ESSENTIALS IN WONDERLAND


GREEN TRAIL MAPS: ONE OF THE TEN ESSENTIALS.
100 YEARS OF THE WONDERLAND TRAIL.
THE MAP AROUND COLUMBIA CREST ON MOUNT RAINIER.
LOOKING UP AT THE GLACIERS ON THE MOUNTAIN.
ELEVATION GAINS WALKING THE WONDERLAND: 25,000 FEET.
CAMPS WHERE I STOPPED WALKING:
LONGMIRE,  DEVILS DREAM, KLAPATCHE PARK,
GOLDEN LAKES, MOWICH LAKE CAMPGROUND,
DICK CREEK CAMPGROUND, MYSTIC LAKE, SUNRISE CAMP,
WHITE RIVER CAMPGROUND, INDIAN BAR.

Two old growth Douglas Fir trees,
one on each side of the trail,
20 yards from the trailhead,
Mister Old Man Walking,
beginning your walk in the woods,
walking the Mountain, opening.
How’s that for threshold, gate,
path to the Wonderworld?

As a child I walked railroad tracks in North Dakota.
Walking the trail with the poems at 70
makes me dizzy, waking my railroad heart—
walking Wonderland conditions the soul beat.
Wordsworth opens The Prelude and those
who remember follow, creating, perceiving,
spots of time on the trail, spots of time on tracks.
—A tale of the trail, reworking the ancestors.
Like Wordsworth in that poem,
walking the trail brings up the poems,
but it doesn’t prepare the back,
and it is the back that has to keep pace
with the plan Rangers make,
ten-plus miles a day.
Walking continues the practice
that work narrows for what comes up

from that place of the deeper image.

What comes out comes out unedited.
If there’s choice, it’s spontaneous,
yet choosing doesn’t seem like what it is—
what comes feels like the only option.
I have to fight through voices,
they’re there, and there’s no script,
only impulses,
and a decision to follow

I’ve got this time for this
is what I think starting out,
but I don’t,  there’s no poem
to be had at Devil’s Dream
I’m too pooped to eat,
get the tent up look at stars
and the visitor walks into camp.
How can I tell him?

Context is this. Those fires
in my part of the state.
And this drought.
Those dead firefighters

Those days with Karen
at Cougar Rock in the mothership,
the hike with my brother
on the Skyline Trail before this Wonderland,
wonder itself, all that’s gone
and what’s left—
I didn’t think any of it would be this hard.

I thought I’d write poems
sitting with Basho and Issa,
but that’s not the way it’s shaking out.
No reading around campfires.
Outside this Mountain
fires jump the Columbia River.
Canonical prayer hours in monasteries
have rigor, but there’s time
to pray seven times a day.
Prayer maintains focus.

















When I put my pack against that tree
below Devils Dream I don’t know
if I’ll get it back on my shoulders.
Then I see that cliff face—dream face
in rock—I would have missed it.
Talking out loud.

Walk and meander. Trekking poles.
Carry water, even when water’s around.
These birds in the meadow.
Taking off from these alpine trees
cruising airstreams, feeding in morning light.
That drive around the Mountain
before this, with Karen,
stashing food with Carbon River rangers,
dried up Alder Lake, all those stumps.
Already full of images walking in.
Misreading the map. I will take pictures
of any trail. And this west-side moss
and the motherlogs. Indian Henry’s cabin.
Make a note on that meandering streambed:
It hasn’t seen water all summer.

This walking alone.
This hike.
Preparing for this morning.
Trail taking the self.
And the poems.
Poems canonical.
I find that out again.
On the trail.
With what comes up.
No controlling that.
“Jesus is a man of the road.”
A new sentence.
Part of me, canceling, too,
anything still left.

Rumi in my pocket,
Rumi at random.
Jesus and Rumi.
Jesus would talk to Rumi.
Jesus could talk with Rumi
about the Baptist,
about John.
Rumi could listen,
flush out that anger.
Jesus’ anger.

Jesus never got a hearing on that one.
On John. What happened.

I’d like to be on the trail with those two.

This Mountain now.
This camera around my neck.
The one in my pocket.
Camera or notebook?
Notebook or Rumi.
These trees and this descent
bringing the sounds of water below.
Gates and bridges and thresholds.
There’s sustaining power here
come from the Mountain.
When you’re too close
if flattens out into something
like a cloud, but from here!
Dried pineapple and a cup of coffee.

