If a lahar gets you ... well, we told you so

Stunning national parks. Picturesque ferries. Unforgettable sunsets, public markets and summer festivals. Blah, blah, blah.

It's all here, inside this package — a ton and a half of really good summertime information, much of it compiled by Northwest natives, at least one of whom feels obligated at this moment to step forward with one small request: Ignore all of it.

Please. Oh, please. We're serious.

Now, we realize that the 3 million newcomers among you might see this as a clever ruse to get you to stay home so we can have our own summer fun, unfettered by Californians and Connecticutters.

As if. Nobody who's been around here long enough to remember Wunda Wunda is really all that clever, and certainly not that energetic.

This is, rather, a plea to common sense; a subtle, brotherly steer on the shoulder to keep you going in the right direction.

Namely, your basement, with the blinds drawn and the TV tuned to the Pro Bull Riding Marathon. There, in the comfort of your own home, you will happily exist in that one state that the modern Northwest summer needs most: out of the way.

Really, it's for your own good.

Should you fail to take this advice and venture out to join the orgy of "fun" detailed herein, a lot of really bad stuff could happen to you. Just to highlight a few things:

• You could — let's face it, you will — get sunburned. No big deal? Wait until your first Monday morning appearance at work looking like a large, overripe beefsteak tomato.

A couple reasons this is bad, beyond simple vanity. One: Melanoma. Two: The only other alternative is to lather up with SPF 99 sunscreen, which will not only make you smell like a 9-year-old girl, but very likely increase the size of your "carbon footprint" to a 16EEE because it's all made from — you guessed it — imported foreign oil.

• You could very possibly be swept away in a lahar. That's right; a giant flow of mud and debris could cut loose at any time from any of our local volcanoes — not to mention any names, but, oh, MOUNT RAINIER, right outside your hotel window — not because the mountain is erupting or anything, but simply because the sides of the mountain are tired.

Inevitable result: a wall of roiling mud, ice, trees, boulders, Kia Sedonas and U.S. Forest Service stink-less outhouses that won't stop until it reaches the middle of Puget Sound. Laugh, if you will — and wind up next to all those folks who were laughing the last time this happened, and now reside in the Gorst Mudflats.

• Speaking of giant walls of liquid, don't even get us started about tsunamis, one of which could be launched by something as simple as a fat guy doing a face plant just off Oahu, causing a wave that grows to the height of Beacon Hill by the time it ultimately reaches, and destroys, Beacon Hill.

• It's quite possible you could be eaten by a grizzly bear. This is particularly true if you venture into the North Cascades, which, just so you know, begin at the emergency exit of the Angel of the Winds Casino in Arlington. The state's leading grizzly bear experts — now there's a job if you can get it — say as many as 10 grizzlies are at least part-time state residents. Of course, no hiker or ranger or even trained grizzly bear expert has ever met one in person. You know what that means: With your luck, it'll be you, and when you run into said bear, it's going to be really, really hungry.

• Something will suck your blood. Most likely, hordes of marauding mosquitoes, which quite possibly will give you a case of West Nile virus, which of course is fatal. Don't think you can get around this by just going out at night, either. We have it on good information that a lot of vampire bats come out around here after sundown, preying mostly on the state's growing herd of stealthy grizzly bears.

• You will go broke. Have you seen the price of gas lately? Let's face it: Your decision last year to purchase that Heavy Duty Off-Road Model Crew Cab Roadgrader-Blade-Equipped Chevy Suburban was something less than a bold stroke for ingenious consumerism. It's going to cost you $12 just to drive down the block and find out how much it's going to cost you to drive back home.

• You will at some point be stung like a bee and, if you're fortunate enough to be allergic, swell up like a giant blueberry ala young Violet in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

So there you go. Reason enough to stay home and think heavily.

Don't expect us to join you. We'll be picnicking at Mount Rainier, lahars be damned, because, well, we're trained professionals.

But don't worry: We'll send someone in occasionally to check on you.

Ron Judd's Trail Mix column appears here every Thursday. To contact him: 206-464-8280 or rjudd@seattletimes.com