End of the Rope: A Story of Two Mountaineers in the Pacific Northwest

By Charles Doan

Two mountaineers are tested when thrown together through an accident. A long recuperation finds both embroiled in academic problems. Ironically they’re on parallel tracks managing wealth.
Flashback: paperboy finds old, small-wizened man on his route. A unique companionship evolves. Eventually the boy is endowed with a fortune. While climbing he rescues a Japanese man resulting in opportunity to establish his theories in Japan.
Both mountaineers are pioneers in the business world of Japan. A chance encounter rekindles their emotional relationship. Her injuries not healing he searches China, to find the doctor to heal her.
Her rehab proceeding he travels to Sumatra seeking rare earths. Nature’s monsoon convolutions almost kill him. Returning to Japan they settle theoretical difficulties. In the USA he resolves financial difficulties, thence returning to Japan for his wedding.
He is drafted into the Viet Nam War as an Intelligence Advisor. The war maelstrom confounds his patriotic zeal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728318974

Charles Doan

Raised through pre-teens in Detroit, Charles’ family moved west to Tacoma, with Mount Rainier continually beckoning him to its slopes. He taught himself skiing eventually morphing into ski mountaineering. As a teenager he enrolled in the mountaineer clubs climbing courses enjoying roped climbing, route finding and camping. Eventually climbing the Cascade Range of Washington/Oregon then California’s Sierra’s. Those peaks were soon followed with climbing in Canada, Wyoming and Colorado. Charles enjoyed three careers as an industrial engineer, a Port industrial real estate developer and operational guru, and finally a private port counselor/advisor eventually serving the World Bank, International Development Bank, US AID and engineering firms in developed and developing countries. This last gambit tested his university degree in Economic Geography. His writing skills revolved primarily around these loci. Happily married to Joan for over 62 years with a family of five all sharing his love of the mountains and travel, Charles and Joan live in Normandy Park, WA.

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© 2019 Charles Doan. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/16/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-1898-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-1897-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019909659

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Synopsis

Redstone

Lars

Restitutions

An Integer

The Risen Sun

Aisian Redux

The Rising Sun

Hong Kong Reprise

Monsoon Pay Dirt And Vivification

Remonstration And Resolution

Japan Retrograde

Solutions?

Serenity

Adventure In Panama

Return

Subtraction

Addition

Letters From The Front And Return

Enigma - Iie

Contridictions

Ne Plus Ultra Correspondence

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing is a laborious task but necessary to consummate the myriad images that consume one’s brain. Thank God for an understanding wife who cherishes her divertimento’s to finish what she has forlornly abandoned while wistfully, I think, watching me bent over the unforgiving computer and scurrying through the dictionary to ascertain the validity of my choice of word or the Thesaurus seeking any thoughtful choice only to find me wondering how I derived such a peculiar phrase. Thank you Joan for your forbearance to my pathological devotion to this exercise (she is an author in hiding of fabulous illustrated children’s stories).

Thanks to our firstborn, Karen, who was my editor and educator – I knew not what I was doing when I first put pen to paper (so to speak). She persevered undaunted by my intransigence to structure and conversational discourse. Thank goodness for her experience as a professional.

Two sons Eric and Paul pulled oars as well. Paul with photography and Eric with photography and as my mental savior when the computer failed to respond to my exhortations: the written word has never experienced such carnage as I inflicted until he coolly resolved the issue(s).

The rest of the family, daughter Jennifer and son Marc, deserve credit for quietly attending to my extravagances and absences of mind while I fulminated on the peripheries of our otherwise collegial family.

To my brother Earl for his timely and secure ice axe belay on Mt. Rainier.

The Tacoma Mountaineers Club were super resilient when this young teenager joined their ranks to learn the ways of climbers and provided me the means to achieve my ambition to explore the mountains and forests that have nurtured mine and my families soul through so many trips and adventures. Nothing compares in life to such a magnificent grounding in the experiences one gains exploring the primeval forests and mountaintops that populate the earth.

