What a wonderful surprise to wake up and find myself surrounded by volcanoes, one of which is still breathing. With the forecasted break in the weather I decided to venture into a new neighborhood. What better vantage could there be than three walls of glass on a summit, especially with these potentially frosty November days.

Proper balance was struck for this “Multiple Abuse” destination: enough snow to close the road, but not enough to encourage raging snowmobilers and their oily fumes. The LO road is gated. I arrived at snowline to flurries and wonderful cold. My dog Ceili cares little of volcanoes, but is always thrilled to venture into winter, especially 12” of powder. Trees bore festive loads of snow as I skied upward on the road. There was enough clearing to allow a teaser view of Tahoma, but it socked in for much of the night. Rime crusted everything on the summit, including the repeater towers. Lows down to 22F at night.

Faith in the forecast paid off as clouds drained into the valleys revealing a collection of Cascade volcanoes: Tahoma to the N, Adams to the E, St. Helens to the S, and Hood to the SSE. Goat Rocks Wilderness was a prominent wall of white rock to the ENE. The Silver brook facility in Randle was lit up all night long rendering trees into neat stacks of lumber.

My LO routine has me arising about an hour before sunrise to melt snow for coffee and get something to eat. Scrambling at first light, 7:24, I grabbed up images with frozen fingers. The rest of the day is spent with leisurely chores, writing, siesta, tea, and maybe a mid-day ramble for snow shots. This late-season sunshine creates long blue shadows all day long. The latter part of the afternoon is spent sipping wine, eating mountain steak (jerky), and watching light before the final flurry of picture making. Sunset at 4:28, enjoyed while walking a snow-covered ridge in peachy light, breathing-in the freshness and silence.

Saturday a couple of hunters prowled about for deer with their rifles. They took a pointed interest in my mountaintop residence via binoculars. They were less than two hundred meters away but did not approach as most would, instead peeping over the ridge; this made me uneasy. The second night I saw a searchlight swinging about on a forest service road below at about 1a. Minutes later shots rang out, poachers shining deer? Reminds me of fish-stick, tartar-sauce “sportsmen” raking hooks through the water after salmon, declaring triumph after landing a belly-hooked fish.

This LO has seen some hard use. Two windows are broken making it a bit drafty. The east shutters have been ripped off by storms due to being improperly secured; the windows are now boarded over with plywood. The interior was not very hygienic with evidence of a rodent problem; the cabinet drawers smelled of mouse urine. Cleaning helped somewhat.

What to say, the Cascades keep on giving! So hard to surrender such a landscape to hedonistic hibernation, to sleeping in one’s own bed, to indoor plumbing, to conveniences blocks away. Such a winter-long sentence will be whiled away gathering maps and searching the contour lines for passage, for self-discovery, for redemption. In the words of Ed Abbey “May your trails be lonesome, stony, narrow, and only slightly uphill…”

The drive from High Rock to Burley Mountain takes one through the heart of Big Timber country. Indeed, evidence of their chainsaw massacre was everywhere. This access road is steep and long, but in ok shape for the most part. There is a soft, deep, muddy section at about 3800’ beneath a current cutting operation; I was barely able to get through in 2wd with high clearance.

The summit is a repeater station for the Forest Service and was enveloped in clouds and showers. There were also several bow hunters about, blowing synthetic calls to their elk quarry. The trail looks barely used since the road has gone in.

I was thinking this could be a winter X-country ski destination, but the lack of any protections makes this a haven for the winter razzer crowd.