How things come up
How they surface
How they don’t

That Ranger on the trail appears
when I need him. Locates me on the map,
as we look at Emerald Ridge and the Tahoma Glacier.
It feeds into South Puyallup River he says.

All of Rainier’s glaciers receding.
Drought and dry conditions
causing glacial outbursts, debris flows—
South Tahoma’s especially.
Seattle Times story—did you see that?
Last week—the glacier’s toe, now stagnant.
cut off from upper reaches of ice—
one of those sections—measuring
about a half acre, breaks off,
unleashing trapped melt water.
Boulders smashing and rolling—
I know the sound from White River
in our back yard—
came down the mountain.
Two young hikers say it sounded like a train,
and film the rushing, muddy water
on their cell phones.

Phil Hertzog’s the Ranger.
A backcountry volunteer.
Biology teacher from Tacoma.
He checks my permit.
“I don’t know if I can reach South Puyallup Camp,”
I tell him. “Let’s see what we can do.—
We like to keep people on schedule.
Only so many campsites.”
He radios Longmire on his Walkie Talkie.
There’s been a cancellation at Klapachie Peak.
“I was there last night. You’ll like the sunset.”



















We stand on a ridge above the River.
Trail cut into the side, steep, dramatic.
Small strip of bleached grass before the cliff
to my right. He checks my condition.
He’s 60, knows I’m ten years older.
River a half mile down, browns and tans below,
bands of colors on the other side, it looks like a painting—
what emerges from erosion,
from river force, channel changes.
Standing on a mountain,
one foot shorter than the other.
This man, he’s here to look out
for people like me—keeps us safe,
Search and Rescue—
a shot of confidence
as I begin my descent—
descending, what I love about the poem,
Williams’s language, beckoning

Exploration of the inner world.
Trekking poles give me two extra legs.
Let them take the body weight,
provide rhythm, knee savers,
closer to the four leggeds.
Deep into the second day,
the Mountain, too has a voice,
and that which makes man insignificant
calls man to listen. The Mountain,
and these few Rangers.

Walking the steps.
The last one, the next one.
High alpines.
Wanting to sit with them.
Wanting to study their trunks.
Mis-reading their message.
Thinking they’re sentries,
that camp is close.
Solitaries.
Greeting no one.

Klapache Park in a Hemlock Grove.
St. Andrews Lake drying up.
Sunset with the camera.
The Mountain before me walking on.
St. Andrews Lake all dried up.
Backpack reporting my age, sending signals.
Stay present to the camera. Use it.
Feel Rumi in the pant pocket.
Keep walking.
Death is the beginning of beauty.
Not an abstraction, the man in the Canal Zone
who taught me that poem 50 years ago.
Walk the Mountain.
Let the Mountain walk you.
Opening the Mountain
opens the man.
At Golden Lakes a man gives you a map.
You sit by the Lake and talk of gear.
He tells the fishing story
of the young man who he was, walking
to the brown trout. You find the Carver poem
in your notebook, and read it,
changing brook to brown,
declaring this an old path
and a new waterfall.
You hand him the camera
and ask him his story.
He won’t know how to answer
and he’ll never be the same.
He’ll tell you this later.
Neither will you, old man,
walking into your age.
The storm is on its way
but you don’t know that yet.


















On this hike you meet two veterans.
One tells you about the Colonel
who defended Tan Son Nhut Air Base
during Tet, who might have saved your life
when you were flying in
from skiing in Japan on R&R.
You meet the other man
in a storm alongside Carbon Glacier.
He looks at you and says,
I won’t leave you behind.
Two encounters on a mountain.
Ten minutes in your life.

Mistakes with your pack.
Errors in conditioning.
State of the body.
State of the Mountain.
What you did right.
The gift of empathy from your mother.
The lifetime of practice.
Learning to listen so you could listen to her.
To listen for her.
Empathy walking you to Blake and vision.
Blake taking you to Keats.
Negative capability
and long life living with its great call.
Accompanimnent with trees.
Good luck, compañero. Suerte.
Walking down Ipsut Pass,
you say to yourself, This is China.
The 4-day rain fills the trail,
dry streambeds reclaim their music.
Mountain gets a new white suit.
Pumping water at the stream,
you will put your recorder
close to the water recording
the joyful morning.
Standing up from the rock
the recorder will fall
from your shirt pocket into the water
making the sound of Basho’s frog.
You put your arm into water
up to your elbows retrieving it.
The recorder’s done for
but the music’s in your head.
You’re in a valley of an old growth forest.
This is your peak experience.
You’re 70 years old
walking a 100-year old trail.
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims
have been here before you.
This is your village singing.

















