mountain blueberries, tangy on my tongue,
I stretch my arms wide and let the fir-scented
alpine breeze swirl around me and lift the hair
from my neck
shoes on rock, hands finding a hand hold
to pull me over a three-foot step,
butterflies dancing in the wildflowers
and a creek laughing around the boulders
in its path –
I am exactly where I’m supposed to be
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
I’ve said their names so many times together that they’ve morphed into one word: MountRainierMountAdamsMountBakerMountHood.
The first major volcano I climbed was 11,249′ Mount Hood. I was 15. I didn’t really understand the BIGNESS of what I was doing at 15. I just followed my dad, Dee Molenaar, up to the top of Hood, and followed him back down again. I remember feeling like I was on a whole different planet, though. I remember the smell of sulphur from the crater, and I remember it made me a little nervous. I remember the top layer of skin on my face burning a crispy red. And I remember being back in high school on Monday morning.
The summer before I turned 21 I asked Dad to guide me, and some of my friends who worked with me at Paradise, up to the summit of 14,411′ Rainier. I better understood the bigness of what we were doing by this time – this was my second summer working on Mount Rainier and I’d been around enough climbers up there to know that some people prepared their whole lives for this climb. But I don’t think I yet appreciated how blessed I was to be able to call Dad to be my guide and then two weeks later to find myself climbing in his foosteps up to the summit of Washington’s highest volcano. Climbing mountains is just what the people I’d grown up with had always done and it seemed natural that I should climb mountains, too. Our climb of Rainier that weekend was awesome – like on Hood, I felt like I was in a whole different world, but this time I wasn’t nervous about it. I remember the suncups that looked like little ice castles. I remember the deep blue crevasses. I remember climbing under the stars, in the quiet and stillness of pre-dawn, and then watching the sun rise over little Tahoma down below. It was magic!
A few years later, as a promise I’d made to one of my bridesmaids, I, once again, asked Dad to lead me and my friends on a climb of Rainier. But this time felt different for me, and for Dad, too. He was 66, had already climbed Rainier 50 times by then, and I knew his heart wasn’t in this one. He was a little grumbly. So this time, as we left Camp Sherman, I told Dad I wasn’t feeling well (this wasn’t really true) and I could hear the lift in his voice as he happily unroped from the rest of the team and announced that he and I would be heading back to camp because I wasn’t feeling good. We had a wonderful time that day just hanging out at Camp Sherman together, preparing to be a support for the other climbers when they made it back down. Dad’s friend, Pete Schoening – who’d saved my dad’s life and the lives of four other climbers with his famous belay on K2 in 1953 – was with the team, and we knew our friends were in good hands.
A year after we got married, my husband, Scott, and I moved to the northern part of Washington State, near the Canadian border. Rainier was no longer a quick drive away. Now our closest volcano was Mount Baker – Rainier’s 10,786′ sibling. Baker is humbler than her big sister and less famous, but I began to think of her as “my” mountain – and her summit was calling to me. The summer before I turned 31 I called Dad and asked him if he could guide Scott and me and some of my teaching friends from Sedro-Woolley to the top of Mount Baker. And bless him, he agreed. Dad must have been about 69 then – at the time I didn’t think much of that, but now, from the perspective of someone who’s almost 66, I am in absolute awe of who Dad was at 69. He safely led the team to the top of Mount Baker – and (just as importantly) safely led us back down again, over and around crevasses that were widening as the afternoon grew warmer. It was another wonderful day with Pop in the mountains – and Mount Baker was the first summit my husband, Scott, and I stood on together.
The summer before I turned 41 I got it into my noggin that I wanted to climb Mount Adams, Washington’s second highest mountain at 12,280′. I picked up the phone and called my faithful guide, Dad. Dad agreed to guide Scott and me and Scott’s friend, John, up Adams – and when I think about that now I am astounded! Dad was 79. In retrospect, I can see that, even if I was oblivious to Dad’s age, he wasn’t. He invited another man with a lot of mountaineering experience to join us on the climb, and that proved to be a really good call on Dad’s part.
