The roof of hidden lake lookout needed replacing. Badly. Cedar shingles, once a cheerful blonde, had turned grey and cracked after nearly 30 years of abusive Washington weather. Our hosts, Robert and Ethan scrambled across the lookout’s roof, installing the new shingles. Ones that would hopefully last as long as their predecessors (read: 20 years longer than they were intended to). To say the two men moved with ease would belie the precarious nature of the situation. Only Ethan had a harness, and while I could not ascertain how safe his rigging system was, it certainly had to provide greater safety than Robert’s, which, consisted of a knotted piece of rope wrapped repeatedly around his leg. It was this rope that would, at least in theory, prevent Robert from plummeting the 500 feet off the side of the mountain should he slip from the roof.
Just six hours earlier I’d been waking to a 4am alarm and loading my gear into Rob’s battered Subaru Outback, grateful, if for nothing else, that the lingering smell of gasoline had faded since the last time I was in this car. As we drove through the predawn light, the urban glimmer of Seattle faded into the background, and our conversation turned to the dreaded permitting system. The goal was to beat the rush to the ranger station and secure one of the elusive Hidden Lake Lookout permits. As we pulled into the parking lot, we knew we had failed. The parking lot was filled with bleary-eyed people, more than a few of whom had spent the night in their cars. Rob returned to the car with our number, 13. My lucky number. We had to get a permit now, we just had to.
And we did.
Although it came with the warning that the lookout would likely be closed for repairs. Well then. That was just a chance we’d have to take.
Ultimately, no chances had to be taken. No blustery bivies set up on an exposed ridge. Just a few hours of honest work helping to restore the old lookout would secure our lodging for the night.
After the work had been done our group of four, now turned to six, sat atop the rocky summit and watched one of the most incredible sunsets I’ve ever seen. The conversation turned to the niceties that had been foregone earlier. Where are you from. What do you do. I couldn’t help but feel self-conscious about my answers, especially surrounded by our new companions. Los Angeles, and advertising, seemed impractical and vain next to Ethan, the Boulder-based photographer, and Robert the possibly-nomadic lookout care-taker.
The thoughts of employment and value had been circling my head for the previous month as I started a job hunt. What value is there is selling luxury cars, pimping mobile video games, and pushing content onto disinterested consumers? How does advertising, media, PR, marketing, any of it; how does any of it better our world? At 28 I’d already started to look around and wonder what my contribution to this little blue rock would be. How would I structure my life differently were I not saddled with more student debt than my annual salary? Or was my debt simply an excuse I used to keep myself in a city I felt no love for, and a job I had increasingly become disinterested in.
Robert said having a job just gets in the way of the important things in life. I was surprised he didn’t finish his sentence with the hippy-cliché, a drawn out, maaaan. But man, maybe he was right. If not for the desire for a bigger house, why do I need more money? I certainly don’t have much interest in a new car, a bigger (or any) TV. So then, what the fuck am I doing?
The answer is, I’m not sure. This isn’t a blog post about where I suddenly discover the meaning of life from a mountain top guru. That’s the stuff of Hollywood movies, and frankly it’s crap, the notion that life’s choices can be distilled into an instant. Instead, our trip through the North Cascades left me with open eyes and a deep, aching desire to return to Washington to explore further. And Robert left me with more questions than I started with, and an urgent desire to find a place in the world that would better align with my lifestyle, values, passions, whatever you want to call it. No, no answers were found. But that’s just the way life is…. maaaaan.