CODA:

Out of Mystic Lake crossing White River
you’re moving alongside Winthrop Glacier
on the backside of Burroughs Mountain
to SkyScraper Pass and your part of the State.
The Mountain watches over the State of Washington.
Sunrise, Burroughs, Frying Pan Creek,
Summerland, Panhandle Gap.
Bear on the trail, all of it, day hikes with old friends.
Ohanapecosh Park to Indian Bar and Nickel Creek
from the other direction. You made
this one with your son 20 years ago.
and North Dakota when you were ten.
You’ve returned and gone on and returned.
Indian tobacco and peace pipe
from a souvenir store.
Your father’s story and your mother’s voice.
Carrying it with you on the Mountain.
Room in your pack for baseball cards
wrapped in a red rubber band.

Jim Bodeen
20 August 2015-18 September 2015
Cougar Rock-Paradise, Sunrise, Yakima
The Wonderland Trail
Mount Rainier National Park











100 Years

















HISTORY

The Wonderland Trail is 100 years old this year as I take my first steps at 70. 93 miles around the mountain, or 96 miles, depending on the map. Depending, too, on the one who walks. The original trail was longer, 130 miles, and lower in elevation. According to Park archives, it was less scenic, too. The trail system was needed for Park protection of resources, including fire, poaching and trespassing. It was completed in 1915, and was first circumnavigated by a Mountaineers expedition. Elevation gains surpass 22,000 feet, with matching elevation descents. It’s down-up-down-up each day. Thousands of people from all over the world walk this trail every year.

Washington State contains maps of mountains. The State is mountain full. Mountain Rainier, however is always the mountain. When we say, The Mountain is out, we always know that we are talking about Mount Rainier. The Wonderland Trail circles the Mountain.

The naming of the trail emerged from the spontaneous breath of its first hikers, a wonderland, and from these first breaths of wonder came its increasing popularity. When its name became official in 1920, it is not inaccurate to say that The Wonderland Trail was named from below.
To make Ranger patrols more effective, the park also constructed a series of patrol cabins along the trail, simple log structures built with native logs and cedar-shake roofs. Summer residences or temporary shelters.

Even after experiencing the Permit process necessary to enter the Trail, and to receive the necessary camping permits, it is difficult to describe. There are designated camp locations with different numbers of available campsites. Camp Rangers at different locations on the Mountain, work individually with hikers, and collaboratively with each other in making designated nightly campsites for individual parties.

I arrived at the Ranger Station in Longmire before they opened the day before my hike. It looks and sounds like this:

The Ranger looks up from his computer. I start by giving her my name, followed by more information than she wants. She doesn’t ask about my age or condition. She wants to know how many days I have, and where I want to start from. Then she’ll go to work. I have ten days, nine nights. She goes into her computer screen. She has a map with a magic marker. Here, here, and here. She goes around the Mountain. It takes less than five minutes. Later I’ll find out that one can have a maximum of 14 nights to complete the trail. I’ll wish I’d have asked for two more. I’ll be glad I made it out in ten.


Here’s what she gave me starting out at Longmire: Devils Dream, South1 Puyallup River,  Golden Lakes, Mowich Lake, Mystic Lake, Sunrise Camp, Summerland, Nickel Creek and Maple Creek. I get slowed along the way by my own pace, and then by a storm. Rangers on the trail phone in for a couple of changes. I’m given a cancelled campsite at Klapatche Park, and later, after being held up at Mystic Lake in a storm, I’m given White River and Indian Bar. Changes made by chance encounters with Rangers on the Trail is energy-giving. It’s inspirational. It reassures. These changes enabled me to complete the hike

Jim Bodeen
16 September 2015







NO SAY AMONG THE STONES


WALK IT BACK MY BROTHER

Try telling how you found your lost pack.
Try telling how the gray rain cover camouflaged your fear.
Tell how your pack turned to stone.
Tell how you recovered the shame of your childhood.
Remember finding your perfect footprint
walking the other way.
Remember that perfect fit of who you were then,
taking you into that lost place
with such confidence.
This was always the trail.
This footprint your guide.
Your prayer of gratitude is OK.
Your account of the terror remains a better effort.