SYNOPSIS

Two seasoned mountaineers in the Pacific Northwest test each other’s mettle on an inconsequential climb that finds them intrinsically thrown together through an accident. The ensuing long period of recuperation finds both embroiled in academic problems involving thesis refutations unresolvable with Professors seemingly oblivious to their proposals. Ironically they are on parallel tracks in the same genre of managing wealth.

Flashback to a paperboy struggling with his bicycle finding an old man not unlike a small-wizened troll on his route. He enjoys a salmon dinner with him prepared in traditional Northwest Indian fashion. Over the next few years they develop a unique companionship, even gold prospecting together. Eventually the boy is surprisingly endowed with a fortune allowing him to attend a university, among other wealthy covenants. He courageously rescues a young Japanese man while climbing Mount Baker, resulting in an exceptional opportunity to establish his doctoral theory in Japan.

Both mountaineers eventually make grade and their professional lives again intersect while neophytes struggling to establish themselves in the insular business world of Japan. They are unaware of each other’s existence but for a chance encounter at a social event. Soon after their relationship begins to blossom, growing from one of adversaries because they represent feuding patrons to lovers. The woman’s climbing injuries have not healed and the man decides to take action resulting in a search through the China countryside, where the Red Guards still hold sway, to find a Doctor who can miraculously rehabilitate her damaged feet.

While her rehab ministrations proceed he travels to Sumatra to confront a long held theory about rare earth minerals to be found in certain volcanic soils. The quest pits him against nature’s ferocious monsoon episodic convolutions almost killing him. After a heroic rescue he returns to Japan where he and his beloved resolve their immediate theoretical difficulties and he returns to North America to resolve some financial difficulties, thence returning to Japan for their wedding.

He meanwhile is caught up in the Viet Nam War military draft situation and is sent there as a military intelligence advisor. The war maelstrom convinces him that war is for the rich, not the proletariat who fight it.

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REDSTONE

Mount Rainier National Park sits on the western edge of the Cascade Range of mountains, in Washington State, with its iconic glaciated volcano (dormant except for steam fumaroles on the summit) Mount Rainier taking center stage. The 370 square mile park is beautifully decorated along its lower perimeter with many valleys and ridges heavily forested by ancient coniferous trees and in its river courses a variety of deciduous trees. Mountain climbers find more than Rainier to wet their fervor for both rock and snow/ice climbing on the many smaller peaks, but no less daunting, dotting its lower echelons amongst a number of small ranges.

The Wonderland Trail circumnavigates its way around the lower slopes providing access to many of these ‘lesser’ mountains and completes the outdoor adventurers desire to revel in meadows, tarns, lakes, and deep forest redoubts away from the hoity toity of civilization (except in accepting the man-made trail and its convenient river bridge crossings).

One of those lesser peaks that is rarely visited is 5680’ Redstone, on the northern perimeter of the park; probably because of its remoteness, it’s a long trek, and it does not have a lot of charisma as a serious challenge being hidden behind the more obvious and attractive Sluiskin Mountain peaks 7026’ Chief and 6960’ Squaw. (With the Empire State building at 1250’ that makes Redstone 4.5 times higher).

Early morning in late September the sky overhead is light gray to thunderous black looking like snow but feeling like rain with no discernable clouds just a flat blank canvas from horizon to horizon, typical of the season in the Pacific Northwest. Not necessarily ominous just undesirable for the mountaineers gathering in the parking lot of Charley’s Restaurant in Enumclaw, a small agricultural/logging town. Amazingly they all arrived at the same time as requested by their leader the rather mild mannered Peter James.

Hey fellas good to see so many of you were able to muster out this early on a Saturday morning.

Harry you are looking refreshed since your relapse after our traumatic mini-avalanche on Mt. St. Helens, right over that wide crevasse we were negotiating, that was a close call, guess we can be called natural daredevils.

Ken I thought maybe you would not make it since your father was on a long business trip leaving you in charge. Lumbering is kind of quiet this quarter. Peter my sister is running late so I’ll lag behind you somewhat so she can follow me to the trailhead.

