Confessions Of A Mountain Addict

All of you parents in this region are doing your children a grave disservice.

You are bringing up your children in, or reasonably near, the mountains. You are saddling them with a problem that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. You are addicting your children to mountains.

Maybe this doesn’t sound like such a terrifying addiction. Mountains are peaceful, purple, majestic and other good and hallowed things. Which is exactly the problem.

Your children will never be able to tolerate the flatlands after this. Their options in life will be forever limited, because they must live within striking distance of mountains at all times.

I know. I’ve been there.

Hi. I’m Jim, and I’m an addict.

It’s not my fault. My parents are to blame for thoughtlessly giving birth to me in Colorado and raising me in a place where I could see Mount Evans (elevation, 14,260) most days while walking to school.

I admit that I share some responsibility, too. With more courage and more will power, I could have gone on to college in Minnesota, or Iowa, or even, God forbid, Nebraska. I considered all of those places, but I caved at the last minute and chose - Oregon.

Only now do I realize what I was doing. I was feeding my addiction. I had the Coast Range on one side, the Cascades on the other, and Mount Hood looming over me at all times.

My last chance to break this cycle of dependency came upon graduation. I was so desperate for a job, I would have gone anywhere, even Louisiana (highest elevation, 535 feet).

Instead, I landed a job at the foot of the Absaroka Range of Wyoming. By craning my neck in the right direction and looking 8,000 feet up, I could see the Beartooth Mountains.

I was hooked. When it came time to look for another job, I found myself bound in the tentacles of this hideous and demanding master. (Note to Princess Di: Feel free to borrow that line for your next interview.)

The first test came when I had a job opportunity in Dubuque, Iowa. The job was good, but the thought of going to Iowa made me almost physically ill. Where would I ski? Where would I fish for cutthroat trout? How would I get above timberline?

I was having withdrawal pains, which was especially alarming since I hadn’t actually withdrawn yet.

I turned down the job. I began to realize just how truncated my options were. About three-quarters of the United States is essentially mountain-free. I got out my almanac and learned this discouraging fact: The lowest elevation in Wyoming (3,100 feet) is higher than the highest elevation of 20 states.

I finally came up with a list of 12 states that I considered acceptable. And some parts of those states I didn’t even like. I was putting big red X’s through those classified ads with the grim determination of the obsessed.

I got my fix just in time - a job here in Washington, within sight of the Cascades. Then, later, I came to Spokane, but only after making absolutely sure that Mount Spokane is a real mountain and not just some dinky knoll, and that the Bitterroots and Selkirks were nearby for emergencies.

As badly as I’m addicted, my wife, Carol, is worse. When she was a college student, the sight of mountains once caused her to change the course of her life, not to mention weep uncontrollably in a movie theater. She was watching Julie Andrews cavort around on a mountain, singing “The Sound of Music.” The sight of those Alps made her so homesick for high country that she immediately dropped out of her college and enrolled at Montana State University in Bozeman, where the entire Bridger Range could keep her company.

The college she abandoned, by the way, was Gonzaga University in Spokane. She was so addicted that even Spokane wasn’t close enough to mountains to keep her happy, although she now realizes it’s not so bad if you have a reliable car. Still, every so often she looks at me with these possessed Linda Blair eyes and says, “Take me to timberline NOW.”

So you can imagine my dread when I was proofreading one of my son’s English papers, and he was waxing lyrical about how much he loves the outdoors and the mountains.

I recognized the warning signs. Unless we can get him to Delaware right away (highest elevation, 448 feet), the kid’s a goner.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review