Ruminations after skipping daily nutrition

“I was a willow last night in a dream

I bent down over a clear running stream.” — “Crazy on You,” Heart

The first time I climbed Mount Ellinor was around the turn of the millennium, and it must have been spring because it was warm and deep snow was still packed in the chute. I was climbing with Darren Samuelson, who was the outdoor writer for The Olympian newspaper at the time.

Darren and I had a sunny time clomping to the top and glissading to the bottom of that Olympic peak with the treeless crown. Not long afterward, Darren left for Washington, D.C., where he eventually got a reporting job...