The Cascade Range runs north and south through Washington, separating the state into separate areas with diverse geography, climate, and politics. The climate west of the Cascades is generally warm, with wet winters and dry summers — ideal for temperate rainforests with dense stands of evergreens. The climate on the eastern side of the Cascades is substantially drier, with extensive expanses of semiarid country and some desert terrain. Furthermore, western Washington is usually liberal, including the 3.6 million-plus residents in the Seattle metro region, and eastern Washington, with the exception of Spokane, is normally conservative.

The Cascades, which include glaciers, alpine peaks, and two national parks – North Cascades National Park and Mount Rainier National Park – are part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a ring of mountains and volcanoes that surrounds the Pacific Ocean. For more than a century, the range in Washington had been peaceful. Then, on May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens’ northeast face erupted, killing 57 people. It destroyed woods like matchsticks and engulfed significant swaths of the state in ash. The ferocity of this eruption, as well as the devastation it caused, reminded me of a Native American narrative in which the Cascade peaks, like the gods, waged war by flinging fire and rock at one other.