Meteors in August

My birthday is in August, graced yearly by the Perseid Meteor Shower. The meteors peak every year on or within one day of my birthday. My husband organizes a small party or restaurant dinner for my birthday. In the 1990s and early 2000s, we made it a tradition to drive to Sunrise Point in the northeast corner of Mount Rainier National Park to view meteors. We headed to Mount Rainer after eating birthday cake. If the Perseids peaked during the work week, I would take annual leave on my birthday and the next day to rest after staying up all night on the Mountain.

The Tacoma Astronomical Society (TAS) used to set up each year in the Sunrise Point parking lot at an elevation of 6100 feet. On clear days, Mount Rainier’s Emmons Glacier, Mount Adams and Mount Saint Helens south, and Mount Baker north of Seattle, are visible from the Sunrise Point parking lot. Glacier covered peaks gleaming from both directions.

City lights don't interfere with sky views at the higher altitudes. Meteor watchers, some in camper trucks, get a space early, some setting up lawn chairs to ease viewing the sky. The TAS gathering is an excellent group of people, and everyone managed to find space at the Sunrise Point lot. The Milky Way is visible on a clear night far from city lights, and TAS members pointed out planets, stars, and constellations.

We learned the hard way after years of going that the ideal conditions to see meteors include clear skies and a dark moon. We review the conditions in the morning, and if they aren't ideal, we stay home. The hour-long drive takes longer on dark forest-lined and curvy two-lane roads; eager to find a good parking spot with TAS, we left home shortly after sunset.

The meteors aren't visible until after 2 a.m., and at higher elevations, it can be pretty cold. The only restroom is at the 6400-foot elevation at the Sunrise Visitor Center, the highest point one can drive in Mt. Rainier National Park. Toilets are not an issue for those with truck campers or for the men. There are cliffs on either side of the Sunrise Point parking lot and no lights, making it less than ideal for a woman if she needs to relieve herself. I had to drive to the Visitor Center to use the restroom, risking losing our parking spot.

To see meteors, give your eyes time to adjust to the darkness - thirty minutes minimum. To not blind all those in the parking lot, we turned on our headlights after leaving the star-gazers; coming back from the restroom, we turned them off as we neared. We always managed to find a parking spot upon our return.

One year, the meteors were fast and furious, shooting low across the parking lot, over our heads as we lay on lawn chairs next to our vehicles, hearing them hiss as they flew by. Another year, we joined the group, waiting for hours for the sky to clear, with only an occasional star peeking from between high clouds. Disappointed, we left, but TAS stayed. Fog and clouds continued obstructing the night sky; we didn't believe we would see anything.

I continued peeking out the truck window as we drove the curves off the Mountain, and as we reached lower elevation, enormous fir trees obscured the sky except for tiny patches above the road. We stopped a few times on the way home to look, but distant city lights made it difficult to see meteors.

It was a tiring drive home that early morning, and we slept until mid-morning. When we finally arose, we saw news items and photos about the Perseids the night before. NASA and amateur astronomers had the most amazing pictures of the meteors. The skies had cleared, and it was the best show ever seen – but not by us!

One never knows in the Pacific Northwest when or if, the sky will clear.

Fast forward to Saturday, August 12, 2023.

Right after sunset, I looked outside and said, "Hey, you want to drive up to Sunrise?" We left our house at 9 p.m. Traffic picked up as we got past the larger towns, passing the Crystal Mountain ski area and The Federation Forest on Highway 410.

"They can't all be going to Sunrise, can they?"

They were. We ended up in bumper-to-bumper traffic on a two-lane road heading to Mount Rainier National Park through the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. A Park Ranger had placed a sign at the Park entrance: Sunrise Parking Full. We continued driving, hoping that my husband’s luck would hold, and he would find a space.

An hour-and-a-half drive from our home turned into a two-and-a-half-hour drive.

This unlit fourteen-mile stretch of road has cliffs, narrow pull-outs, and drop-offs leading to mountain streams, valleys, and meadows. Our headlights illuminated parked vehicles in every space a vehicle could fit, even though the woods prevented an open view of the sky and the meteors. We continued up the road, and in every place a vehicle could pull out, one was parked, some with lawn chairs set up but still surrounded by foothills and trees.

Our eyes were burning from all the blinding headlights and the concentration needed to stay on the road. Higher and higher we drove, rounding curves to meet more bright beams of vehicles descending the Mountain. We drove upward, the road angling sharply and the shoulders narrowing.

Vehicles on both sides of the road were parked dangerously close to the edges. Everyone wanted to see the Perseids this year because of the clear sky and no moon. The news on television, radio, and the internet told where and how to view them.

