Pictures
from My Life
By Wade Frazier
This web site isn't all about my intense writings. I have fun also.
I was born in Seattle, a third generation Washingtonian. Although the story of how Europeans "settled" this land is not pretty, here is where I came into the world. I am a hiking "fanatic," enjoying my time in the mountains and wilderness immensely. Below are some shots accumulated over the years.
I began developing my bad habits at a very young age. I am not sure if my first vice was smoking, gluttony or drinking, but I obviously indulged all the them.
The first of the above three photos is of me, hiking with my
uncle in 1998. The second is me on on Sahalee Arm in 1986, above Cascade
Pass. The third is one peak over from Desolation Peak, where Jack Kerouac
spent a summer watching for fires, with Ross Lake and the Little Beaver Valley
in the background, 1986. The fourth is me resting on Trapper Peak in 1986,
in the North Cascades National Park.
The first of the above two is of me in Spider Meadow in 1986, in the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area. The second is my college roommates and me on Mt. Whitney in 1990.
Self-portrait on Sourdough Mountain, North Cascades National Park, 1998. My brother and me, above Spider Meadow, 1997
Meadows I have known. The first is on Sourdough Peak, 1998, on a pathless mountainside that nobody ever gets to. The second is on the way to South Pass Lake, in the Lake Chelan Recreation Area, 1983.
The first image is below Shepherd's Pass in the Sierra Nevada Range, 1990. The John Muir trail is in the distance. Awesome country. The second image records one of the more sublime moments of my life. It was taken at Blue Lake on October 16, 1999, on the back side of Liberty Bell Mountain in the North Cascades National Park. The golden trees are larches, which are deciduous conifers. Finding larches in autumn foliage (the needles are very soft) on a clear day is not easy to do. Those were the first autumn larches that I had ever seen in person. After many years of longing for a sight of the autumn larches, I finally experienced it. The third photo is of a larch grove near Blue Lake. I climbed off trail and into a grove of them and hung out with the golden larches. It will always be a vivid memory.
These photos are taken at both ends of the Lyman Lakes basin, surely one of the world's most beautiful. In the first photo, just below my left shoulder the snout of Lyman glacier is visible. People can walk up and touch that glacier. The second photo was taken the next day, in September of 1997, after we had hiked through that awe-inspiring valley. We got to the valley the "easy way," hiking 3,600 feet and eight miles over Spider Gap. We were on our way to legendary Image Lake. The blueberries were harvestable, and my brother and I suffered from purple mouth disease for several days. Somebody has to do it. The last is a global warming picture, comparing Lyman Glacier from 1997 to 2005.
The first is on the way to White Pass, in 2000, with Sloan Peak in the background. The area was so spectacular that I returned the next year, with the second taken from the top of White Mountain. The meadow in the photo's middle is where we camped for a few nights, and I picked a half gallon of blueberries. The third is looking back up at White Mountain, with me standing on the Pacific Crest Trail, next to the meadow where we camped. That last photo was taken about the last time I was emotionally "up" (at least as I write this in December 2004), as the photo was taken on September 8, 2001.
The first is of me on Green Mountain (near Glacier Peak Wilderness Area), on a dazzling day in late October, 2002. The second is on the trail to Hidden Lake Peaks, in the North Cascades National Park, in 2003. The third is my brother crossing a creek near Cutthroat Pass, in the North Cascades National Park, in early summer 2004.
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