At 14,411 feet Mount Rainier with its 26 glaciers stands a magnificent mile above the mountains that surround it. I first saw it some 30 years ago, when I was making a tour of the far West with my family. We drove north from California specifically to visit it and stav in Paradise Inn, which sits high up on the slopes next to the vast alpine Paradise Meadow. It was July, and we knew the meadows would be in flower. As soon as we got to northern Oregon, the weather turned raw and cloudy, too cloudy to see the mountain as we approached it, and it stayed cloudy for several days. When we checked into Paradise Inn, we had still not actually seen the mountain, although we were living for the moment on its side.

We went for a walk anyway, for the meadows were indeed in flower and beautiful even in the fog that enveloped us. We were out for perhaps an hour and climbed to almost 7,000 feet and the tip of the tongue of Paradise Glacier. We were sitting there on some rocks when a young man I remember only as Ron chanced along and asked me if I wanted to go higher. He had been talking to some of the climbers coming down, and they had said that another 2,000 feet would put you above the clouds. He wanted to go; he had onlv one day there, he explained, and this was it, and it would be nice to see the mountain. But he wouldn’t go alone. It was too dangerous. Would I accompany him?

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