Jim Bodeen
15 September 2015





















HAVING NO SAY AMONG THE STONES

Crossing West Fork of White River
where I descend into river channel
after coming through the storm
coming through Carbon Glacier
the practice momentarily gone
a recitation surfaces—combining
Wallace Stevens’ Sunday Morning
with Kris Kristofferson’s
Sunday Morning Coming Down
the descent into memory
coalescing with a sharp turn on the trail
I do remember to get the camera up—
critical moments in capturing
ephemera of the mind—
pellucid stuff—but remember,
the practice is gone. Descending
into the river channel in a flood
of images, I’ve not yet located
the trailhead coming out
on the other side, some 60 yards
on the other side. Gin-clear
on this and unclouded.
Tone-sharp if disoriented
then by beauty and relief
(and who likes the descent
more than this one?).
Light reflecting evenly
from all sides, and led
by trekking poles
carrying my weight,
my eyes are on the trail
for balance, what is lucid
is song, there are no eyes
for coming out the other side.

Crossing water then is easy,
a bit of athleticism going over rocks
furnishing another moment
of aging joy. This is the moment
before the trail turns towards the familiar
and home when I lose my way.
Following spaces in sand between stone
boulders is my mistake,
Maybe this is the trail…
Maybe these sand spaces is…
Begin a crossing through old river channel
right here, balancing,
careful now, careful, over and through
the great rocks, thrilling a bit? Yes,
at the rhythm of the way.
There’s the other side.
But where’s the trailhead?
is the first clue that here I am lost,
without a way forward.

Stop and look around, man.
Get your bearings.
Establish location and get that pack
off your back.
This is the admission of the passage of light.
Channeling Ranger wisdom’s
Ten Essentials Confidence
you have not yet found
the language—
Shine through me light
song of clarity and confession
and prayer awareness.
This isn’t the dark woods.
These are the big stones.
Boulders, man. Boulders.
Fear will arrive before you’ll try prayer.
That will come soon.
That will come when the weight off your back
arrives with your thirst,
lost spring in your legs off rocks.
Pull out that quart of pumped water
you so carefully carry.
Return to your pack.
Locate the way up
from locating the way down.

This is not late coffee and oranges.

These are the voices arriving one at a time.
These are the voices arriving all at once.

You have arrived at the Dynasty of the Rocks.
You have not been given an audience


Jim Bodeen
15 September 2015







WALKING THE WONDERLAND

LET THE GREAT MOUNTAIN SPIN

Rumi in a found pocket
in those trail pants
with more pockets
than you have use for
and what happened there
reaching for him
when breath wasn’t right
or when it was
and this became the way
around the mountain

and the mountain itself
dry and in drought,
and then a quirky
four day rain
joy like remission
water running on the trail
in dry stream beds
and the music of water
everywhere surrounding

He had no idea
what would come
it came or it didn’t
he couldn’t control
or stop it
even if there was anything
let it come, if it came
if you can
get it down while walking
his mother walked
past her own dying
and his father
he walked off the job
from work right
into the hospital
and never came out
now this mountain

spoke and sang
and riffed for him
listening too
and he’d pull out
Rumi when he’d feel
him on his leg
from his pocket
and without stopping
rhythm breath
at trail speed opening
at random what he read
as much a surprise
as that tripping root
anchoring his feet
truth was
he loved those poems
coming forth Rumi
Stay low, stay low,
Wordsworth walking Coleridge
over the alps
that one local laughing

Jim Bodeen
11 September 2015


RESPONSE TO A LETTER

One thing to be taken seriously,
but from that arose the nasty question of belief.

No script on this walk. What comes out
comes out in breath and syllable,

jeopardy of beauty. Photography
has as much to do with impermanence

as it does with death. Sorrow
on the other hand, embedded

in joy, wires itself
to the myelin sheath,

becoming a deeper part of us.
My friend catalogues suffering

objectively, like a grocery list,
as is the poet’s responsibility.

Jesus is a man of the road.
Contingency is how we meet Christ

says the poet in crisis. Basho
on his long walk throws food

scraps to the abandoned child.
The act of compassion we can do

nothing about. Nevertheless—
Nevertheless, this walk,

our way. Basho’s courage.
Putting it in the poem,

carrying, suffering. The poet
rides the Celestial Bus.

