A L U M N I M A G A Z I N E - Colby-Sawyer College

Extravagantly Beautiful
Photos provided by Prof. Laura Alexander
Legendary conservationist and author
John Muir described the Mount Rainier
area as “the most luxuriant and the
most extravagantly beautiful of all the
alpine gardens I ever beheld in all of my
mountain-top wanderings.” This past
summer Professor Laura Alexander, who
fully agrees with John Muir, embarked
on a trip to the state of Washington to
climb 14,410 foot Mt. Rainier via the
Kautz Glacier. Laura reached the summit
of Rainier in 2006 via the less challenging
Emmons Glacier. Although she did
not reach the summit this time, she did
enjoy a grand and glorious adventure,
and she and the members of her party
took some beautiful and interesting
photographs which, along with her
captions, will allow you to share her
experience vicariously.
Mount Rainier offers a dramatic
backdrop for the photogenic
Myrtle Falls, which is surrounded
by beautiful, high open meadows.
I climbed 10,000 feet to Camp
Muir to acclimatize to the
elevation, then glissaded back
to Paradise Lodge where I
met the rest of my climbing
team later in the day.
14 COLBY-SAWYER ALUMNI MAGAZINE
Wow! Mount Rainier
is one big mountain.
Red heather, magenta paintbrush, white heather
and lupine were only some of the flowers that
turned the meadows into a kaleidoscope.
The descent onto the Nisqually Glacier was on
frozen snow, and we didn’t want to lose our footing
because there were about 10 tents on the flat
spot below us that we did not want to take out like
bowling pins.
It’s hard to get a feel for the steepness from a
photo, but, trust me, it was steep.