The prospect of adventure - and free computers - lured 18 South Sound teenagers to hike 20 miles through Mount Rainier's backwoods this weekend.
For most, the three-day, two-night trek was a first backpacking trip. For several, it also was a first visit to Mount Rainier National Park.
"I'm seeing it in real life now, so it's more spectacular," Francisco Pascua said Friday as he walked toward the trailhead.
The 16-year-old Federal Way boy was born in Seattle, but he had never seen the mountain up close before.
Organized to introduce youths to the pristine outdoors, the trek was the first of five separate hikes along the Wonderland Trail, which circles the icy peak. If all goes as planned, about 100 Western Washington teenagers will make a portion of that journey this summer or next.
This weekend's participants were split into two groups and hiked the trail between Longmire and Box Canyon in opposite directions.
The expedition was dreamed up by Lou August, a 39-year-old computer entrepreneur with a missionary's devotion to wilderness. Besides backpacking, August is offering free computers and plans to teach the teens to build computers from scratch. Then he and others will help them make a CD-ROM celebrating the park's centennial.
Mount Rainier National Park turns 100 next year.
To do it all, August has received help from other businesses and Tacoma's Metropolitan Park District. He's also received the national park's blessing.
Before Friday's start, the hikers heard a pep talk and a pitch from park Superintendent Bill Briggle.
"I'm delighted to see such a culturally diverse group here today," Briggle told the teens.
Only a few whites took part. The majority were minority group members, mostly black or American Indian or of Asian descent.
Wilderness is important, Briggle said, and he asked the teenagers to help preserve the park in the future. "You are going to be the stewards of the land, along with myself and my staff."
The promised computers come from a batch of 100 once used by the U.S. Department of Energy at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Hikers can earn them if they promise to help schoolmates with technical problems and write about the wilderness.
"Share your experiences with us," Briggle told the teens. "We'll see that your experience is shared with others."
August, who lives in Woodinville, runs a Redmond company called Trinity Technology, which creates business computer systems. He said Trinity uses profits to "expose city youth to the wilderness, so they can learn what the wilderness has to teach."
August handed out pencils and paper and told the teens to write at their campsites, by flashlight.
"At first, it was like, 'Oh, boy, we have to do work,'" said Jeni Barros, who is 16 and lives in Federal Way. "But I think it will be cool."
Anita Chebahtah, 16, of Tacoma was excited at the chance to get a free computer. "But it's a lot of hard work, mentally and emotionally, to do it."
Not all the 18 youngsters who hiked this weekend are city kids - some live on the Muckleshoot and Nisqually Indian reservations - but the wilderness is a new experience for most.
"I've never been on a real camping trip," said Zenovia Barnes, 15, of Tacoma.
Sonny Miller, a member of the Muckleshoot Tribal Council, also delivered a send-off message. Don't take wilderness for granted, he told the teens. Otherwise, "we miss the beauty that's there."
Some teens brought city trappings to the wilds.
A few sported new hiking boots. Friends Larry Hicks, 16, and Spencer Morris, 15, who both live on the Nisqually Reservation, bought identical, buckskin-colored ones.
Many hikers carried disposable cameras. Hicks exhausted his first one before he'd hiked two miles. He eagerly ripped the wrapper off the second. Then he knelt on a bridge to capture an image of rushing Stevens Creek.
"I like the color of that water. It's smoky blue," he said. "They've got a sports drink like that."
Vannak Cheng, who at 15 is already 6-foot-2 and 230 pounds, toted an insulated lunch bucket in addition to his borrowed backpack. His mother had cooked him sausages and rice.
He couldn't leave Tacoma without it, he said.
Sixteen-year-old Todario "T" Parrimon of Tacoma loped along with a walking stick.
"I wanted to go on a nature trail and learn something about animals. I'm here for the experience, not the computer," he joked. "That's just a materialistic thing."
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