Naches Peak Loop: 4-Mile Sunrise Hike, Mount Rainier

Usually the sun finds me on the trail. I’ve chased a few sunsets, but most mornings I just meet the light wherever the climb happens to take me. This time I wanted to be there first, already sitting on the ridge on the east side of the peak when the sun came up, with nothing to do but watch. On the Naches Peak Loop, that meant starting in the dark. On Friday, my son and I had spent the evening at a concert in Seattle, sitting next to each other with songs we’ve been trading for years, and one of them was still playing in my head as I drove back up toward Chinook Pass.

Naches Peak Loop

Mount Rainier framed by subalpine firs above a trail lined with red huckleberry

The last time I walked this loop, I dropped all the way down to Dewey Lake and climbed back out, eight miles on a summer morning full of wildflowers. This time I only wanted to look at it from above. Going clockwise, the route follows the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) around the east side and saves the view of Mount Rainier for the second half, after the sun is up. Everything before that belonged to my headlamp and whatever the sky decided to do as light approached the horizon.

Morning light slanting across the forested basin and the still surface of Dewey Lake

My trail-thought this morning came from something much smaller, a phrase a colleague said in passing at the start of a video call. It’s the kind of thing I’ve heard so often, from so many people, that I’ve stopped hearing it. This week I started wondering what it would take to say it and actually mean it. Someone gave that question a lot of thought more than two thousand years ago, and I wanted to see how much of his answer would still hold up on a trail.

Headlamp light on young subalpine firs and a dirt trail before dawn, a dark ridgeline under a violet sky with a few stars

The Journey…

I pulled into the Tipsoo Lake lot well before sunrise, and the air was cold enough to remind me it was fall, but not so cold that it felt like winter yet. Most mornings, the dark outlines of the mountains start to show while I’m still driving. This morning they waited until I was on foot, headlamp on, heading east on the loop, and only then began to separate from the sky. To the south, Orion’s belt hung over the trail, and a good sliver of moon was out, not giving much light but nice to have. I crossed the timber bridge that carries the trail over Highway 410 just as a single car passed underneath, and minutes later a lone coyote howled somewhere off in the dark. After that, nothing. No wind, no other sounds, just my boots on the trail.

Orange dawn sky over layered Cascade ridges and jagged peaks, with Dewey Lake still in shadow below

The climb was slow and steady, and as the trail worked its way east, the ridges ahead started to show against a purplish glow. That’s when the elk started. One bugled from somewhere down in the canyon, then again, a sound that’s a little eerie in the dark and beautiful all the same. A little farther on, I found the big rock I’d rested on the last time I was here. It overlooks a small tarn, with water much lower than I remembered, and this morning it held nothing but the dark sky and the outline of the firs. I stood at the edge of it for a minute anyway. By the time I reached the viewpoint above Dewey Lake, looking southeast toward a line of jagged peaks, the sky was getting lighter, and a couple of Canada jays circled around me, one landing close enough for a quick picture, while I settled in to wait.

Sunburst over the ridgeline, with Dewey Lake and red and gold huckleberry below

The birds woke up first, then a pika called from the rocks below, and the elk kept calling across the basin the whole time. The sky behind the peaks went from purple to orange, and Dewey Lake turned from a dark shape into a silver one. When the sun finally cleared the ridge, it lit the huckleberry around me a deep red, and I got up and kept going clockwise, straight toward Mount Rainier, which was catching the early light. The back half of the loop turned out to be the daylight version of the front. Everything I had only heard in the dark, I could see now: birds in the firs, chipmunks crossing the trail, a sooty grouse in no hurry to move, and Mount Adams, far off to the south. The tarns along the way held Rainier and Naches Peak upside down on their surfaces.

Mount Rainier's glaciers in morning sun above jagged rock ridges

Gratitude…

My drive this morning was the same one I made last week, only earlier. I wanted to get on the trail and reach the east side of Naches Peak before the sun did. Time on the road was dark the whole way up, and I had Friday night on my mind. My son and I had been at the Tyler Childers show in Seattle, and this morning the songs were still going in my head as I traveled toward Chinook Pass. Tyler had played songs from his new album, Snipe Hunter, including “Bitin’ List” about ten songs into the set, which is about as fun as a song gets. But the one I kept coming back to on the road was an older one. Some shows are over when the lights come up. This one followed me all the way to the trailhead two days later.

