Those of us living in the Puget Sound region have a ready view of the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States, meaning simply that, when the skies are clear, it is hard to avoid noticing it. When the view is obscured by clouds, we pine for the moment when they will lift to reveal its summit, and know when others say, “The Mountain is out,” that there is only one mountain to which they can possibly be referring. It is one of the 16 most dangerous volcanoes in the world, and many of our neighbors are familiar with the sound of civil emergency sirens built to signal an evacuation order in the event of its eruption. The city where I was born is built atop a plateau formed 5,700 years ago by a mud flow caused by such an eruption; it is rare to look at those glaciated slopes and not wonder when they will suddenly be changed forever, while hoping that they remain forever unchanged.
For the motorcyclist poring over a map plotting a way to spend a day, Mount Rainier is an obvious place to look, and when John suggested
a counter‐clockwise ride through
White Pass,
Blewett Pass, and
Stevens Pass, the mountain’s position
at the center of the circle was just right. I saddled up yesterday and, an hour before sunrise, hit the road to meet up with John. By
the time I reached Black Diamond,
The Mountain was bathed in morning alpenglow in a crystal clear sky, and I stopped wishing
I was still at home in bed. It was beautiful.
U.S. Route 12 first opened in 1926 and, after several westward expansions, now starts in Aberdeen, Washington, and ends almost
2,500 miles later at Michigan and Cass Avenues in Detroit, near its original eastern terminus. After negotiating the back roads
south to Morton,
we launched ourselves onto the stretch of 12 that crosses White Pass. I have ridden through the pass a few times and rolled up
the 12 all the way across Lolo Pass in Idaho — yesterday as we ate up the miles I was made
mindful of Blue Highways¹, William Least Heat‐Moon’s narrative of his journey along the lesser roads of the United States, wondering
about the history of this road and the cities that anchor each end, and recalling the small towns along its way through which I had passed.
Much of the appeal to me of riding a motorcycle is that it inclines one to recall Robert Frost’s foreshadowing and, in so doing, witness, if
even for a few moments, the lives being led along the roads that are indeed less traveled.
Clouds covered us as we turned north outside of Naches
and made our way up the Yakima River Canyon on State Route 821 to stop for lunch at
Roza Recreation Area
(PDF). I generally love time spent in the canyon,
but it was bitter cold standing next to the river, and
our stop lasted just long enough to shove our sandwiches down; then we were back on the road, exiting the canyon and headed for Ellensburg.
The weather north of Ellensburg produced a surreal landscape of frosted grass blanketed by fog that had lifted just enough to expose the lower halves of the windmills dotting the landscape. It was as we crossed Blewett Pass that we emerged from the clouds, only to descend beneath them once again as we made our way down the long slope toward Peshastin; whence once inbound, there is always time to stop in Leavenworth to sit for a while and have a cup of coffee, and on a winter’s day after parting the cold air from atop a motorcycle for a few hundred miles, the stop yesterday afternoon was particularly comforting.
The Yamaha’s electrical system was not designed with much capacity for accessories. I was running
my radar 
detector, GoPro camera, GPS, and Sena Bluetooth™ node throughout the day, and had my heated gloves and jacket on full blast. The heated clothing
on top of everything else was sufficient to overwhelm the system, and when we prepared to leave Leavenworth,
I discovered the battery had completely discharged. Thanks to John’s good planning, jumper cables were at hand, and getting
underway again took just a minute or two. I did, though, switch off some of my toys for the remainder of the day, and I have
tossed my own jumper cables into my saddlebag. Perhaps it is time to buy a bike equipped with more dilithium crystals than the FZ1.
The rest of the ride was uneventful, and as always, up and over Stevens Pass was a hoot. It was good to have to slow down at the summit to make way for the skiers, whose own winter has not been as full of opportunity as they might have hoped. (With a motorcycle, as long as there is gas, there are good times.) As I crossed Snoqualmie Valley just a few miles from home, The Mountain was on hand to capture the evening alpenglow, helping close the circle we had set out to draw.