Fairy Falls

The alarm clock buzzed at 4am.

Paul groaned as he reached over and shut it off, then sat up suddenly in bed, remembering why he'd set the alarm so early. Today was the day! He'd been looking forward to this hike for months, since he first read about Fairy Falls on a website dedicated to Washington waterfalls.

Paul was 26 years old, strong and fit, a seasonal park ranger at Mount Rainier National Park for four years now, ever since graduating from college, and he'd hiked almost all of the established trails already. He'd climbed to the summit once and up to both high camps twice. All that was left was to explore the places with no trails, which, in a 200,000 acre park, were vast.

Fairy Falls caught his imagination as soon as he read about it. The highest waterfall in the park, descending seven hundred feet in three stages, but several miles cross-country to get to it, hiking up a rugged canyon choked with vine maple: it sounded like an great challenge!

He'd have put on his pack and gone immediately, if hadn't been December, when the high country was buried under the first layers of Rainier's legendary 56 feet of winter snowfall. Paul knew from years of experience that it would be July before the snow melted. Seven months to plan and anticipate.

And now, at last, it was mid July, his first free weekend after the Independence Day holiday. His job kept him busy on everyone else's weekends, of course, when all of Washington state and half of California seemed to converge on the park's trails. His own days off were Tuesday and Wednesday, much quieter—not that he was likely to run into anyone where he was going! He smiled to himself, anticipating the blissful solitude after the chaos of talking to crowds of visitors all week.

The pack was already ready to go, sitting by the front door fully loaded with several quarts of water, peanut butter sandwiches, dried fruit, maps, a GPS unit, and spare batteries. Paul splashed some water on his face in the bathroom, pulled on a t-shirt and shorts, laced up his sturdy hiking boots, grabbed an apple and a banana out of the basket on the counter, and was out the door by 4:12.

It was a 45-minute drive to the pullout where Stevens Creek crossed under the park road, which would put him there about half an hour before sunrise, just as the dawn was getting bright enough to see by. From there, it might take another four hours to get to the falls, depending on how dense the vegetation was in the canyon, and how many lingering patches of snow there might be.

As he pulled out from his apartment, he turned the radio on to get an update on the day's weather forecast. His timing was good; the announcer was just saying "---and so it's likely to be the warmest day of the year so far, with temperatures around 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky." Of course, that would be Seattle; up at elevation it would be cooler, but Paul knew that he would work up a sweat climbing through the canyon. "It's perfect weather for National Nude Day!" the weather man continued. "Just be sure to wear lots of sunscreen. Back to you, Sheila."

"Huh," Paul thought, "National Nude Day, who knew?" He turned off the radio and grinned. "I never carry a swimsuit in the wilderness anyway."

Diane rolled over restlessly in her sleeping bag, glancing for the hundredth time, it seemed, at her cell phone. 4:24 am. God damn it. Still more than an hour till sunrise.

She'd hardly slept a wink all night, too excited about her plans for the day. In fact, she'd been planning this trek for weeks, poring over topographic maps online, scouting terrain on Google Earth, scouring the Internet for previous accounts and photographs. It looked like the last up-close photograph of Fairy Falls that existed was taken all the way back in 1907, a black and white image now in the archives of the University of Washington that showed two tiny female figures with alpenstocks standing on the rocks at the base of a massive waterfall.

This was going to be perfect for her Instagram account, dedicated to remote and pristine waterfalls.

And it was pure serendipity that the best time for taking a vacation from work was over the 14th of July! Diane had stumbled across National Nude Day several years ago when she heard some fellow students at U-Dub joking about it. She joined in their laughter, but the idea intrigued her. A day for being nude! It wasn't like she was a nudist or anything, but she'd always been curious about people who went to nude beaches and nudist parks. What better day to try it out, when you could always laugh it off, if you were caught, as just being "National Nude Day?" That summer she'd planned a trip up into the mountains to a remote lake, where she'd gone skinny dipping for the first time. She'd loved the experience, and resolved to make it an annual event, one that she now looked forward to every year.

Who knows, maybe she'd set up her camera and get a picture of herself naked at the base of the falls! She thought again of the picture of the women in long wool dresses in the archives of the library. "You've come a long way, baby," she thought.

