PAGE 39
FALL 2018 ISSUE 02 / VOL . 03
A view of Mount Baker from Boulder Creek .
20 tons of fresh-cut Douglas fir . Then another and another . On the road out of town I pass what looks to be the Old Highway Café . There ’ s a golf course next to it now . Ah well .
My job was one that no one wanted and only a few transients grudgingly took on , but the money was good . The chainsaws weren ’ t the puny toys of backyard tool sheds . They were motocross engines with four-foot blades that could kick back and split a man in two . So I kept my distance , content to do the grunt work — piling cut “ rounds ” of cedar in the sawdust . One Monday , when the Ducati and I finally had the means to hit the road , I just didn ’ t show up .
That was 23 years ago , but now I recognize the very dirt road where we used to enter the forest … and keep moving . I told you what those chainsaws can do .
The beauty of Rainier and the Cascade Range is that their flanks and forest floors are as magnificent as their summits . You can stop anywhere — anywhere — and marvel over some detail of their physiques , be it a cascading stream , a meadow of wildflowers or even the velvety moss and lichen stockings worn by the forest giants .
The route up to the Sunrise Visitor Center is steep and twisty — a great motorcycle road and not even that crowded on this midweek August day . When I gas it hard and slide on some pea gravel coming out of a hairpin turn , I realize how foolish I ’ d look tossing away a state-of-the-art touring bike while playing Ricky Racer on one of the nation ’ s national treasures . The park speed limit is 35 mph , and there are more than