Grads climb to make their mark

WENATCHEE - The late May sun beat down on Jordan Reeves as he stood on an aluminum orchard ladder perched on a narrow ledge 500 feet above the Entiat River.

With a brush, he jabbed flat black paint into the pocked and pitted face of the sheer rock. His friend Adam Gould was next to him, hanging above the ledge in a seat harness, a safety rope looped around him.

The two, seniors at Entiat High School, were covering a 13-by-17-foot section of Entiat's Numeral Mountain. Next would come the numbers, 2-0-0-0, in bright white.

Reeves, Gould and others were doing what graduating classes at Entiat High School have done for years - painting the year they graduated on the steep-faced cliff, which dominates the view south of town. Many in the class of 2000 are carrying on a tradition of their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.

"Our parents did it and that's why we do it," said Chris Ledbeter, 18. "It's a big thing for us."

When they're done, their 2000 will take up almost four times as much space as the '95 and '69 to their left and the '70 to the right. They have chosen a spot on the west side of the cliff, visible from school and Entiat River Road, but not from Highway 97A.

The mountain has become a chronicle of history. The earliest date on it is 1920, when the first class graduated, long before Rocky Reach Dam was built and the original Entiat was swallowed by the Columbia.

The class of 1943 painted a big V for victory at the height of World War II. In 1971, kids included a flag; in 1972, a peace sign.

The class of '76 put its year in a Liberty Bell to celebrate the nation's bicentennial. During the state's centennial, Entiat teens put their '89 in the middle of a green drawing of the state.

"You're leaving your mark," Reeves said. "You're making history and someday your kids will see it."

What you can't see from below are the initials of the students who braved the mountain. Regina Davis, 18, recently painted her RD in white next to a DP, an Entiat graduate who once stood in the same spot. In some other time on Numeral Mountain, DK loved CM.

The initials and the numbers on Numeral Mountain are a testament to the sheer nerve, and sure-footedness, of Entiat's seniors.

"No one has ever gotten hurt," said longtime Entiat resident Linda Olin. "We've had some scrapes and bruises, but the kids are very careful."

Painting the rock wall isn't easy.

Its pitted surface is rough and uneven. The teens worked with a stiff brush in one hand to remove crumbling rock and a paint brush in the other. Painting the rectangle backdrop for the white numbers took five gallons of paint. Columbia Paint donated two gallons and gave the teens a deal for the rest, for a total cost of $90. It took Reeves, Gould and 18 other teens more than 16 hours over four days to paint the backdrop alone.

"You have to jab the paint into all the nooks and crannies," Reeves said.

Reeves and Gould have handled most of the painting because they are experienced rock climbers. About 14 other students joined them one day last week on the three-foot-wide trail that leads to the ledge where the painting was going on.

They picked their way up a vertical route of crumbly rock, sand and sage that led over the mountain, to a precipitous trail on the west side of the mountain's face. They talked about their upcoming senior trip to Enchanted Village in Federal Way, and teased Crystal Seymour about the softball cleats she was wearing.

Student-body president Brook Kelly estimated that 19 or 20 of her classmates have made the trip up. "It's a precarious trail," Kelly said. "I'll paint what I can reach, but that's about it. It's a scary trail; it really is."

"It's awesome up here," Chris Ledbeter said on his recent trip up the mountain. Far below, the town looks like a hobbyist's scale model of rural America complete with trees, homes, a school, city hall and miniature people.

Over the years, a lot of information about painting Numeral Mountain has been lost as memories faded and elderly residents died. No one in Entiat is exactly sure how it began. "I think it was a case of `because it was there,' " said Peggy Whitmore, who graduated from Entiat High in 1957 and teaches at the school. Whitmore's father, Albert "Shorty" Long, graduated in 1932.

Olin, who graduated in 1960, said she believes the first class to paint the mountain "just did it not knowing it would evolve into the tradition it has."

There were a few years, notably during World War II, when the graduating class did not paint its year on the mountain. Someone else - sometimes the following class - would make sure the year made it onto the mountain face.

When Olin and Whitmore graduated, climbing the mountain to paint the numbers was a guys-only thing.

"I don't know when the girls started going up, to be perfectly honest," Whitmore said. "It probably was the late '60s or early '70s."

Another tradition associated with graduation disappeared. The junior class used to have 24 hours to smear or otherwise obliterate the work of the seniors.

No one remembers anyone succeeding, but the senior boys would camp out on the mountain to make sure no one got up to any mischief.

During the 1980s, Olin's husband, Don, and other Entiat residents worked to restore some of the numbers because the rain, snow and wind were beginning to erase them. They had no trouble getting donations to buy paint.

"When the guys went up to repaint the numbers, word got out and the money just started coming in," Olin said.

Members of Entiat's class of 2000 will scatter soon, many leaving town for college, work or technical school. The teens said the time they spent on the mountain gave them one last chance to bond with classmates.

"This is the closest I've been to some of my classmates," Reeves said. "It was great to kick back and talk and get to know each other better. During school everybody is so busy there's never time for that."

"I guess for us it'll be just this huge sense of completion," Kelly said. "It's the last thing we do together. Some classes haven't done it or haven't done it well, so it's a matter of class pride.

"We're leaving our mark here. That's us up there and it's going to stay there for a long time."