On Top of the World

 

This blog post is being brought to you by Elon Musk.

He’s not paying me or anything. I wouldn’t expect him to do that. Cybertruck sales are disappointing, and although he’s the richest man in the world, I think he expected to be whole lot richer than he actually is.

It’s Elon satellites that are bringing you this blog. During the pandemic, I was at the True False Festival at Columbia, shifted outside in a well-intended but ill-fated move. During one of the moments that it wasn’t raining, I saw a row of blinking lights slowly marching across the sky like a line of ants. It was like nothing I had seen before, and it was unsettling. Then I remembered having read about these low-orbit communication satellites being deployed en masse to provide Internet all over. I wasn’t so sure it was the best idea.

When I booked this Airbnb, with Ann and I both working remotely, reliable high-speed Internet was critical. Right in the listing, the host said, “We have Starlink Internet, so there’s never a problem.” That proved true for the month we spent here. We were even here during a storm that knocked hundreds of thousands around us (but not us) out of power, and our Internet was fine. And there certainly wasn’t going to be anyone running a fiber optic line up here anytime soon. So thanks, Elon.

Knowing last weekend would be our last weekend in the area, we headed back to Rainier last Sunday. It was spectacular. Bright, sunny and 65 degrees. We set out on what could have been a significant hike, with a lot of people around. After a bit we left behind most of the crowd, as the trail was snow-packed and slippery. Then the crowd thinned and we kept going.

At first, the packed snow would hold you up, but occasionally you’d break through a little. As we went on, we were breaking through more and more. We passed one large family with a lot of kids picnicking and hanging out in a snowfield. Once we passed them, the only people we saw going further were on skis. We were breaking through more, often going several inches deep, but I tried going off-trail some and went hip-deep a couple of times.

Multiple times, we saw spiders out on the snow, something I had never seen before in my life. They didn't seem too panicked about it. They were just enjoying the day like us. 

It was fun because it was warm, and although it was slow going, it also seemed low-risk. I’ll look forward to coming back late next summer when the trail is clear. 

Tomorrow we move back to Tacoma.