Donna Speaks: Almost Climbing Mt Rainier

Jan and Donna went up Rainier.  Up and Up they went.  

Through the snow they trudged. And trudged.  And trudged.  

Often stopped, they did, surely to look at the view.  

And to suck, suck, suck air into to their lungs born somewhere way below the sea.  

Strewn along the way were warm, warm clothes.  A sweater here.  A polar-tech vest there.         

Like Hansel and Gretel, to find their way back, surely.  

Soon, Jan cried, "Halt!  In the name of my poor aching body, halt."  Obedient Donna did.  

                              

"Oh, please," spluttered Jan.  "No more can I up this hill go. Done it before, I did.  Remember the top, I do.  But did it again, I cannot."  

"Goodness gracious", Donna thought, "The altitude has left her brain with naught."  

Thinking, a plan Donna conceives.  "Lie down in the snow," she tells the weeping one. "Perpendicular to the mountain top," Donna urges. 

"Tuck your hands and arms to your chest, inside your vest.  Down over your chinny-chin-chin that knit hat pull." 

Jan, without the strength to resist, does as her loving partner requests.  She lies there, knowing not what is to come next. 

Donna approaches.  One snow-booted foot up and poised. Shove she does Jan's motionless body. Down hill with such force that Jan was soon rolling an rolling.  Like Tina Turner rolling.  

Picking up speed.  Faster and faster she went; a large snowball careening down, down, downhill.

The snowball soon was all one could see of the Jan that done did it and her Rainier memories.                                  

Happy Holidays, Miss Althea. 

NOTE:  We made it about 1/3 of the way up Mt. Rainier that day.  The very next morning, they closed Rainier because the weather had suddenly warmed, making the ground beneath the snow very muddy. The conditions were ripe for a major avalanche, mud-snow slide.  It coulda' been two snowballs a'rolling down that big ole hill.