Richard hails from a wealthy forestry, almost dynastic, family with roots in all geographic directions from their base in Seattle. He is a well-grounded daredevil mountaineer who rather blithely helps Dad in their varied forestry empires undertakings, as does his sister.

Richard you look a bit under the weather, too much Heidelberg Beer last night?

Okay Michael what does that long scraggily beard have to say?

My gosh Eric you really recovered nicely from that fall on the Tooth, glad to see your smiling face, probably so since you knew this would be a sleeper.

Marc glad to see your smiling countenance as I hope you will do some of the heavy lifting convincing some of these doubting back-sliders that tomorrow will be a fun day for bagging some off-the- radar peaks.

Paul I’ll gladly pack your compact camping espresso coffee maker and the coffee too, what a wonderful way to rough it.

Well that is seven of us I think that will be all so please introduce yourselves to each other, or pat another guy whom you probably haven’t seen for awhile. I managed to get ahold of you and others who could not come to join me today on what I must admit was a bit tawdry as none of you had ever heard of the objective.? Ha, got your attention didn’t I? That was deceptive but was also the reason for a reunion of sorts. You see this peak Redstone is isolated in Mt. Rainier National Park’s Northwest corner and does not get much traction from mountaineers, except the few Mountaineer Club members seeking to full-fill their quota of 24 peaks and thus earn a coveted lapel pin. It is located just a hike from a wondrous mountain meadow by name of Windy Gap, which usually earns its name. We have the opportunity to bag two more peaks if the mood grabs you. I’m referring to Sluiskin Chief and Squaw if any of you looked at your topographic map before coming. There is another too – Crescent which is just a walk on top of a smooth arc of high ground at 6700 feet elevation with a wonderful grandstand view of Rainier’s Willis Wall sending never ending avalanches of rocks and snow around the clock and another sight that shows off Liberty Ridges snow cornices hanging ever precariously.

Continuing his dialogue: Peter noted todays route is not well known, admittedly maybe not recognized by any of you from here we’ll travel a few miles east on Highway 410, which wends its way towards the States most scenic Chinook Pass, which at 5400 feet elevation borders the northern boundary of the park, for about 12 miles – that’s where it is most important that we all be close together as I will be turning off (to your right) prior to reaching the park boundary onto a Forest Service Road which is not signed very well. Now you will find this road a bit primitive but passable. This forest service road somewhat parallels the White River, which begins its course to our inland sea, Puget Sound, from Rainiers’ longest glacier, Emmons, and its attendant snowfields.

The White River is almost always a steel gray color bearing witness to the scouring power of the ice against the underlying rock it scrapes while travelling down from Rainiers 14,410’ summit. As it has not seen rain for some time we might create a gray dust cloud of fine White River silt rise up like a ball of cotton, the Emmons grinds the underlying rock into milky slate blue glacial flour covering our cars as we venture into the roads ruts. You see the spring melt always overflows the rivers channel banks depositing yet another layer into a well layered depository especially as this road is not travelled much. After a short drive we’ll find our trailhead even more primitive as you each will have to find a parking space in the brush; that is off the road. The tract from here is an old fisherman’s trail, which will intersect with the parks Wonderland Trail in about two miles. Thence we’ll be on the parks trail for another five or six miles for a relatively easy hike with an elevation gain of about two thousand feet to the Gap.

Well that’s all I have to say about today’s excitement let’s go into Charlie’s Restaurant, which has good coffee and terrific breakfasts. Personally my favorite is their blueberry pancakes. Peter before we go in I need to advise you I invited another climber for the weekend, my sister. She is an avid climber having climbed all the state’s majors and a lot of out of state mountains as well. Kenny do not worry she’ll be welcome – what say you guys? Whoop Ken, so she’s showed you up on some climbs has she? Yeah, right you guys are already out of shape and haven’t even put your boot socks on yet.

Inside Charley’s the hum of chatter was noisy until orders had been placed then one climber asked for attention while he told of a climb they would all be interested in.

