Claire Henley: Adventures West (In A Flash)

(Editor's Note: Chattanoogan Claire Henley started an adventure of a lifetime on the remote Pacific Crest Trail in April. Along the way, she had many adventures and found herself a husband named Big Spoon).

Crater Lake cradled the bluest water I had ever seen. The water was bluer than blue. It was otherworldly.

It was Saturday afternoon. Big Spoon and I relaxed on the rocky bank of Cleetwood Cove, eating the turkey and Swiss sandwiches we had prepared in our rented car. The sun was alive with unblocked light. The sky was almost as blue as the water. The water: fresh, deep, and chilling to the bone. A few minutes before, after Big Spoon and I walked the one-mile trail down to the bank, I jumped off a protruding rock into the pure blue lake.

“How often do you get to swim in a volcano?” I heard a tourist say to her son as I swam by.

7,700 years ago, Mount Mazama erupted then imploded and formed Crater Lake—the deepest lake in the states diving to a maximum depth of nearly 2,000 feet. No rivers or streams fed into the lake; no rivers or streams fed out. Rain and snow alone made up the contents of this bowl shaped body of water. The water was pristine. And the way the sunlight sank into it created its mesmerizing blue. Sitting against the warm rocks and looking out on this liquid marvel, I never wanted to leave.

But Crater Lake was only one of the stops on the road trip Big Spoon and I had embarked on. Five days before, we reached Seattle by train. The seventeen-hour ride we took from Redding, California to get there was nice. During the illuminated hours of the day, Big Spoon and I looked out the windows at our country—the cliffs, the coast, the sandy dunes. An infinite amount to see existed beyond those windows, but only a flash of time existed for us to look as the train chugged by.

Big Spoon’s cousin, John, picked us up from the station the evening we arrived. He lived near Seattle in a town called Enumclaw and gave us a place to stay for a couple of nights. His home faced Mount Rainier, the massive peak ascending to 14,410 feet, towering like a lone tree in a meadow above every other mountain in view.

“Rainier is so much bigger than anything else around that it’s an icon, a symbol we all look up to here to gauge our whereabouts,” John said before showing us inside.

His wife, Nancy, gave us a tour of the house when we entered. John, a computer programmer and musician, and Nancy, a hospice nurse, loved to travel. Their house revealed their passion by the way it was decorated. Cultural art from places like Cambodia, Turkey, and the Czech Republic enhanced the tables and walls.

“Life’s too short not to seek out the wonders of this world while you can, Nancy and I both think,” John said to us the next morning on our way up to Crystal Mountain. We rode in his forest green Subaru for an hour through Washington’s Cascade Mountains. The range plunged from the sky in an array of leafy greens. John took the day off work to show us this part of the northwest. On our drive we passed Crystal River. John pulled off on the side of the road to give us a closer look. We walked through twisted brush to the water’s edge. A frosty gray current swept down along the bank. John explained how glaciers melting from Mount Rainier were giving the river life. He encouraged us to touch the water. Big Spoon and I crouched to our feet and dunked in our hands. The water swished through my fingers like an icy wind. Big Spoon dug his hands into the bottom and shoveled out a handful of glacier silt. I did the same. The silt was pale-gray and fine as silky hair. I rubbed the soft grains between my fingers and felt cold drops of water prick my shins as the silt fell in clumps from my hands back into Crystal River.

We returned to the car and arrived at Crystal Mountain twenty minutes later. Crystal Mountain was utilized for skiing in the winter and hiking in the summer. A red gondola transported us to the top. During the twelve-minute ride John, Big Spoon, and I sat in silence as we looked out the curved windows to Mount Rainier. Dense clouds smothered the peak, but the grand swollen base appeared in the air as an eye-catching formation of solid ice, rock, and snow.“It’s an active volcano, Mount Rainier,” John said once we reached the top. We stood for several minutes on a concrete pad gazing at the volcano. The wind at the mountaintop came fast and cold. I zipped up my down jacket. The alpine world around me swept on forever. Where did I measure in relation to this big, magnificent world? How could I matter in this place of pure magnitude? Yet, as I stood among the high and heavy rock, steadying myself in the cold and headstrong wind, I knew I was just as much a part of this world as the mountains and the wind. I was just as much a part, and maybe even more, because I had the ability, unlike the mountains and wind, to see and feel and know the power and beauty of everything around. And in this way, I mattered, too. I measured up, because I could ponder on and give admiration to our gift of a world.

The next morning, Big Spoon and I left Enumclaw in our rented Chevy Sonic. We rented the car for nine days in order to explore the parts of California, Oregon, and Washington we desired to see before flying to Alaska. We loaded the Chevy with our backpacks and a blue cooler we borrowed from John. Mount St. Helens made for our first stop–the land of Big Foot, lava rock, and ash. Though Mount St. Helens erupted thirty-five years ago, the many miles of forest destroyed by its deadly blast were still in recovery. Driving through the National Volcanic Monument, Big Spoon and I marveled over the seared terrain bespeckled by newborn trees. “This view beats anything I saw on the trail,” Big Spoon acknowledged as we approached the gray-blue volcano with its top blown completely off.

We camped that night outside the park on Yale Lake. The next day we travelled to the south side of Mount St. Helens to explore the Ape Caves–a 2.5 mile long lava tube formed 2,000 years ago by the heating then cooling of rushing lava. A bolted ladder led into the upper end of the night colored cave. We rolled down our sleeves and turned on our headlamps before carefully descending the ladder. The underground tube was damp and cool. A molten pattern left by hardened lava coated the basalt walls. The ground was sharp with broken rock; a number of boulder piles got in the way. We had to watch our step. At times we had to crawl.It took two hours to venture through the Ape Caves. Midway through Big Spoon shut off his headlamp and asked me to do the same. The tube turned blacker than polished coal. We stood in the blackness for several seconds to let our eyes adjust and then attempted to walk with no lights. I tripped on my first step. Then I ran into a wall. Big Spoon laughed as I quickly turned my headlamp back on. How truly I needed the light to see.

It was the flawless light of the sun that enabled me to see the blueness of Crater Lake. Big Spoon and I drove south to Crater Lake National Park the day after our Ape Caves excursion. I could have sat and stared at that rich and royal blue for days. But, as with any place one loves to visit on this earth, all too soon it came time to go. The trick was to savor. Savor the beloved place before your time there was gone.

After Crater Lake came the Redwood Forest, where trees like great gods oversaw the land. And after the Redwood Forest came Highway 1, where Big Spoon and I drove along the Pacific Coast all the way to Seattle. On our coastal drive we saw sea lions, sand dunes, and crashing waves. When we stopped to stretch our legs we walked on smooth pebble beaches and atop the mossy cliffs. We ate fresh seafood from hole-in-the-wall shacks. We slept beneath the ocean stars. By the time we made it back to the Avis Car Rental in Enumclaw nine days after setting out, we had driven 1,700 miles. In a flash of time, we saw a cornucopia of wonders. A foretaste of the main meal Alaska had waiting at the table of life to serve.

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Claire's first book on her adventures while living in Colorado can be ordered here:

http://www.amazon.com/51-Weeks-The-Unfinished-Journey-ebook/dp/B00IWYDLBQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394801373&sr=8-1&keywords=51+Weeks