On July 16, 2010, four moms and three of our friends will attempt to climb to the 14,411′ summit of Mount Rainier. We will approach from the East side, starting from the White River Campground and hiking to Glacier Basin before starting up the Inter Glacier to our base camp on the Winthrop Glacier. We will wake up at midnight, and provided good weather and willing bodies, start the long trek to the top.
Only two of us (our unofficial guides) have ever done anything like this. We are a group of pretty average moms with energetic young children and busy lives. We were not mountain climbers when we started this process in February. Most of us didn’t even exercise regularly, aside from chasing our kids around, wheeling loads of compost to the garden, and taking an occasional walk in the woods.
Yet like many moms we know, we have become increasingly concerned by the damage being done to our Earth by reckless fossil fuel consumption. We feel that it is no longer enough for us to buy local, turn down the thermostat, and carpool when we can. We are called to take more drastic action.
TransAlta’s coal-fired power plant in Centralia, Washington is the dirtiest point source for carbon dioxide and mercury in the Puget Sound Watershed. When we climb, we will shout from the mountaintops and demand that our Governor shut the Centralia plant down by 2015. We must begin the transition to a clean and green energy future. Our children are counting on us.
