Saving Nature!

I had a hard time figuring out what the most thrilling engagement I’ve had with the non-human world was, which I’m sure many other people experienced. I finally narrowed it down to hiking on Mount Rainier (it was a competition of that and the Swiss Alps, but Kristen already talked about that…). My friends and I woke up early since we were living in eastern Washington and drove from our perpetually sunny desert home near the Idaho border to Mount Rainier, which untrue to its form, was also sunny and about 80 degrees when we got there. As soon as we got off the beaten path (we had a Washington-state native tour guide) our cell phones lost reception, and we were completely disconnected from the rest of the world. It was incredible because there were eight science-nerds (we were all interning together) and nature, and we were all beyond excited. We first hiked a short 4-mile trail around the bend of a smaller mountain and found a beautiful lake to have lunch at, and then we rounded the corner through the heavy layer of pine trees into an opening where Mount Rainier was beautifully displayed right in front of us. It was larger than we had imagined – we were already at about 7,000 feet, and it seemed so close. We then headed up to Paradise (appropriately named), which is also at about 7,000 feet, but it is actually on Mount Rainier. We were kind of bummed because of the huge amount of tourists, but once we chose a challenging trail that had a steep slope gradient and was not paved (paved trails, honestly?) we lost most of the crowd. We hiked up a few miles, alternately stopping to catch our breath (it was unbelievable how hard it suddenly became to breathe once you got above 7,500 feet) and we finally found a clearing with Mount Rainier’s infamous wildflowers and waterfalls all around us on the mountain and Mirror Lake, which completely reflected the mountain above it. We camped out there and as the sun was setting, the clouds finally rolled in and there was light rain throughout the night. When we woke up to travel back down, it was misty and even more gorgeous than when it was sunny because the waterfalls materialized out of the air and we could only see the beginnings of the glaciers on the mountain. (I could reference Lord of the Rings like Meghan…but most people think of Twilight when they hear Washington state…shame). As we headed back to our perpetually 109 degree desert to go back to work, we all realized that Mount Rainier was a magical place and we got to experience something that was beyond the human world and its interactions.

Yes, “saving nature” is definitely something we should concern ourselves with. I think that the answer to a lot of problems people face, mainly mental ones of anxiety, stress, and being overworked, come from a lack of experience with nature. I know this sounds really far-fetched and weird, but I honestly feel that if people were more in tune with nature and spent more time outside and enjoying the natural beauty of our planet, then our mental states as a planet would become more relaxed and happy. I experienced this personally – all summer every weekend we would go camping/hiking in Glacier National Park, Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, the Olympic Peninsula, etc. and it would essentially clear our heads from the week and make us realize the insignificance of our problems compared to the beauty of nature. When I came back to DC I went through some weird withdrawal from ‘nature’ and found myself more down than I normally would have been. I also think that nature is inspiring, and a lot of books, songs, poems are based around nature. If this were to disappear, what would happen to this avenue of creative thought? Also, experiencing nature doesn’t have to be so extreme – you don’t have to go summit a mountain in order to be moved by nature. Just sitting on your front porch in summer while the sun is setting, or walking outside with a friend during the first snowfall of the year all make us recognize the importance and beauty of nature, and how necessary it is to preserve, if only (but hopefully not only) for the selfish reason of our own benefit from nature.