The ones who take him
at his word will not believe.

Jim Bodeen
10 September 2015



WALKING THE WONDERLAND

500-year old Doug Fir across stream,
morning light on red bark,
a red way in red light.
Sitting on branches
of dappled pages of the poem,
deepened in shade. Last
of the shadow time before ascent
of the trail. The unfinished poem of Rumi's,
but Kabir can read me
out of the sorrows of the ascent.

Open the mountain, let the mountain
open you. Clockwise
circumambulation tradition.
Porous boundaries
between spiritual and mundane.
Trekking poles as water witchers.
Did not ignore the storm.
Shambhala Rumi,
"Drink before you fall to pieces...."
As the mountain goes, so go we.

Jim Bodeen
20 August--8 September 2015












Part I: Walking the Wonderland Trail on Mt. Rainier during 10 days in August, 2015, carrying two notebooks, two cameras, the Shambhala pocket edition of Rumi, serves as breath and guide. Open the Mountain, let the mountain open you, serves as seed thought, inspiring and sustaining the walk.

Part II: Mt. Rainier's 96-mile trail around the Mountain, is 100 years old this year, 2015. Part II of this 10-day walk, guided by Rumi's poems, involves a surprise encounter with a line from Ray Carver's poem, "...new path to the waterfall," with a brown trout in the story of a walker on the way around the mountain.


Part IIII: Mt. Rainier's Wonderland Trail turns towards home in the walker's back yard, emerging from a late summer storm at Mystic Lake, before walking Sky Scraper Pass, White River, Summerland, Panhandle Gap, Ohanapecosh Park, and Indian Bar, listening to Gary Snyder's admonition: Bring back a good story.
















Wonderland Trail Pocket Notebook


















GLACIAL FLOUR

Fine particles in the water
Cloudy appearance
Like the Nisqually River

Glacial rivers
deposit sediment
on floor of stream bed

creating high spots
that divert water
causing river

to wind and braid
across the bed
causing the color


WINGSPAN

Hawk on high skyline
Tail cruise, in wind, wind produced
Certain disdain for shoulders


FIRES LEAVE LOCAL SKIES MURKY MESS

WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?


WONDERLAND TRAIL RIGHT AWAY

A fork in the road—
not up, but down
to Devil’s Dream

Saying goodbye
to Karen

FIRST MILE

A gate

A threshold
a boardwalk of planks

Nobody, nothing,
urging a faster pace

You’re not out of the woods yet
Stop at all the gates

First break
shed layer
take water
remember not to forget
your gear
when you get up

threshold of gate,
tree, bridge, step,
people before me

Pyramid Creek
where I stop
in its rock bed

five feet across
an old log crossed
on water
five fingers of its root
exposed, a great
uprooted hand
carved now by weather

It’s like this
but it’s also a misread
of the map,
not yet

I don’t think about age

Young people on trail
bring time forward

Core and rind
Rumi says
if you are one
inspired
by divine breath

pick up your pack,
now,
you with good shoulders

Dry streambed
after dry streambed

The pack fits better
to the back, pulled higher
after adjusting straps

The Ranger asks,
Are you going to pack
that camera?
I say, I am.

Hydrated in a bonsai forest
pump two quarts water
One can see climate change
looking at trees

Warmer winters
greater growth,
smaller glaciers,
count the trees

Write the name
of the Ranger
who changes
your permit

allowing you
greater time
to look at
these small trees

The tent surrounded
by High Mountain Hemlock
helps one grieve
the fallen aged ones
in Chinese pots
taken from us
during heat spells
After breaking camp
Klapatche Peak
before leaving,
Tom Clark,
Air Force Special Ops
Five minutes!
Five minutes!

Enlisted, at 38,
becomes airborne
writing thesis on Colonel Wise
and Tan Son Nhut—

January, 1968, Tet—
I was returning from R&R,
skiing in Japan, Zao—
up where Basho walked—
Colonel Wise might have saved
my life—that’s when those GIs
started getting hit in big numbers

What remains of the beloved?—
always the first question.

