One section of the Pacific Crest Trail just south of the Lodge that shares the loop with the Timberline Trail passes along the edge of great valley cut through by the western branch of the White River, pouring over and cutting through the largely unconsolidated layers of pyroclastic debris. Along the way are a handful of spots where the abrupt edge plummets, offering expansive views of the south face and terrain sculpted by the White River Glacier. Just across the valley, on a plateau known as Mesa Terrace that separates the two glacier flows, a line of darker debris- soil, stretches horizontally about halfway up. Emerging from this layer, if one stops to look, can be spotted several large, whitened stumps and logs. They are trees, the soil level an ancient forest floor flattened in an instant by volcanic blast and buried under pyroclastic debris then uncovered by the great forces of time and erosion as the White River carved its way through debris and ancient forest floor, and previous debris below.  Elements of the landscape like these connect us with the vastness and power of the mountains past, they hint at the future, as further erosion will scrub them from the landscape, erasing the ability to have this view and understanding.  These encounters that unlock past and future can ground us in the present- acknowledging and contemplating these temporal relics offer the opportunity to reflect on the single moments in time we have with the mountain, with the world, with each other. We fit on the timeline of the mountain: we are here now, with these forests, and these slopes. These landscapes, and we won’t always be as we are now.