Each curve in the road brought more astonishment. We had never seen so many vehicles at the Mountain. In summer, visitors need to get into the Park early to get a parking spot and go hiking on the marked trails above the Lodge. It was now eleven p.m., and we were just downhill from the parking lot of Sunrise Point; the traffic was bumper-to-bumper, with the parked cars decreasing the width of the road. People were also walking along the road next to parked cars.

"Unbelievable," I gasped, "this is just unbelievable!" The Sunrise Point parking lot had every inch covered with vehicles parked with minimum space between. People must have come early in the morning and just stayed there. We couldn't pull in to turn around and descend, so we now had no choice but to continue upward to Sunrise Lodge, inching our way with the rest.

There are marked trails above the Lodge to protect the meadows, and hikers use them daily in good weather. After eleven p.m., as we neared the Lodge, I could see flashlights and red lights all over the meadows. Due to the darkness, we couldn't tell if they were on the trails or strolling wherever they wanted. Cars were parked on the sides of the road, trampling wildflowers with their tires. We suspected that no one was following the Park signs to stay on the trails and protect the fragile wildflower meadows. Seemed like they were running all over the hills playing flashlight tag. The road was narrower due to the cars parked on each side, yet people were still walking in the road to and from the Lodge. We couldn't even get to the Lodge to use the restrooms but were finally able to do a three-point turnaround in our truck to descend the Mountain.

We inched downward, careful not to sideswipe parked cars that were tilting dangerously off the road, and we also had to take great care not to hit pedestrians walking in the road between cars. As we neared the lower Sunrise Point parking lot again, cars and trucks tried to exit into the downward traffic jam, people meandering across the lanes of slow-moving traffic. Descending the Mountain, people were speeding upward on the switchback curves, crossing over the line into our traffic lane. The bright headlights, vehicles parked every which way, the speeding cars, and the darkness and danger of the mountain road, were stressful and tiring.

Finally arriving near the rest area close to the Park's entrance, we stopped to use the restrooms. The buildings had "temporarily closed" signs. I opened the door to a port-a-potty, and it was full of waste to the seat; the second one also. That was enough for me. "Let's go, I will hold it until we get to a gas station or something," I told my husband.

He continued driving, but mountain country had no rest stops or gas stations. We finally pulled into a station, but the clerk would not allow me to use the restroom even though we wanted to buy gas. He said they were locked, and he couldn't open them. The next one said the same thing. I should have had him stop and gone beside the road, but now we were driving through towns.

We arrived at another mountain town, and a teenage clerk said the restrooms got locked at midnight, and he couldn't unlock them. (WHAT? Is this something new since COVID? Is it to prevent robberies?). It was now close to one-thirty a.m. We left home shortly after 9 p.m.

I spotted a Denny's open restaurant, so we went there. I used the restroom while my husband bought us slices of pie to eat once we got home - in another hour!

We arrived home at about three a.m. and went to bed shortly afterward. No, we didn’t eat the pie.

Sunday, when we finally got out of bed, we were greeted by news reports that meteor seekers had trashed Mt Rainier National Park. The chaos hadn't been just at Sunrise but also at Paradise. People with no respect for our hard-working Federal park workers, had descended on the Park. They double parked and left their vehicles, blocking others for hours with no way to move their blocked-in car. Fragile meadows of wildflowers, home to bees and tiny animals, were trampled and burned by bonfires these disrespectful people created. That became the story, not the Perseid Meteor Shower; I heard nothing about meteors whizzing over human heads nor did we see beautiful photos of the sky show.

With eight billion people on this planet, it is hard to find serene nature spots filled with birds singing and streams gurgling beneath trees. Everyone wants the globe lights strung in their backyards, decreasing star visibility. The streetlights are bright blue LED, and buildings stay lit at night, causing light pollution.

Everyone wanted to see an annual sky event that is only visible occasionally in the Pacific Northwest because of cloud. Yet, once there, they were more interested in shining their flashlights at each other from the meadows and sitting by a bonfire. They destroyed a serene vista for their TikTok or Instagram videos; they ignored posted signs to stay on the trails – guess they felt they were special.

Years ago, we drove up there, stayed until the early morning hours, and enjoyed seeing the Milky Way and meteors.

This year was a tragedy.

I missed my Perseid birthday present this year. So did all the rest who crushed beautiful purple lupine, the orange paintbrush, the asters, lilies, and cinquefoil flowers so they could post on social media that they were at Mt. Rainier and partying to meteors.

It will take years for the meadows to recover. Rules are in place to keep it fair and safe and pleasant for all. I don’t envy the National Parks “after action report” for the 2023 Perseids. There’s always the few that ruin it for the whole. More rules to follow – followed by complaints from those who think they are more special than everyone else.