Klahhane Ridge: A 28-Degree Sunrise, Olympic NP

A year ago, almost to the week, I drove up into the Olympics in the dark with a new word. This time I made the same drive out of Port Angeles carrying that same word, a year of seeing what it looks like in real life, and a sprained wrist I was mostly trying to ignore. The plan was a steep start by headlamp, a walk along the ridge, and then a seat somewhere high before the sun came up. Klahhane Ridge sits above Hurricane Ridge Road, and the Switchback Trail gets you there the hard way, earning its name in the first mile. Up on the ridge, with the town still asleep below, I found myself considering what keeps me coming back to mornings like this one.

Klahhane Ridge

Rocky ridge trail lined with subalpine firs as sunbeams pour through clouds into a misty valley in the Olympic Mountains

The word came from a colleague last fall. Over the year since, I’ve watched it at work in small ways that are easy to miss unless I’m paying attention: a hand offered, a hard week shared. A conversation with her this week brought it back to mind, and it made good company on the drive up, the kind of thought that doesn’t ask for an answer, only a little room.

Hurricane Ridge Road winding through forested slopes below the snowy peaks of the Olympic Mountains

The wrist was its own story. It changed my week at the gym, and by the time I reached the ridge, it had me thinking about something bigger: what I actually get from the things I keep showing up for. Work can earn a paycheck and status, but sometimes it can create something else entirely. That something else doesn’t come with a title, which might be why it’s so easy to overlook.

Jagged rock peak above Port Angeles and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, with Vancouver Island across the water

The Journey…

The climb began in the dark, with nothing but my headlamp and the stars to see by. The cold found its way between my glove and sleeve, and the light breeze made it feel even sharper. The Switchback Trail wasted little time asking a lot of me at that hour, turning back on itself as it climbed through fir and hemlock. It was so quiet that more than once I was sure something was following me. It turned out to be my backpack. Partway up, my headlamp caught two pairs of glowing eyes between the switchbacks, something large, watching me as closely as I was watching them. It was too dark to make out what they were, so I decided they were deer. When I stopped to catch my breath, I could see the dark shape of Mount Angeles to my left, standing against the stars.

Fog pouring over jagged rock crags and subalpine firs along the ridge before sunrise

By the time I reached the top of the switchbacks, the sky had started to lighten. From there I turned east along Klahhane Ridge, and the climb finally eased, though the trail still had some elevation left in it. The ground was rockier and more open, with the slope falling away on both sides, and low clouds drifted through the crags. Just past the knoll, where the trail began bending toward Lake Angeles, I found a rock and sat down to wait. I had expected the clouds to get in the way. Instead, they made the sunrise even more brilliant, catching the light and sending it down through the mist in long rays. Behind me, Mount Angeles lit up next, followed by the snowy summits farther south. I stayed until the cold worked its way through my layers and my hands told me it was time to get moving again.

Sun breaking through a band of cloud over the Olympic Mountains, light rays falling across a forested valley and the road far below

The descent gave me a different view of the trail I had climbed in darkness. I could see how the switchbacks had been carved into the steep slope, winding through fir and hemlock with occasional openings that looked straight down to the road below. By nine, the clouds had cleared. Hurricane Ridge sat in full sun across the valley, and to the north, past Port Angeles, Dungeness Spit curved out into the strait with Mount Baker floating above the clouds beyond it. My lungs had done most of the work on the way up. Now my legs were making their own case. By the time I reached the car, the morning had warmed enough for me to shed a layer. On the way home, I stopped in Quilcene for what’s become a ritual in these parts, my favorite bacon jam and goat cheese burger and a pint.

Narrow trail along the base of a rock cliff, with firs and morning sun on the ridge

Gratitude…

The drive started the day before and ended at a small motel in Port Angeles, a few blocks from the road that would take me to the trailhead. Before five the next morning, I was loading the car in the cold and heading toward Hurricane Ridge. The road climbed into the dark, my headlights catching the guardrail and the trees and not much else. Partway up, it began to feel familiar. Then I remembered. Almost a year earlier, I had driven this same stretch in the dark on my way to Lake Angeles. Back then, I was thinking about a conversation with a new colleague and a Filipino word she had introduced me to: Kapwa. This time, I was carrying this week’s conversation with her up the same mountain road.

