The Mountaineers – A Year of Wonderland

My friend Candace and me attended a book talk and slideshow by Tami Asars last evening at the Tacoma Mountaineers.

Tami really engaged the audience with hikes we have all shared and got me excited for planning our trip on the Wonderland. She is also a funny writer and very accurate in every respect.

As a part of audience involvement, she asked about who had been on various hikes around the mountain. Many people raised their hands except for one hike which was to the Paradise Ice Cave. I was the only one in the room that raised their hand.

The reason is the Paradise Ice Cave no longer exists. The mountain reclaimed it many years ago.

Since I was the only one, when asked what I remembered. My response was “I was eleven years old, and running around in tennis shoes and shorts in the snow.” The year was around 1968.

Now being only eleven at the time, what I really remember was my feet were super cold, and I was slipping all over the place, and climbing up stairs is hard work and the place for food was back down the hill.. Lucky my filter still works and I left that part out.

If she would have asked what did you see, it would have been a different story. It looked like this and it was an image I will never forget.