Now it was the middle of the night at Cougar Rock Campground and she couldn't sleep. She sighed. Might as well get up and get moving. It would be daylight soon. She shrugged off the sleeping bag and shivered as the cold morning air raised goosebumps on her bare skin. Hopefully it would warm up soon, too. She quickly pulled on a pair of sweats, a sports bra and sweatshirt, and a stocking cap, then some thick socks and her hiking shoes.

Unzipping her tent, she fired up the propane stove on her picnic table and heated a small pot of water for hot cocoa. She saved some for a package of oatmeal, too, and sat on the table with her feet on the bench, eating her breakfast. From her campsite she could see the top of Eagle Peak, still untouched by the morning light; in the distance, the sound of the Nisqually River echoed off the cliffs, making harmonies with the trill of varied thrushes whistling in the treetops.

Breakfast finished, she stowed her trash, rinsed her dishes, and zipped up the tent. Her pack, loaded with snacks, lighter clothes, and camera gear, was already in the car. Let's do this, she thought. The time was 4:56.

"This is going to take some work," Paul said out loud. He'd only been hiking for about fifteen minutes, but it was already clear that he wasn't going to be making progress very quickly. Stevens Creek bubbled along merrily in the bottom of the canyon, but pressed in close on either side of it were the densest thickets of vine maple he had ever seen, their thin branches overlapping and intertwining as they competed with each other to reach the sunlight. Above them, steep rocky slopes stretched up toward the sky, too steep for anyone who wasn't a mountain goat.

Already the sweat was beading on his brow and his shirt stuck to his back under the pack. Leaves and pieces of twig matted his hair. "There's got to be an easier way," he thought, taking a swig of water from one of his bottles and assessing the options. It didn't look like the vegetation would thin out any time soon. The only alternative, really, was to hike in the creek.

But once the boots are wet, they'll be wet the rest of the day, he thought. On the other hand, it's going to be a warm one. He glanced up at the Mountain, just barely visible above the canyon in the far distance, where sunlight was now lighting the summit glaciers ablaze with amber color. It would be a while, he knew, before that light reached him in the canyon, and the water, fed by snowmelt, would be cold. But he was working up a sweat.

"It's the only way," he thought, shrugging.

The water was indeed cold! For a moment, Paul gasped and stood frozen by the shock of it as the stream flowed over the tops of his boots and soaked through his socks. His feet tingled and a shiver ran up his spine. He stood still for a long moment, feeling the cold, assessing whether he could stand to stay in the water. But the shock ebbed as his feet adjusted to the temperature, and as he began moving up the creek it was clear that, as long as he moved cautiously through the loose rocks and stayed out of the deeper parts of the stream, this was going to be a great improvement over the labyrinth of maples.

In fact, he realized, the biggest challenge was going to be keeping the rest of his clothes dry. The creek flowed so rapidly down through the canyon that it splashed aggressively against his shins, soaking the hem of his shorts. Paul wrinkled his nose in frustration, then laughed suddenly as a thought came to him. "Fuck," he thought, "it's National Nude Day, and I'm out in the middle of the wilderness. What the hell do I even need shorts for?" He laughed again, hearing the river laugh back, as he maneuvered to a large rock in the middle of the stream. Removing his pack, he set it beside him, then in one movement slid his shorts down and over his boots. He unzipped a pouch on the front of the pack and stuffed his shorts inside. He wore no underwear.

For a moment he considered removing his shirt as well, but the morning was still cool. "I'll risk my shirt getting wet for now," he thought. "There will be time to fully celebrate Nude Day later."

The new arrangement was an immediate improvement. For one thing, he didn't have to be as careful splashing his way up the stream, without worrying about getting his pants wet. For another, well, this was a lot of fun! The cold water tingled against his skin, and he found, to his surprise, that the cool, moist air on his penis and testicles felt good. He wasn't going to impress anyone with the size of his dick at this temperature, but then he didn't expect to be crossing paths with anyone anyway.

He splashed merrily up the creek, enjoying the feel of his cock and balls swinging freely between his legs. Not only was it more practical, and more pleasurable, it also, somehow, felt appropriate, and not just because it was National Nude Day.

