Which Mountain?

Hired as a wilderness ranger after several years of fighting fire and working trails for the U.S. Forest Service, I arrived early in March, 1978 at the Lake Wenatchee Ranger Station to help out with the tree planting duties and prepare a backcountry management plan. The district had portions of two wilderness areas: Glacier Peak, a major Cascade volcano, and Alpine Lakes, with its smooth granite, manicured larches and indigo lakes.

Kelly Tjaden would join our merry band on the Lake Wenatchee Ranger District in June, and soon we were off to Ingalls Pass up the Teanaway River for a wilderness training session conducted by management staff from Wenatchee.

We both agreed: working as wilderness rangers would be a fun and interesting way to fund our educational endeavors while climbing mountains and exploring remote backcountry that very few individuals have the opportunity to see.

Due to its obscure location surrounded by 6,000-foot ridges, Lake Wenatchee received only two television stations, and only one with a decent signal. One evening, however, as we were lounging around sipping strawberry daiquiris at the Mushroom Haus after work, "The Eiger Sanction" starring Clint Eastwood and George Kennedy appeared on the set; we were captivated by the cloak-and-dagger action set in Zurich and the Bernese Alps.
In one scene, Dr. Jonathan Hemlock (Clint), an art history professor and collector who finances his hobby by performing sanctions for an obscure government bureau, is forced to take a case where he must determine which member of a mountain climbing team is his target by joining an international climbing expedition in the Alps.

His former life as an international assassin had come back to haunt Dr. Hemlock. The ruthless leader of a secret agency, Herr Dragon, uses blackmail to lure him back into action. Agreeing to the nefarious assignment, Hemlock asks: "which mountain?" Dragon, an albino who served Hitler in WW II, eerily replies: "The Eiger."

Kelly and I had found our rallying cry. Prior to every trip into the alpine backcountry, we would alternately ask each other the same question: "which mountain?" On one particular junket into a remote corner of the North Cascades, we rendezvoused at the Napeequa River, a river drainage contained entirely within the Glacier Peak Wilderness.

Kelly had hiked in via the White River Trail over Boulder Pass, and I navigated Little Giant Pass from the Chiwawa. Camping near Louis Creek, we climbed Buck Mountain. The next day, as we proceeded up the Napeequa toward it terminus, a summer storm rolled in as we approached the upper reaches of the drainage.

Continuing on to High Pass, the temperature plummeted from 100 to 50 degrees in mere minutes, and soon a summer tempest unleashed its full fury with lightning strikes and pounding hail. Arriving at High Pass, we hastily set up camp and jumped inside our tent. Once the storm passed, we emerged from our shelter for quite the compelling view (below).