A couple of significant things happened on our climb of Mount Adams: first, I had an epiphany that changed the way I viewed mountain climbing – it struck me, as I looked down the steep, icy slope I was traversing, that I was a mom now – I had a a three-year-old and a five-year-old waiting for me back home – and it occured to me that I could no longer be so cavalier about my own life – I had little people I loved who needed me to stay alive for them; and second, at about 10,000′ Dad let us know that he was done – that he felt he was holding us back (he wasn’t) and he would stay down below at base camp while the rest of us went on up to the summit. It felt really weird to be climbing without Dad. It was like there was this empty place at the top where he should have been standing. When our troop made it back to base camp, Dad hurried out to greet us – his arms opened wide to hug me. He said, “This is the first time I’ve had to wait at base camp for you and I didn’t like the worry of it!”
Mount Adams was the first big volcano I summited without Dad, and it is the last big volcano I ever climbed.
I look at these mountains now – MountRainierMountAdamsMountBakerMountHood – and I think to myself: “What in the heck were you thinking?! Whatever made you think you could climb those mountains?!” But then I remind myself that I did, indeed, climb those mountains and I’m sort of blown away by that. And I realize that if I hadn’t been born with the Dad I was born with I probably WOULDN’T have climbed MountRainierMountAdamsMountBakerMountHood. How blessed I am to have a father who gave me the mountains! How blessed I am to have a bank of memories over-flowing with the mountain adventures I had with Pop! I’m not climbing big volcanoes anymore, but I still get into the mountains for some good hikes. And every hike I take, I bring Dad with me.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
Photos: My boots next to Dad’s boots on Hood (upper left); teacher Jim Johnson, Dad, me, and Scott on Mount Baker (middle left); Scott and me on Mount Adams (bottom left); Dad, me, and my brother, Pete, on Rainier.
By Karen Molenaar Terrell
Sauk Mountain and I have a long history together. The first time I hiked up Sauk was in 1985. I would have been 28 or 29 then. My husband was working as a photographer for the Skagit Valley Herald and he took a photo of me on Sauk, with the caption, “Hiker Karen Terrell negotiates a switchback on Sauk Mountain.” A few years later I climbed to the top of Sauk with my dad, Dee Molenaar, who would have been in his seventies. I have a photo of me standing on Sauk with Dad, both of us smiling at the joy of being together in the mountains. When we became parents, Sauk Mountain was one of the first hikes Scott and I took our sons on. And our dog, Sam, went up as a puppy and, later, as a full-grown Labradane in her prime. Sauk holds a lot of sweet memories for me.
This has been a busy summer – our calendar looks like an obstacle course of comings and goings – appointments, lunches, events, zoom meetings, trips – good and important things – but, alas, other than a quick little hike at Artist Point, it’s been hard to find time to get back into the mountains, and I’ve missed them something terrible. Our busy schedule sometimes left me feeling frustrated this summer – feeling like my time was running out – and I reached out to God, Love, in my thoughts to find some comfort. The message that came to me was to be patient and wait. The time would come. Love isn’t limited and Life isn’t ever done giving gifts.
This weekend my brother, Dave, and my niece, Claire, visited us. On Saturday they ran in a 14-mile race near Issaquah and then spent Saturday and Sunday nights with us. On Sunday morning, as we were gathered around the table eating breakfast, I mentioned that I was missing the mountains and longing for a good hike. Scott wasn’t able to come with us, but he suggested that maybe the three of us should go up Sauk. Dave looked at me and asked, “You wanna go?” And boom – just like that – I had the opportunity to be back in the mountains on one of my favorite hikes, with my brother and niece – two of my favorite people!
It had been almost 40 years since I FIRST hiked up Sauk Mountain and two years since the LAST time I’d hiked it. A lot had happened in the last two years – and, to be honest, I wasn’t sure how my body was going to feel about me putting it back on the Sauk Mountain trail. I was a little nervous that it was going to rebel. In the past I’ve had some struggles when it gets too hot, and it was going to be a hot day and we were going to be hitting the trail near noon. And… people of my age are sometimes referred to as “elderly” – so the thought, “I’m old!” was poking around in my head. Also: “I’m heavy!” “I’m old and I’m heavy and I don’t do well in the heat.”