He fell into a rhythm, making slow but steady progress up the canyon, picking his way carefully along the stream. In a few places, the grade turned steep, and at one point he even had to climb carefully up a short ledge, just ten feet or so, but it would have made for a nasty drop if he'd slipped. The wrong way to rock out with his cock out! As the morning progressed, the light dipped lower on the Mountain, then lit the tops of the canyon on his left, slowly reaching farther and farther down the canyon wall as the sun climbed higher in the sky.

As it did, the world around him came alive, too. Over the sound of the river, Paul could hear winter wrens twittering their complex calls, as bubbly as the water. He heard a sudden whistle, and turned to see a marmot poking its head over a rock partway up the canyon, watching him with apparent astonishment. "You don't get many hikers up here, I'm sure," Paul said, saluting the marmot, who whistled again and scurried off in search of... what? Probably another marmot to share the gossip with. "You'll never guess what I just saw, splashing its way up the canyon! The skinniest, palest bear I've ever seen!"

"Bare is right," Paul chuckled. In fact, the day was warming up, just as the forecast had said; and the vegetation was thinning out with the elevation as well. Now there were patches of open rock along the sides of the canyon, and increasingly Paul could pick his way through on bare ground. On the west side of the stream, there were even stretches where light now reached all the way to the bottom, even as patches of lingering snow started appearing on the east side, where they were still sheltered from the sun till late in the day.

The sun was warm. Paul stopped for a rest on a rock, pulling his shirt over his head and savoring the heat on his cold skin. He closed his eyes and listened to the river for a while, laying back on the stone, which was still cool but warming up rapidly. The combination of sensations, the cool rock on his back and bottom, the warm sun on his chest and genitals, a slight breeze tickling his skin, the sound of the river, the damp, musty smell of earth freshly melted out from the snow, the brilliant light visible even through his closed eyelids—the feeling was amazing.

And hypnotic. He shook himself awake - he hadn't drifted off, exactly, but he'd come close. "Don't want to do that," he thought; "there's still 'miles to go before I sleep.'"

He dug into his pack, pulling out a pair of sunglasses and a bottle of sunscreen. He spread some over his entire body, methodically, making sure not to miss anything, especially the hard-to-reach parts of his back, and the extra-pale skin that wasn't used to being exposed to the sun. It felt good to rub the cream into his cock and scrotum, and along his butt crack, lingering an extra beat there. His cock, so shriveled earlier in the cold water, now sprang to life, swelling toward its full size—average length, but thicker than average, by all accounts. Paul absent-mindedly stroked the underside, enjoying the feeling.

"Ah, getting distracted again," he said out loud, grinning to himself. It wouldn't be such a bad thing, would it, to take a few extra minutes...? Maybe on the way back down.

He snapped the lid of the sunscreen tube shut and put it back in his pack. He checked his GPS unit to measure his progress, and was pleased to discover that the waterfall was now less than a mile away.

He pulled the pack on and strode up the canyon reenergized, now completely nude except for his boots and socks. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement, and turned to see a pika, a small, rabbit-like animal but with round ears, leaping across the rocks and diving into a crevice. A moment later its head popped out again. "PEEEK!" it said loudly. Paul laughed. "Sorry to disturb you, buddy," he said. "Just passing through!"

The going was a lot easier now that the vegetation had thinned out. In fact, most of the way was now bare rock, with occasional patches of heavy moss where thin side-streams trickled down into the canyon from snow patches perched high above. Flocks of glacier lilies made splashes of yellow and green along the edges of the melting snow. High above, a large bird wheeled across the blue sky—a raven? Hawk? Eagle? It was hard to judge its size from this distance.

Paul hiked steadily for about twenty minutes before he started hearing the roar of water in the distance, and another five before he came over a rise and saw the waterfall for the first time. It was breathtaking. A thin ribbon of water—probably not thin, really, but from this distance, and in comparison to the long drop—plunged from the top of a sheer cliff to a band of rock, then plunged again, and yet again. He couldn't see the bottom of the falls yet.

It took another fifteen minutes of hard hiking to finally reach his destination.

From the bottom of Fairy Falls, the view up the cliff was dizzying. The roaring water thundered down into a pool at the base, the water foaming and churning with the force of the plunge. Massive rocks encircled the pool, clearly carved off the cliff by the waterfall over the years, and probably by freezing and thawing in the winter and spring. Standing on one of these rocks, Paul could feel the cold mist of the waterfall sweeping over his nude body, and he stretched out his hands to embrace it, thrilling in the feeling.

