Mt. Shuksan (Tsuskan) Songs

-- In Alpenglow --

There is great joy in listening to good music, and listening to a mountain sing,
specifically Mt. Shuksan ( 9,127') in the North Cascades and hearing it creak and moan is one such joy if not something to behold. And as I did so, its vocal cords beat with deep tone of a music I had been use to hearing for most of my life: orchestration of timbre volume that delights my soul with song from the mountains, wherewith white-foamy waterfalls pour a thousand feet or more therefrom ancient blue-iced glaciers, and ice blocks break off loudly cracking "thud" when they hit ending their fall nevermore, to the seductive quaver of the wind as it swirls about high peaks and roars down through the deep forested ravines and valleys. "Simply grand," I said outloud.

For hours I laid in the sparse-spongy heather and rocky terrain of "Alpen Land" where I felt like a fallen tree in repose upon the forest floor, still and silent. I was on the edge where the heather gives way to rock and snow. Enthralled with the "sheer" pleasure of the face of Shuksan and that of Sulphide Glacier, I was about as close to the edge as one could get without having the feeling of being "over the edge." And the 360 degree view which included Mt. Baker (Koma Kulshan) was indeed all powerful and humbling.

"What's this clamor of rock fall I hear?" Ah, just the mountain goats (4) I now see. And then I hear a cluck, a peep-peep, 'tis mother Ptarmigan and her clicks wandering about.

Tired and sore from the ordeal - with heavy burden pack and 85 + degree heat under clear-blue sky, the heather bedding provided refuge badly needed. Mine eyes heavy with wash of the distant fused eternal spray - those rivulates cascading a thousand feet and more off the glaciers; seems the "sandman" comes and I drift about in frazzle and fray into the black-and-blue night. Along about midnight I awake to twinkling stars shinning ever so bright and sliver of moon rising. Shuksan appears like that of a looming monster...some kind of creature ready to gobble me up, but "fear not" thy brain tells me, "'tis only a mountain." And beyond the dank-dark night, the pleasure of "sunrise" sheds the light over Mt. Baker, which is one of the greatest things to see, 'cept for the earth getting ready for sleep with the ruby colors of the sunset (alpenglow) upon Shuksan, in the wild beauty you now see.....

Ken James McLeod
(McPilchuck)
Aug. 12, 13, 14, 2004

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KJM

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