emitted an unusually high heat output when burned. See, in my thruhiking naiveté, I actually thought it was a smart, prepper thing to do to have my wooden staff serve not just as a walking stick and also a weapon of self-defense, but as an emergency fuel should I need to burn it to cook with or for warmth.

Hickory was also as heavy as it was dense, and my proudly made hickory staff was heavy as shit. Even after the hickory wood dried out the darn thing felt like one of those long ass steel crowbars. Dayum! Didn’t want any hiking sticks made from evergreen trees, tho, and, why not? Well, they ooze out sticky resin then splinter and fracture as they dry.

So while I kept the hickory staff among my belongings, I went back out and cut down another little tree. This time from one of the softest hardwood plants on our Southside Virginia family farm. Along the edge of thick woods and along overgrown fence lines between cultivated fields grew clustered thickets of wild sumac trees, especially the staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) native to the eastern U.S. We also had thickets of smooth sumac (Rhus glabra) growing on our farm, too, and the two species often interbred to generate hybrid species. The staghorn variety was the largest of these shrubby trees and reached heights anywhere fro 20 to 30 and even 40 feet tall. I wanted something lightweight but big from a species noted and indeed notorious for its invasive adaptability and perseverance. 

My sumac staff was used in training trips including a few weeks of hiking in Big Bend National Park and in other trips from the Great Smokies to Saint Mary’s Wilderness to the Linville Gorge Wilderness to the Mau-Har Loop. Then Gwen and I thruhiked the entire Appalachian Trail in 1991. We did over 2,200 miles on foot including numerous sidehikes including a roughly 12 miles round trip to the summit of Mt. LeConte in the Smokies. All of those long miles over rocks and dirt wore a good 12 inches from the bottom of my sumac staff. It was noticeably shorter when I finished on Mt. Katahdin, Maine, than when I began the AT below Springer Mountain, Georgia, at Amicalola Falls. By the time Gwen and I finished the trail I held the stick differently, too, with my thumb resting atop the sloped, smooth wooden tip atop the stick instead of wrapping around the upper shaft of the pole.

While scrambling and hiking down from the summit of Katahdin, the northern terminus of the AT, I innocently tapped my trusty ol’ stick against a large rock. It promptly snapped in half. Bang! Just like that! I felt a moment of shock before an upwelling of grief before crying out in a weird mix of disappointment and chuckles to surrender to just what’s so in the moment. I felt grateful this soft, ol’ sumac stick lasted as long as it did. My hickory staff would not have ever snapped in half, but it was too heavy to even make it to the trailhead. Gwen encouraged me to keep the stick instead of a crazy impulse to lay it out in the woods below the treeline of Katahdin. 

Kept the two sections. Took them with me with Gwen and I moved out to Seattle, Washington in January of 1992. Years later glued the two pieces back together, but wouldn’t hike with it. Set in the back corner of the garage and forgot about my old, 1991 thruhiker stick. Then my 3 daughters got the crazy idea to paint it for my birthday. They surprised me, those gleeful little girls, but kept it simple with just green and orange. So I had to take it out on the trail again. As I did on this dayhike up Dirtyface with Kristina. Used it to poke around in campfires with the kids, too. Put many more miles on it there for a time. Eventually switched to dual trekking poles, tho, assembled in some faraway factory, but I kept both my old hickory staff and my repaired, painted AT pole.

Both were lost, however, in the house fire of March 2010, less than two years after Kristina loved our way up and down a hot mountain called Dirtyface. For a time thereafter I thought of the stick as a metaphor of sorts for life, for love, for finances, for marriage…once stout and adaptable, then broken in two, then glued back together and painted over only to burn up in a fire. Then again I realized my metaphor was merely thoughts and sentiments made up in my mindbody, not the truth of any one reality. In those moments, all suffering ceased.

 

William Dudley Bass
Tuesday 7 April 2020
Seattle, Washington
Cascadia
Sol

 

End Notes & Statistics:

The hiking and scrambling trail is described as either “hard” or “difficult” in places. The length varies depending on sources from 7.3 or 8.0 miles round trip to 9.0 and also 9.5 miles RT. I imagine this discrepancy is due to widespread damage from the 2005 wildfires and different routes pieced together in places from old logging roads and earlier trails. Total elevation gain and loss thus varies.

There are also multiple peaks on this mountain. Some of the guides mentioned below do not distinguish between the Dirtyface Lookout Site, where most hikers stop and turn around at, and the two other peaks including the true summit.

Kristina and I, with our dog, an Irish Springer Spaniel named Jo, chose the old firetower lookout site as our turnaround spot. If we had started earlier in the morning and without a dog, we would have shot for the actual summit. The day was hot and dry, but we had enough water with us for both us and the dog. Here are elevation stats for the summits:

Dirtyface Lookout Site (our destination): 5,989 ft / 1,825 m

Dirtyface Mountain (the Benchmark or simply Pk 6223, on the way to the true summit): 6,223 ft / 1897 m

Dirtyface Peak (the true summit NW of the old firetower rubble via a long ridge): 6,240 ft or 1,902 m (tho some say due a contour recalculation it may be 6,280 feet high.) Hey, we live down in a planet at the bottom of an ocean of gas where the rocky crust and its seasonal covering of snow and ice is constantly changing.

 

Resources:

Contributors/Staff. “Dirtyface Peak, Washington,” Peakbagger.com, USA. 1987-2020. https://www.peakbagger.com/peak.aspx?pid=1987.

Smith, Shih. “Trip Report: Dirtyface Peak & Dirtyface Mtn,” The Mountaineers, Seattle. 2018. https://www.mountaineers.org/activities/trip-reports/dirtyface-peak-dirtyface-mtn.

Staff. “Dirtyface Peak Trail,” AllTrails, WA, USA. 2020. https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/washington/dirtyface-peak-trail.

Staff. “Dirtyface Peak, Washington, United States, North America,” Summitpost. Earth, 2006-2020. https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/washington/dirtyface-peak-trail.

WTA Staff. “Dirty Face Lookout and Peak, Central Cascades,” Washington Trails Association (WTA). 2020. https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/dirtyface-lookout-site.

 

 

Copyright © 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.