Skippy calls this picture: The No Path Path. But he's probably only being clever. He took the shot on the Cornwall Peninsula in southwestern England in May of 2009. Whenever Skippy goes off Trail by himself he is reminded of the Summer of the Mountains in 1977. He and Lou were going West that year. Skippy had a Stop to make in Idaho, but other than that there was no other Plan. It was the 3rd year of strapping a tent to a Motorcycle and leaving Michigan for 102 days on the Road in Amerika. We started climbing mountains at the end of June in Eagle's Nest, New Mexico for no other reason than Hillary's. Monkey's don't realize that Climbing Mountains is one of the things that makes us Modern. There are no records of Monkeys climbing Mountains for Sport or Zen until the invention of Leisure in the Post-Industrial Age. Monkeys have a Universal when it comes to Mountains: They are the Home of the Gods. That fact alone kept Monkeys off the Mountains for thousands of years. The Tops of the Peak were Taboo. In a Religious world of Qualia-Think all of the Landscape is Created and Seeded with Meaning and Portents. Caves go inside our Mother, like Mines and other wounds in the Womb. The Forest is the Living Mound of Venus, and the Lakes are her Juices. Thunder lives on the Mountains. Winds are breathing and moans. In the Days of the gods, Mountains are Temples built by the gods themselves to show the Monkeys how to fashion Space which is dedicated to the Holy. Big High, Uppy Up Space, leading to the Answers to all god's secrets. Priests started climbing mountains to ask the gods those questions. With Quanta comes the Entzauberung and the Mountains lose their Mana and their Chi. They become Disenchanted Hills where climbers can lose themselves in Testing & Challenging - the shit which passes for Worship in the Age when Nature has lost its Spirit. Only when the Mountains have lost their Souls is it safe to Climb them. They're like Women that way, thinks Skippy, the poor deluded fool.
Eagle's Nest is at 9,000 feet and Mt. Baldy rises from its Plateau an abrupt 3,600 feet to a total elevation of 12,441'. Lou and I abandoned the bike at a New Mexico Boy's Prison - a woodsy Jail with bars on the pine windows and started the climb. There were mountain streams to soak our feet, fast streams to fill our Canteens, 20 kinds of shit and hoof marks on the rocky trail. A constant lookout for Snakes. There was a handful of real climbing up over dangerous rock fields. A million green mountain bees. They took 4 Million in Gold from Mt. Baldy. 70 Miles of Mines bore into her. The Mystic Lode Copper Mine used to Crown the Mountain. It's the 2nd highest peak in the Cimarron Range, which is a subrange of the Sangre de Christos. I had to shove Lou all the way up and then hold her on the way down.
Into Colorado and the Ghost Towns. Old Cities raised up overnight to feed and fuel the Mining Frenzy which dragged Amerika into the Industrial Age. That's Skippy at Elizabeth, a New Mexico Ghost. I sat at the Tin Dump, a rusting place in a gully piled high with browned cans and implements. I found a broken piece of a soup bowl with the Rose Colored design the brightest color in the town. In many Religious Symbol Systems the Mountain is always Equated with Ascent to the Spirit. In Alchemy, however, the Mountain is most often Hollow and hides Caves, Caverns, and Sticky Female things. In Alchemy the Mountain is an Oven. An Athanor. It is the Vas within which the Work takes Place. The Mountain is often called: The Philosopher's Oven. The Historic "Practice" of Alchemy begins with Mining and the Birthing of Metals. Elsewhere, the Mountain is the Spinal Column of the World Axis. When "Mass" ties itself to "Verticality" and places itself at the "Center" of the World, you have the Cosmic Conditions which are necessary for any Incarnation of the Holy. 3D.