Pink dawn light glowing through fog over a narrow trail on a grassy knoll with subalpine firs

Her first year had brought plenty of change, the kind that could easily leave someone feeling overwhelmed. Yet that wasn’t what I heard when we spoke. She talked about learning to understand the circumstances around her, recognizing what she could and couldn’t do alone, and accepting help from others. She seemed less concerned with what stood in her way than with finding the good in the opportunities before her. I admired that. There is a certain humility in recognizing when we need others, especially when we’re still finding our footing in a new place. She spoke about it so naturally that I wondered why the rest of us sometimes make it harder than it needs to be.

Close-up of a sunlit evergreen sprig on the ridge

Kapwa describes a shared identity, the idea that who I am and who you are aren’t really separate, so we carry some of life’s weight together. Last year, it was a new word I had learned. This year, I had a better sense of what it meant. I had seen it in the people around me, in the help offered without hesitation and the willingness to share a difficult week rather than leave someone to manage it alone. As the road continued upward, I thought about how fortunate I was to work alongside people who lived this way. I’m grateful for her, for what she has taught me, and for the people who make room for one another.

Sun through clouds over a rocky ridge and a jagged outcrop, distant mountains beyond

Reflections…

Somewhere on the climb this morning, my trail-thought settled on three more words: job, career, and calling. They come from Amy Wrzesniewski and her colleagues, who studied how people relate to their work and found that most of us see it in one of three ways. For some, work is a job, there to pay the bills while life happens somewhere else. For others, it’s a career, with a focus on the climb, the next title and the status that comes with it. And for some, it’s a calling, work that matters for what it means and who it serves. I think of that third one as purpose. Each offers something different: money, status, or meaning. I had spent years understanding the first two. Purpose, though, had always seemed like a bonus on top of a career, the icing on the cake. Early on, I had given it a smaller seat than it deserved.

Glaciers on Mount Olympus and the snowy peaks of the Olympic interior under a clear sky

I’ve written here before about purpose, both in the communications role that finally let more of who I am show up at work, and in the time I spend away from it, walking trails and putting my thoughts into words. Much of the research focuses on work, and some describes a calling as something that finds us, almost like a tap on the shoulder. I see it a little differently. When something draws me in, I suspect it’s because some part of me already knows why it matters. The same holds true whether I’m at work, in the gym, or out on a trail. Purpose lives in the reason I do something, not in the thing itself. If circumstances take that thing away, the reason remains. It may even lead me somewhere else. This week, I had an unexpected chance to find out.

Dungeness Spit curving into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, with Mount Baker rising above the clouds beyond

I sprained my wrist. It probably happened on that scramble last weekend, but I’ll leave that one alone. It was the kind of setback that could have given me a good reason to stay home and wait it out. My wrist needed rest. The rest of me, however, was still working just fine. So I walked into the gym every day this week and figured out what I could do. The usual routine was off the table, which meant finding strength exercises that left my wrist out of it and bringing back some cardio I had set aside. None of it was what I had planned, and nobody was handing out credit for showing up with one good hand. I was there for my health, to stay fit, feel good, and, if I’m honest, feel comfortable in my clothes. One workout wouldn’t get me there, but skipping a few would make it easy to lose ground.

Steeply tilted layers of rock above a long scree slope under a deep blue sky

What I was protecting wasn’t the workout. It was the consistency. The gym holds more of my day together than I sometimes give it credit for. When I go regularly, I eat better and pay closer attention to my other habits. When I stop, that attention seems to fade, too, and the good habits are often the next to go. That’s the risk of attaching a purpose to a single activity. When the activity disappears, it’s easy to let the reason go with it. A teacher who needs to teach will find another student. A teacher who feels they’ve had a good run may see an opportunity to try something new. Neither is wrong. The difference is in understanding what keeps us there in the first place. With the gym, at least, I knew what I was trying to preserve.

Rocky outcrop overlooking Hurricane Ridge and the Olympic Mountains under a clear blue sky

This morning, I faced the same choice on a trail. Nobody pays me or hands out accolades for climbing a mountain in the dark at twenty-eight degrees. I turned around before reaching the lake, because the sunrise had always been my story. Still, I had gone for the same reason I walked into the gym each day this week. It mattered to me, and that meaning depended on my willingness to keep showing up. Job, career, purpose. I suspect most of us carry all three in different parts of our lives, and there’s room for each. But purpose doesn’t need a paycheck, a title, or even the original place where we found it. It asks something simpler: to remember why it matters and keep finding a way, even when the way changes. The path continues.

-Ken