The Safest Place I Have Ever Been

In the early days of October, I set out through sun-shot low clouds to Washington’s North Cascades with my friends Devon and Kate. My truck is a 1998 with intermittent electrical problems and an exhaust leak under the cab, so we may or may not have been a little stoned on fumes when we piled out into the overflowing parking lot with two dogs, three bulky packs, and enough snacks to put a hyperphagic grizzly into a coma.

Are you camping up there? people asked a little enviously, a little nervously, as they shuffled by us to their cars. It was a reasonable question. It was Sunday, after all. It was already 2 p.m. The ground was soupy with new snow. Devon forgot her fleece pants. I forgot my gloves. But the jagged peaks gleamed, and the larches sparked gold along their ridges.

Of course we were camping. We grinned at each other like lunatics and housed a bag of salt and vinegar chips. We