This One's a Steep Walk with very little Climbing. Over that summer of 1977 Skippy would climb 7 Mountains - most of them very steep hikes, a handful of them over 12,000 feet where you left the Growing Ground behind. One of them was over 14,000 and the Highest Peak in Colorado. He pushed Lou up 2 of them but then abandoned that project as too difficult for them both. So he started to climb alone which can range from intoxicating to foolishly dangerous as he found out when Mt. Elbert beat him back from its Peak with a July 4th Snow Storm at elevation. Skippy got up early on climb days, leaving Lou sleeping in the Tent. Then he'd make himself a small lunch to carry - 2 Oranges and Beef Jerky - fill his canteen from the Kamp Eau Potable - and set out by 7am. Sometimes I'd have a Map. Most times I had only a small compass, a Staff, and my Bowie Knife for `sitzeachuns.' Sunglasses, my Watch, and my small backpack which held my lunch, spyscope, Journal, pens, and a Joint for the summit. If I was going above 12,000 feet then I also brought my light Leather jacket and my rain gear. I Trailmarked with Sticks and Boulders when I had to; and I also drew diagrams and noted times and directions in my Journal. Never once on any of the 7 Mountains did I ever meet or see another human being. Another Monkey. It's good to remember that Ziggurats and Pyramids owe their genesis to the Mountain. Hindus have Mt. Meru; Iranians have Haraberezaiti. The Jews have Mt. Tabor and their friends the Germans have Himingbjör. Kikis have Golgatha. Eliade said that "the peak of the cosmic mountain is not only the highest point on earth, it is also the earth's Naval, the point where creation had its beginning - the Root." The Peak is where Earth touches Sky, where Matter and Spirit meet.
Lou looks like a young Wandervögel contemplating her destiny and asking the Mountain: How many Kinder should I give to mein Führer? Caf, the Magic Mountain of the Islamofascists, has a base formed by a Single Emerald. Mount Meru is made of Gold. Mountains are the Mothers of Jewels and Precious Ores. Mt. Olympus is the Mother of the Gods. In many Mythologies the interior of Mountains are the Abode of the Dead. Heroes Sleep within them. Waiting - with the Fairies & the Souls of those to be born. Hawks and Eagles ride the thermals which slither up the slopes, chasing the sun. Rains come and go. Nothing grows above 12,000 feet except lichens and mosses and after awhile even the goat shit thins and disappears. You stab at breaths if your lungs have been tuned to the flatlands below. The day after climbing my calfs would be burning and sore. Climbing Mountains without any Reason is as close as Skippy was going to come to Religion since he quit being an Altar Boy and stopped believing in the Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost. Or trusting in the Virginity of the Mother of God or her bodily Assumption Up into Himmel.
Roll over the Journal to see Skippy's record of his first Assault on Mount Elbert. I left the Hotel in Twin Lakes before 6am on the 4th of July and walked a half-mile up Colorado 82 to where I had marked the entrance to Abe Meyer's property the evening before. I met Abe in the Hotel Bar. He had 2 teeth and liked laughing at the tourists who stopped in the Cafe-Bar-Hotel across the street from the ruined Whorehouse which had given the town its reason to exist back in the days of the big mines and the big money. Abe managed to be impressed at Skippy & Lou's Tale of buckarooing around Amerika on a big Yellow Motorcycle for 102 days. So he showed me where to enter his land and how to follow that to a reputed "trail" which would take me Up.
Mt. Elbert is the highest Peak in the Rocky Mountains in Amerika and the 2nd highest Peak in the Lower 48. At 14,433 feet it is second to Mt. Whitney in California which is 62 feet higher at 14,505'. Skippy came up the other side than pictured. Abe and his Sons own 2 mines: The Blue Star and the White Star. But they are played-out and closed. Skippy followed a washed out Miner's trail up the Gordon Gulch to Parry Peak and the handful of abandoned mines below it. Parry is one of 5 Peaks in the chain which is Summited by Mt. Elbert.
Parry peak has a Summit Marker with a Climber's Registry attached. You can see that the day has quickly shifted from clear morning skies to rolling bands of thunder-bumpers. I played Tag with them the rest of the day. The sides of Parry where the old Mines are were above the Treeline and were dangerously sloping rock fields. I slowly picked my way over them to Visit the "Little Joe" and Abe's "Blue Star." The Entrances were small and I was surprised at how quickly they narrowed to the small gauge rails that disappeared into their darkness. Abe told me to watch out for critters in the mines. It took me 4 hours to hike up to the Timberline. I made the top of Middle Parry by 11am. I remember the torture of 12 False Peaks before the top. When you're climbing at angles of 45º and above you mistake every ridge peak for THE PEAK, so you are caught in this Sisyphian Task of gaining, then losing. Gaining then Losing. There are times when you suspect that there is no Peak at all and nothing but more Laps & Ridges until you simply run out of time and die there on the mountain - disillusioned.
