In 1980-something, on a bright sunny July morning, I signed the guest book at the summit of Mount Rainier. It was a day for the history books. Mount Rainier is much bigger than it looks from a nice patio deck in Seattle. I was in the best shape of my life and climbed with a group that included a friend of my parents who was celebrating his 50th birthday ( at the time I thought that was ancient and that he must have been in amazing shape to do that at 50!). Surely, I could do this easily if some old geezer was celebrating his 50th b’day by doing this thing.
We went with guides from Mount Rainier and they told us that our goal was not to reach the top but to get back down to the bottom again. I am glad we made it to the top though. And even though I climbed with a group of people I knew when we finally did reach the top there was still a little hiking involved to get over to the guest book ( and I was for sure going to sign in). So, there I was at the very peak of Mount Rainier with a skinny guy named Barry from New Jersey, another giant of man who swore like a truck driver but ended up being an english major with some very profound thoughts once we had reached this point in the journey, and myself. The mountain had brought these three strangers together for that one moment.
It has been over 20 years since that climb but I still love looking at Mount Rainier and I still appreciate its awesomeness. I get inspired by what it took to make it to the top and by the fact that it wasn’t just a given that we would make it to the summit even though we had guides with us. Now I start my day with Mount Rainier as my theme on my iGoogle homepage. You can add it to your homepage too by clicking HERE or visiting WardnerSoftware.com.
That morning in July I gained a new found appreciation for the mountain – and for 50 year olds that could still kick it even at that age. Now I take the mountain with me wherever I go.