I said it would be an easy bike ride followed by a short and
easy hike. I said we would see hardly any people. I said these things to entice
my teenage siblings up the Westside Road of Mt. Rainier to the Gobblers Knob
Lookout, and even believed them myself. As we pushed our bikes up the long hill
to Round Pass we were passed by many swift and unencumbered hikers – yet again
my rose-tinted planning glasses had let me down.