His sunglasses were quickly covered with drops of water, his hair drenched by the spray, and he shivered in the chill, stepping back away from the torrent. Looking around, he could see that the topography and the breeze kept the west side of the basin, on his left, relatively dry. He shook the water out of his hair and made his way in that direction, finding a large, flat rock to sit on where he could enjoy the view in comfort. He removed his pack, and then his boots and socks, laying them out in the sun where they might dry, or at least warm up a bit.

He pulled a bag of trail mix from his pack and sat naked in the sun, looking thoughtfully at the pool at the base of the waterfall. You wouldn't want to get too close to the falls itself, he thought - it would probably crush you, or hold you under and not let you come back up! But a large section of the pool nearest him wasn't in the direct drop of the falls, and seemed relatively calm. "I could probably swim in that," he thought. And in the next moment, knew that he would do so. How could he not, after such an arduous hike getting here? And on National Nude Day!

"The best part about hiking naked," he thought, "is not having to change clothes to go swimming." He resealed the bag of trail mix, dropped it into his pack, and strode down to the water's edge. He could see the bottom of the pool easily, the water was perfectly clear, a continuation of the jumble of rocks he was standing on. It was hard to judge the depth.

The roar of the waterfall drowned out the sound of the splash as he leaped into the emerald green water.

The Fourth Crossing trailhead parking lot was empty when Diane arrived. She wasted no time getting out on the trail—she wanted to get to the falls in plenty of time to enjoy and photograph them before needing to begin the return trip.

The trail climbed steeply from the first step, paralleling the Paradise River which tumbled merrily down the mountainside next to the trail. After half a mile, Diane reached the Skyline trail and turned east, gaining elevation steadily past the base of Sluiskin Falls and then up the switchbacks to the top of Mazama Ridge. Here she stopped for a long drink of water and to let her breathing slow. The sun was beginning to rise on the eastern horizon, and already the summit of Mount Rainier was gold with light. Most of the meadow, here, was free of snow, though she could still see patches of white under the trees where they were protected by shade. A blanket of blue lupine blossoms spread across the ridgetop, alternating at intervals with patches of white avalanche lilies. As her breathing calmed, she could hear the low hum of bumble bees hard at work among the blooms. The pungent smell of spring flowers hung heavy in the air.

The morning was still cool, and her sweat chilled quickly, so she didn't linger more than a few minutes before pulling the pack on again and heading higher up the trail. Another mile along the ridgetop she reached the turnoff to the Ice Caves Trail, which she took without breaking stride. She still had not seen anyone else on the trail, and doubted, at this point, that she would do so until her return later in the day.

The Ice Caves Trail was so called because a century ago it had led to actual caves melted into the icy toe of the Paradise Glacier, a beautiful sight that attracted hundreds of hikers. Over the decades, however, the warming climate had caused the ice to melt and the caves to become first dangerous, then non-existent. Now, the old trail wandered up a valley of scoured rock and eventually disappeared. If you hiked far enough, you'd eventually come to what was left of the glacier, now more of a stagnant and dirty expanse of ice and snow, slowly melting into the Paradise River.

This was not Diane's destination, however. Checking her progress on her GPS unit, she finally reached a dip in the terrain and turned east, leaving the marked trail in exchange for a rocky landscape with intermittent patches of heather.

Almost immediately the view opened up in front of her, as she stood on the edge of a vast canyon, looking down into a river valley far below. She'd known this was going to be dramatic, but in person, the distance, and the steepness of the terrain, was daunting.

She stood for a moment, squinting in the light of the sun now rising higher above the far horizon. Her pulse quickened and she smiled determinedly, setting her pack down on the rock beside her. Resisting the urge to scan the horizon for watching eyes, she pulled the sweatshirt up and over her head, dropping it into the top of her pack, then did the same with her sports bra. He breath caught for a second as she felt the cool morning breeze tickle her shoulders and caress her nipples, which instantly hardened. She felt stirrings in her pussy as well, which only increased as she sat down and began to unlace her boots. Removing them one by one, she next tugged off her sweatpants, which, she notice wryly, already had a wet spot in the crotch. She added them to her pack.