By the time we had arrived in Mt. Rainier National Park, I had finished two books on the Kindle and was now delving into The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, by John Vailiant. Among the true-life science-adventure-male-bonding style books I've read over the past decade, I'd rank The Tiger up there with John Krakauer's IntoThin Air and Preston's, The Hot Zone--two other books that gave me the heebie-jeebies for their sheer terror of nature and a respect for forces that are beyond human control.
The Tiger is a compelling story (though plodding at the start) of a hunt for a man-eating Tiger in the Russian Siberian wilderness. Along the way John Vailiant provides some Russian history, culture, and a fair-amount of biology regarding the Amur Tiger (the largest species and the one most commonly found in American zoos). Unlike lions and other big cats, tigers are solitary creatures that can, from time to time, reek terror on the human population. One frightening stat: in India alone, tigers have eaten an estimated 100,000 people over the past two decades. These are large, ferocious animals in the wild, and cannot be tamed, and as their natural habitat is being destroyed they are moving now into villages for food. And there are few left in the wild. All endangered species.
Okay, so I was thinking about some of this while hiking on the face of Mt. Rainier, jumping at the sound of every snapping twig. Fortunately, Becky and I were essentially alone on these trails which were, by the way, the roughest and toughest mothers we hiked the whole trip. One trail, which was supposed to end at a lookout point above the clouds, took us hours to climb, and this after great effort, many stops, and our entire water supply. We did eventually arrive--above the clouds as the brochure promised--but we were too pooped to appreciate the vista. We nearly rolled back down (going down was TOUGH on the my knees) and treated ourselves to hot coffee and a nice dinner some hours later when we arrived at the lodge.
"You call this a vacation?" I asked Becky as I hammered down my third cup of java and chewed a handful of peanut M & M's. (Yes, she planned this one! It was here idea!!)
"You can relax on the rest of the trip," she told me. "That's what Gig Harbor and Seattle is for."
Oh yeah, Gig Harbor. Puget Sound. Seattle. Pike's Place Market. The Original Starbucks store. The Space Needle. Traffic. People. Crowded Sidewalks. Noise.
I could have stayed on Mt. Rainier myself. Just looking. Listening to NOTHING. Seeing no one! Staring up at five hundred year old trees. Reading The Tiger in peace and quiet.
Next vacation . . . I make the plans.
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