Talking to myself
on the trail
Talking to myself
has never been better

If you’re looking
for conversation,
stop at the stream
for water
and take out
your notebook

Red bark
Red wood
Red light
Red bridge

Red way

Learn from your mistakes
Make them again
Make them new
Fail again,
and better

AFTER EXPOSURE WALK

Back in woods
Sun covered
Stop to take some water
Stay hydrated, old man
Not a place to shuck the pack though
Set on shelf to left

Uphill to release the weight
Don’t see the years
of brown-fir needles
underfoot,
turning into ball bearings

Damn near roll off trail
into forest below

Flies buzz a jet overhead

GOLDEN LAKE CAMPGROUND

All this reading of Rumi
so close in the pocket
to my hand, so ready

Hardly anything of Basho

Nothing at all of Jesus
Jesus in my head

Anything in one is in Jesus
And Basho
I know where Basho is

WALKING WITH JOHN MUIR
IN WONDERLAND

He keeps repeating,
What happened? What happened?
My unkind children!

After I saw you in Alaska
skipping through glaciers,
I knew—John,

Don’t come back—Don’t—

THE UNBALANCED PACK

What would you expect
from a left-handed hiker?

SOUND OF THE RIVER

Smell of the woods
Time to take water
So many pine cones

OLD GROWTH FOREST AT MOWICH RIVER

Dried peaches from Yakima

WHERE DID THE GLACIER BREAK—
THAT’S WHAT I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT

IPSUT PASS

Dramatic descent
Walking with Taoist poets
Chinese mountain landscape
Cool after rain
Big trees ahead.

THE TROUBLE WITH BREAKING CAMP
THE PROBLEM WITH LANGUAGE

I tell the man who asks,
why I’m slow
breaking camp,

God talks to me
in the morning hours
I have to be there.

Nobody
should have to listen
to shit like this

but he asks
and truth be told

READING RUMI

balanced on a rock
and a trekking pole
just below Ipsut Pass,
Get the line breaks right

AT DICK’S CREEK CAMP ALONGSIDE CARBON GLACIER
WITH NO PERMIT TO STAY, I SQUEEZE MY ONE-MAN HUBBA TENT
IN BETWEEN FOUR TENTS WITH RANGER APPROVAL

Talk begins hours before daylight
on both sides of me,

We’re in a hole. Stay on your mattress.
You won’t get any wetter

than you already are.
I’ll try to dig a trough for water

Quietly, I feel for cameras
in corners of my tent—

Both dry as I am.
I don’t say a word

until after we get
on the trail with pictures

TWO DAYS INTO THE STORM

Mystic Lake Ridge Camp
Sunday morning
Ridge line crossing,
crossing water, fresh snow
Looking at Mountain in new white suit

This walking around the mountain
has given me this certainty—
to rest easy in the selfless life
because the self is gone

there is the geographical life,
the North Dakota root, but it too,
impermanent—living only in story—
and the other, canon of literature
and deepest well, there your ancestry lies,
this is the land where there is no small talk
and the smallest talk of all is all God

North Dakota boy walking in wind

BEAR ON TRAIL

I got a Nikon camera (Sing Loud with confidence)

Love to take your photograph

Honey don’t take my
Honey don’t take my
Honey don’t

Don’t

Don’t take my Koda

Away Away

AFTER SEEING FIRST BEAR
ON WONDERLAND TRAIL

That stump
sticking out from the big fir
will never again
be a stump

THREE DAYS OF LATE SUMMER RAIN

The mountain has fresh snow
It gets to show itself
and the wonderland changes
The mountain shows itself
and then it releases the water
clear and fresh and green rushing
gliding bedrock pure

Dried up streams get happy
and get going in their music
running like children
The music’s going at it
volume up all brass horns

Mountain itself again

TUESDAY BELOW SUMMERLAND
AFTER DAYS OF RAIN

No one on the trail
but me, where I stop
for water
before crossing the bridge

SUMMERLAND FLOWERS GONE TO SEED
IN FIRST DAYS OF SEPTEMBER

Stems burnt red from Sun
Show all the color

Watch birds in alpines
landing and leaving
in joyous harvest
observable in flight patterns

OVER RIDGE AT PANHANDLE GAP
TRAIL FOLLOWS THE MOUNTAIN
AROUND TO RIGHT

Sharp whistle
of marmot
signals to others something
in Marmot
of others—
sentries on rocks

two-legged on way
with walking stick
wearing hat,
blue Patagonia coat


Jim Bodeen 20 August 2015—2 September 2015
Wonderland Trail Pocket Notebook
Mount Rainier National Park