WHS teacher looks back on his past outdoor adventures

Reed Carlson hikes and builds trails in the Enchantments. Photo courtesy of Reed Carlson

Within the walls of Wenatchee High School dwells a suspender clad, silvery haired man with a camera around his neck. You might find this teacher navigating through photoshop, setting up a small photo studio, or tinkering in the darkroom. Reed Carlson is the official WHS photography instructor, but his life goes far beyond the lens of a camera.

Before he started teaching at WHS in 2013, Carlson was a self-employed photographer. He taught photography on a volunteer basis and sold his work as his source of income; every artist’s dream. He discovered his passion for photography while growing up in the Midwest and then attending Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn.

The Midwest had always been home for Carlson until, on a high school trip to Seattle, he got his first look at the Cascade mountains.

“I said, how cool is this! I had never seen a mountain in my life,” Carlson said. “Right then and there I fell in love with the Northwest. There are mountains around here, there’s ocean around here, and all these wonderful things that the Northwest has to offer.”

Later, when he was finishing up school, Carlson had an opportunity to do some summer work at Holden Village on Lake Chelan. That was one of his first jobs as a photographer, and it ended up keeping him here in Washington among the mountains.

“For me, life began at about 5,500 feet,” Carlson said. “That’s when life really started getting interesting.”

That love for adventuring ended up landing Carlson the summer job of a lifetime. In 1977 he was hired to go up into the Enchantments (the mountains above Icicle Creek between Blewett Pass and Leavenworth) and build the trail that millions of people from all around the world would end up hiking.
“I got hired onto a four-man crew along with two other seasoned veterans. These guys were experts with animals, and they really knew how to use dynamite,” Carlson said, laughing. “We had to blast a lot of rock and don’t get me wrong, blowing things up is a lot of fun, but we were glad to have someone that knew what they were doing. Unfortunately, in order for the hard core Forest Service guys to blow stuff up, us four young guys had to sit on the rock drills the entire time, and drill the holes for the dynamite.”

Even though it was such an unforgettable experience, the six didn’t work for free. “When I applied I thought I was in hog heaven because I had gotten this offer, a wage grade, which was a pay raise from the normal $3.75 an hour to $5.65 an hour,” Carlson said. “That was a lot of money in 1977 because we also got per diem (a daily allowance for expenses) which was another $3 or $4 per day so we were putting money in the bank.”

Making friends with their pack mules and wild mountain goats, the crew set up camp to sleep in the wilderness each night, and survived on the provisions they packed in. Carlson and his crew spent 12 weeks taking 10-day stints into the mountains to chip away new trails, move rocks, pound rebar into granite, and even pour cement stepping stones up giant rock slides. They even built a dam at the bottom of one of the lakes to create part of the trails through the Enchantments.

“I will never forget the one time I decided to pack a watermelon up Aasgard Pass (a massive rocky glacier above Colchuck Lake in the Enchantments) on a hot summer day,” Carlson said. “Seeing the looks on all the hikers faces when I’d cut them a slice of watermelon was priceless. I had taken off my Forest Service jacket so they must have thought I was crazy.”

Carlson never forgot his roots while creating those world class trails, he could always be found taking pictures of the breathtaking views and unbelievable scenery that the public didn’t know about yet. But it turns out that around that time, people did start to find out about the pristine treasure in Wenatchee’s backyard.

“As a part of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, they had to start putting restrictions on people going into the Enchantments,” Carlson said. “On any given day we would see 200 people come through that area, without any clue how to handle it. They’ve even had to create a lottery for each summer to only allow a small amount of overnight campers into the Enchantments.”

Countless outdoor enthusiasts and adrenaline junkies from across the globe find their way into the Enchantments each year, treading on the very trails that Wenatchee High School’s photography teacher built. You can say Carlson is a bit of a local celebrity, but when asked about it he claims it’s no big deal. “I just enjoy what nature has to offer,” Carlson says. “And then I take pictures of it.”