The great volcano of Mt. Rainier loomed as heavily in my mind as it loomed over the city of Seattle. If I was going to climb the mountain next week, I’d better get used to exerting myself at altitude.

After hitchhiking from the Lost Coast back to my Jeep, I drove past the massive forest fires of Northern California into the lava fields north of Crater Lake in Oregon. My exercise regimen would begin in the middle of the sprawling Cascade Range, whose volcanoes have been sporadically erupting and gaining mass over the last thirty-seven million years. None of Oregon’s peaks reached the lofty heights of other colossal Cascade summits like Mt. Rainier or Mt. Shasta, but several hovered around the ten-thousand-foot mark, and these would serve to get me into shape, starting with Mt. Thielsen – the “Lightning Rod of the Cascades”.

Thielsen certainly possessed a spire capable of attracting lightning. The pinnacle was a remnant from the hardened core of a volcano that formed 300,000 years ago. Over the course of several ice ages, glaciers ground away at the mountain’s slopes, eroding the softer material. But since the central plug was made of harder basalt, parts of it survived.