But…
God had just presented me with a gift – a gift I had been pining for and prayed for – and how could I not accept it? And if the gift came from Love – how could it bring conditions with it? All I needed to do was accept this gift and enjoy it. All those other things – age and size and heat – were just obstacles of my imagining and couldn’t stop Love’s unfolding of Good.
It didn’t take us long to fill our backpacks with the essentials and head out the door. We loaded ourselves into Dave’s truck, Dusty, and set out for the mountains.
When we got to the trailhead, Dave, an ultra runner, made sure Claire and I had everything we needed and then ran ahead. While he zipped up to the summit, and then ran back to check on us before he headed out again – this time for Sauk Lake – Claire and I made our way up the switchbacks of the southern face, stopping now and then to take photos or rest in the few shady patches under the trees to rehydrate. Claire and Dave had never been up Sauk before, and it brought me a lot of joy to be the one to introduce them to this hike. When we reached the top of the switchbacks and moved to the other side of the mountain – my favorite part of the hike – it brought a grin to my face when I heard Claire exclaim, “It just keeps getting better and better!”
The hills were full of magic, my friends! Insects flitted among the alpine wildflowers – Indian paintbrush, asters, and bluebells; there was the smell of mountain heather and ozone; there were friendly, happy people sharing the trail with us; patches of snow, and craggly boulder ridges, and green meadows, and butterflies that came together to party in the middle of the trail. It was everything and more than I’d hoped for. And all those worries that had tried to limit me – age, size, heat – had no power to stop me from enjoying the gift of this day in the mountains.
Here are some photos of “Sauks Past”: Dad and me; Scott and the sons and me, circa 1996; Scott and me on Sauk, several years ago; and Scott and Sam Dog. And there’s a picture of Dave and Claire and me on this week’s hike…
And here are some photos from our hike this week…
Mount Baker from Bow, Washington.
(Photos by Karen Molenaar Terrell.)
Breathe, Karen. Go to your happy place.
You’re in a meadow at the end of the Skyline Divide trail. Mount Baker is right in front of you. Shuksan is to the left. Scott and the sons are with you. Dad is painting a picture just a few yards away from you. Moz sits on a log. A bird has just landed on her finger and she’s smiling at it. There are alpine butterflies – lots of those little blue ones, and the orange ones, too – flitting around in the lupine and Indian paintbrush. It’s warm, but not too warm. There’s a nice little breeze up there. You are surrounded by Love. You’re at peace with yourself and the world. All is well.
Breathe.
Hey! That really works!
“…he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone…”
– Matthew 14:23
The only thing that ever stays the same whenever I take that Meyers Briggs Test is the “N” part – “Intuitive” – everything else – the Introvert/Extrovert, Thinking/Feeling, Judging/Perception stuff – seems to constantly change. Right now I test as an Introvert. This month the idea of going “up into a mountain apart to pray” sounds really lovely to me. And I guess I’ve been feeling guilty about that. I’m not sure everyone understands the need some of us have for solitude. I worry it might be viewed as unfriendly or “not doing one’s part,” or even insulting, if I say no, I’m not going to be able to make it to that party; or no, I can’t go to that meeting; or no, I can’t join all of you this time.
But hey – even Jesus needed time alone, right?
“For three years after my discovery, I sought the solution of this problem of Mind-healing, searched the Scriptures and read little else, kept aloof from society, and devoted time and energies to discovering a positive rule. The search was sweet, calm, and buoyant with hope, not selfish nor depressing.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
“Nature voices natural, spiritual law and divine Love, but human belief misinterprets nature. Arctic regions, sunny tropics, giant hills, winged winds, mighty billows, verdant vales, festive flowers, and glorious heavens, – all point to Mind, the spiritual intelligence they reflect. The floral apostles are hieroglyphs of Deity. Suns and planets teach grand lessons. The stars make night beautiful, and the leaflet turns naturally towards the light.” – Mary Baker Eddy
“Presence is needed to become aware of the beauty, the majesty, the sacredness of nature…You have to put down for a moment your personal baggage of problems, of past and future, as well as your knowledge; otherwise, you will see but not see, hear but not hear. Your total presence is required.”