Okay guys listen up and I’ll tell you a tale of climbing extraordinaire, you see I did 14,000-foot Mount Shasta in an afternoon. The trail starts at timberline and its stone staircase winds its way up to the summit snowfield, yes I said staircase. Don’t know who labored so mightily on that staircase but it’s a nice walk. Try it sometime, you’ll find it a nice break if you are heading South to Yosemite. Sounds too tame to me they chimed up at once.

Then there was another climb with fantastic rappel’s, Peter called me one early morning last June as he had a sudden urge to climb Wyoming’s 13,766’ Grand Teton so with one day’s notice we were driving off to Grand Teton National Park for a longed dreamed of climb.

We slept in the car as all the campgrounds were full and after a cold breakfast we set off through the scrub alpine forest on an already warm trail under a classically blue Wyoming sky and no clouds to be seen. Hiking that trail alongside a cool mountain stream and its attendant wild flowers with the delicious smelling alpine landscape made me delirious with delight. After about an hour we roped up and were climbing that glorious granite rock with copious solid handholds that don’t come off like our rocks around here. Under all these favorable conditions we summited the Teton in good time, using a multitude of the various routes but were now looking forward to the penultimate four 120’-rope-length rappels down. Peter belayed me and then

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followed but on the second rappel he found the rope had frayed almost through and stopped his descent in mid stride. Then I was amazed at what he did next – standing on a small foothold Peter reached into his day pack and retrieved a regular prussic sling then proceeded to tie an fisherman’s knot between the two frayed-out ropes tested their security and then continued his rappel as though nothing had happened.

Peter embarrassed that his little climbing exploit had been exposed hurriedly finished his blueberry pancake and rasher of bacon so he could be off on their programmed hike to an overnight camp before hiking tomorrow over some meadows to what he had already described as a rather diminutive somewhat secretive peak. Peter, if it is so insignificant why were we all packing in so far for such a climb? Well guys, it will be a delightful non-technical trip to a part of the park less travelled and for our own camaraderie. This is the first time all of us will have ever climbed together and I thought it a nice tonic to all your day labors. Peter, my sister hasn’t arrived yet she may be late so I’ll lag behind a little in case she shows, I know she was anxious for this trip.

Remember guys a few miles from town we’ll find the road runs along the White River, and then there is the forest service road, which I will have to find. Carefully driving along the highway Peter finally pulled onto the shoulder, when all had gathered he drove onto a rutted dirt road with the caravan dutifully following. The small line of cars tail-gated until they saw Peter in the lead drive into a small thicket of shrub Alders and they likewise pulled off into the alder scrub brush to park and their occupants began emptying almost immediately. They gathered around Peter, a man they all knew as their climbing leader, as he had led each on many climbs in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, as he finished loading up his ancient Trapper Nelson wood frame pack with its brown raggedy canvas storage sack; they all chuckled silently as they viewed this stalwart antique contraption, how had he managed to keep it functional? Newer packs had ergonomically designed frames to ease the load on ones back and cargo sacks outfitted with exterior pockets for better packing; Peter’s Trapper Nelson had a square wood frame that was if anything anti-ergonomic. Peter’s leadership reputation however grew from his quiet demeanor and combined ability at route finding in the deep woods, finding the best place to ford a stream and his confidence throughout a climb, especially his uncanny ability to pick his way through a maze of crevasses on a steep glacier.

This gathering of my climbing buddies is very pleasing and I have a surprise for you. I spent the past week perfecting my Irish Lamb stew and there is enough for all of you. I think highly of each of you which is probably a result of climbing together on tough climbs and in all kinds of weather but this week-end is a little different – we really wont need ropes or crampons just your resolve to bag an easy rock peak over wonderful mountain terrain and solid rock surfaces to delight your climbing senses. I know you are all suspicious of such a blind venture but trust me as you have before and we’ll unwind together. Especially as I see a few of you have stashed along some bota bags for a celebration. This is a happy reunion, thank you all.

Okay here is the plan again.