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FALL 2018 ISSUE 02 / VOL . 03
The author turns his back on busy U . S . Route 2 to watch the sunset work its magic on mighty Tahoma ( a . k . a . Mount Rainier ), 40 miles across the field .
“ For what profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun if the trees and the brush and the moss strive everlastingly to take it back ?”
In between several of Washington ’ s prodigious national forests ( Mount Baker- Snoqualmie , Okanogan , Wenatchee and Gifford Pinchot ) and the commercial ports of Puget Sound lies a verdant but ephemeral farm belt . Southbound navigation is tricky here . Keep a steady rudder and you ’ ll glide through orchards and sunflower fields , past meadows where thoroughbred ponies romp beneath snowcapped peaks . Drift to the west and the urban tentacles of Interstate 5 will squeeze you into their smoggy clutches .
A sunset photo of Mount Rainier was my goal , but now metro Seattle traffic ( among the nation ’ s worst ) is my reality . Still , my one memory of Rainier is that it is big . So