February 10, 2007

• Some days I pull down a hiking book at random and start reading the actual written part. Not the maps of trails and the minimal description and elevation changes and so forth, but the introduction. Usually, I'm looking for somewhere to go, but sometimes I just enjoy reading Harvey Manning.

  See, most of my hiking books are authored or co-authored by Manning, published by The Mountaineers. Manning speaks with a pleasant authority about the Pacific northwest with any degree of granularity you prefer: He can talk about biomes, bioregions, the history of a river, or why that mountain has its name.

  In this case, from '55 Hikes in Central Washington,' describing (in 1990) areas he and co-author Ira Spring chose not to include:
  

  We have stayed out of the 261,000 acres of the Yakima Firing Center, as well as the 63,000 additional acres the U.S. Army is seeking (Note: To the Army's credit, maneuvers are scheduled to avoid disturbing wildlife during seasons crucial to perpetuating the species.) Looking (from afar) at these 500 square miles, we cannot but muse on how many splendid parks in Washington are the heritage of old wars: Discovery Park and Sand Point Park in Seattle, Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, Deception Pass State Park and the parks of the "Death Triangle" on the Whulge, and more. This war, too, the Fifty Year (so far) War that began in 1941 and has continued with only the briefest armistices, will pass. What wonders then will there be for the picnicker and the car-camper, the stroller and hiker and backpackers, the birder and beaster and flowerer, the riders of the purple sage camped at night by the chuckwagon? A state park -- a national park -- to dream on.

  'The Whulge' is the native term for Puget Sound. He's talking about naval bases.

  Of course, the war didn't actually end. It sort-of did, but then we had all these left-over guns and tanks and stuff, so we had to make sure more wars started up. In fact, the local economy of this region is based on mostly two things: Resource extraction and war. South-central Washington state, the area Manning is writing about, has an economy mostly because of the Hanford site, a nuclear energy research center, and also a big ol' pile of nuclear waste. Which is interesting in this context because the Hanford Reach of the Columbia river is the last un-dammed section. The region around Hanford is a de facto wildlife preserve, and the area north and east, across the river from the Hanford Reserve proper is a eco-region research center.

  Maybe one day it'll all be a big National Park. Once it stops glowing, anyway.

  • 3:06 pm
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