– from The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
“For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”
– Isaiah 55: 12
(Photos by Karen Molenaar Terrell)
Tomorrow will not only be Father’s Day, it will be my dad’s 97th birthday. My dad, Dee Molenaar, has lived a most amazing 97 years. He was born at the end of World War I, was alive when women got the right to vote, lived through the Great Depression, fought in World War II, saw men walk on the moon, and teared-up with pride for his country the night the first African-American was elected President. He has traveled on six of the seven continents (the only continent he somehow missed was Africa), climbed on the highest mountains in the world (and, with his climbing team, almost made the first summit of the second tallest one), painted paintings, written books, created maps, had his photos published in National Geographic, and hobnobbed with presidential candidates.
He and Mom are currently in the process of moving out of their home of 48 years. This has involved some down-sizing. Last weekend when I was at their place to help them pack up, Dad gave me the little backpack he’d bought in 1973 for his journey to Europe to climb in the Alps. I cannot tell you how much it meant to me to be able to bring that familiar little pack home with me. I always knew I was safe when I was climbing with the man who wore this pack. This is the pack Dad wore to the summit of Rainier when we’d climbed it together in 1977, and the same pack I’d followed up to the top of Mount Baker ten years later. This is the pack Dad wore when he’d taken hikes with my young sons and myself. There are a lot of fond memories attached to that pack.
For now, it is hanging from a hook in our family room. I know it doesn’t have any special magical powers or anything, but somehow just looking at it makes me feel safe.
Dad’s pack
Preface to Dee Molenaar’s book, Memoirs of a Dinosaur Mountaineer
A light breeze came up the canyon and through the pine boughs overhead, and soon isolated white specks began descending. The snowflakes increased and soon we were encompassed in a flurry that blotted out the semi-arid valley far below, and the trail penetrating the pines below the granite walls high above. In our present light apparel and on a short, leg-stretching hike after motoring from Death Valley 80 miles in the east, our “Old Cronies Expedition” took another prolonged look around, and turned back to the trailhead at Whitney Portal.
It was then that my brother K and I and our friends, George Senner and Bob Johnson, found we were not alone among these rugged mountains.
Coming down through the mists was a lone hiker.
The heavily-bearded, long-haired chap was traveling beneath a bulky backpack that suggested he’d been out for some time. However, the big coil of fiberglass rope tucked beneath a hatchet, a large cast-iron skillet, and soft-toed boots indicated this was no modern-day mountaineer with a fetish for the latest in lightweight travel.
He stopped briefly and we questioned him about his travels. He was originally from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and more recently from the Stockton area across the mountains. Tiring of the Bay Area drug scene, he was aiming for a change of pace and was now returning from a trip into the mountains. He talked confidently of his climbing experiences and we enjoyed his free-spirited philosophy before we parted. At a distance through the mist we followed his burdened figure down the trail.
Meeting this hairy 40-ish fellow on the Mount Whitney trail rekindled my thoughts of a half-century earlier – in 1937, a late-summer trip into the Sierras Nevada with my brother K, similarly clad in jeans and carrying unwieldy loads. In that day we also had the trail and the mountain pretty much to ourselves. But in today’s world, had we passed here a couple months later, during the summer’s climbing season, we would have been part of the mountain’s allowable 75 hikers registered daily for the 20-mile roundtrip to the top of Mount Whitney.
How times have changed since those youthful days of the 1930s, during the Great Depression and prior to World War II.
Yet my life since has been a succession of fortuitous circumstances – in many cases being in the right place at the right time and meeting the right person. And though the breaks never made me rich, they provided a bounty of fond memories of fascinating places and events, people and good friends.
– Dee Molenaar
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. – Psalms 121
…The world felt safe here – untouched by war, pestilence, famine – greed and hatred seemed a universe away…
photo of Mount Shuksan in the North Cascades by Karen Molenaar Terrell
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 