Silhouetted firs mirrored in a still, low tarn under the first gray light before sunrise

Friday wasn’t our first show together, not by a long way. We’ve seen the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, the Strokes, Thundercat, the Linda Lindas, Emily James, Rancid, Joshua Radin, and the Smashing Pumpkins, and we’d seen Tyler Childers once before, at the Gorge, on a stormy night that ended early when he cut his set short. Even that one felt like a good night, just an unfinished one. So Friday was a chance to finish it. It was indoors this time, with a roof and no weather to worry about, and we got over 20 songs. Standing next to my son, I noticed how easily we move between stadium punk and rock, quiet acoustic lounge shows, and a Kentucky songwriter, without either of us thinking it’s strange. That didn’t happen by accident.

Huckleberry leaves turned red, pink, and gold for fall

In 2021, my son had the idea to listen to every Diamond-certified album, all 104 of them. We did it together, 52 each, one a week for a whole year. When the year ran out, I didn’t want it to end, so in 2022 we agreed to start a podcast and keep it going. We called it Studio36, for the number of years between us. Every episode opened with some gratitude for the week, and then we’d hand each other an album and come back the next week to talk about it. It pulled each of us into music the other would never have picked. Two songs after “Bitin’ List,” Tyler walked out to a small round stage in the middle of the arena for a short acoustic set and played “Lady May,” one of the first songs my son ever shared with me. I got to hear it standing next to the person who handed it to me. I’m grateful he’s still handing me new songs.

Naches Peak and subalpine firs reflected in a calm tarn

Reflections…

Earlier this week, at the start of a video call, I asked a colleague how they were doing. “Just livin’ the good life,” they said, with about as much conviction as the question deserved. I’m not sure what I expected. I had asked the question, after all. Still, the phrase stayed with me. I hear it often enough, and it almost never sounds sincere, from anyone who hands it back. It came along with me from Tipsoo Lake this morning, and for the first time I really wondered what those words are supposed to mean. If “living the good life” has become something we say when we don’t really want to say anything, then along the way it may have lost its meaning.

A narrow trail through red huckleberry, the sun breaking through the firs above Dewey Lake

So I reached back to Aristotle, who wrote about a good life more than two thousand years ago, and found that his ideas were closer to mine than I expected. It makes sense, since so much of what we think about living well can be traced back to him. The way I read it, there are two easy ways to miss a good life. One is stacking pleasures on top of each other and hoping they eventually add up to fulfillment. The other is waiting for the big payoff, treating the present as something to get through on the way to something better, a grand finale. For me, the good life sits between the two, on the path itself. I think ideals give it a direction, but they don’t require you to arrive anywhere first.

Mount Adams rising beyond a forested ridge far to the south

Aristotle’s answer was that a good life comes from living according to your virtues, whether or not it feels good in the moment. And it is about living, not simply knowing what to do. I thought about how I can build the perfect workout on paper, but it means nothing until I walk into the gym. I saw that for myself this week. I went to the gym without a notebook or a circuit planned, used whatever machine was open, and pushed each set until the muscle gave out. That single action was in line with my ideals. I also think virtue is a commonly misunderstood word. I first heard it as a child in Sunday school, and it had drifted from where it started many years ago. It really comes down to a simple question. What kind of person is this action making me? At the gym, the obvious answer is healthier and stronger. But underneath that, maybe it is someone who keeps showing up, plan or no plan. None of that sounds especially noble, but it still counts.

Red huckleberry and subalpine firs on the slope above Dewey Lake as the sky turns gold before sunrise

If I applied that question to every small act, it could feel heavy. I don’t think it has to. One set doesn’t make anyone strong. It’s a rep, and the reps add up. That’s where I see it a little differently than Aristotle, who believed a good life could only really be judged across an entire lifetime. This morning, on my hike, I didn’t have to wait that long to know. On the clockwise route, the second half of the Naches Peak Loop turned toward Mount Rainier, and the mountain stayed in front of me for most of the way back. There was no summit to reach and nothing to finish. I wasn’t waiting for a big payoff, and I wasn’t chasing the next good moment either. With Mount Rainier ahead of me, I felt small, in a good way. For a while, it seemed simple. Being on the path was already the good life.

Mount Rainier above firs and a golden meadow, its summit reflected in a tarn

If someone asks me how I’m doing at the beginning of a meeting next week, I’ll probably still say “good,” and they’ll believe me about as much as I believed my colleague. That’s alright. A meeting doesn’t have to be the place for the real answer, and a quick “good” is honest enough. But I don’t think I’ll hear “livin’ the good life” quite the same way again. For me, it isn’t a report on how things are going, and it isn’t a finish line up ahead. It’s closer to a direction, and to the kind of person each step is making us. Most days, I’d like to be able to say it and mean it, on a trail or off it, even when nobody asks. The path continues.

-Ken