Mauna Kea bears on her broad shoulders the hope of the human race. She will show the way to other worlds.

Hopefully by the time we have to abandon this orb we will have learned our lesson and not treat our next home as shabbily as we have treated this one.

It saddens me to see the grand old lady weaponized as a matter of “get even” rather than revering her for what she is giving us. The ultimate degradation is celebrities crawling off airplanes and ascending the mountain just for publicity.

I spent 20 years at the summit and love that mountain as I would those of my own blood. To see the clumsy attempts to cheapen her by the antics of a few protesters is a bitter pill. And she speaks to us.

Any time I was on a long exposure I would go out on the catwalk and listen to her. She speaks to me with her utter silence, its beauty at 2 a.m. is indescribable.

Ken Barton

Lebanon, Ore.

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