Skippy pilfered the image above from the Web - it's entitled: Mt. Elbert in June. It illustrates what happened up there above the spot where nothing grows anymore. At 12:30 I was on the last Peak before Elbert. Thru my small spyscope I could see either goats or people at the Summit. And then the intermittent rains I had been enduring for the past two hours turned to snow. I started for Elbert, thinking it would take another hour or even two to reach it. And then the snow turned to driving snow and suddenly I couldn't see three feet in front of me. I did the calculations: another 2 hours to get there, then 2 more to get back to where I was and then maybe 4 for the descent. The one thing I knew was that I could not be on the mountain after dark. I would die trying to cross the fractured quartzite slopes as the loose rocks slid from underneath me. And I would never find my trail markers once I entered the pines and it got real dark. And suddenly I was freezing, my thin raingear failing at doubling as windbreaker. I had to get off the mountain. All around me I could see snowfields on the other Peaks in the Sawatch Range and knew that I would be in deep trouble if it kept snowing and I blundered into a deep snowfield. This would be the first climb when I failed to Summit but on the way down I got an idea and that led to a plan. By 2pm I was 100 yards down the slope from Middle Parry when the clouds simply parted, dissipated, and then the sun came out and it was warm again and I knew I was safe. Lesson learned: Weather comes Quickly at Altitude. It can drop 50º in minutes when the sun goes away and the snows and winds come. And I never thought to bring a flashlight. Always taking it for granted that I would be off the mountain by dark. My other climbs had gone too well and I started thinking that I knew what I was doing. I could suddenly understand how a piece of earth - like a Mountain - could gain a Personality. Abe had warned me to be careful and that they were always Choppering half-dead Tourists & College Boys off the side of his Mountain. You should think of a Mountain as a Beast, he said. Never turn your back.
Later that summer, in California, I called my Brothers and told them there was this Mountain in Colorado that had tried to do me harm and that Honor demanded that we Vendetta the Muthafuka and Mount the Bitch while we have our Way with her. Or words to that effect. They hitchhiked out from Michigan and we met at Twin Peaks in the middle of August to get our revenge. We had good weather for the entire climb and it went off without a hitch. Click on This to see a Map of the Climb. This time we went up one side of Mt. Elbert and down the other, making a circuit of it with Twin Lakes as the Start/Finish. It took about 13 hours. But I think that the Climb that summer that has stayed in my memory the longest and the freshest was in Idaho - Sun Valley & Ketchum - in the Sawtooth National Forest in the Smoky Mountains - another Mountain called "Baldy." It was the big Ski Mountain and went about 10,000 feet. I was on the Peak at Noon and was eating my oranges and smoking my joint when I saw the fire begin down in the valley in the back of Ketchum on the forested slopes of a small mountain across from me in the Sawtooths. I watched the smoke swell from a point to a line which would eventually stretch all across the timberline. Within an hour the planes arrived. Two B-26 Marauders dive bombing the fire with alternating loads of water and fire retardant. I watched them for hours and from where I was sitting - on top of a Mountain a few miles across from the site - I could see that the task was hopeless. The planes were insects dropping spit on a raging inferno. The fire burned all afternoon and was finally stopped only when it burned all the way down the timbered side until it collided with a highway. On the other side of the road was a River and next to it was the Hemingway Memorial pictured below.
Skippy reached the bottom by late afternoon where he turned onto the Rail Road Tracks which led along the Salmon River to the Kamp where he had left Lou snoring in the Tent that morning. As he left the slope and the woods and crossed onto the Tracks he had this St. Paul Moment. There was a Revelation - not blinding, there was no flash of light - instead it was a Realization. A Truth stood before him naked, having got down to her 7th Veil. And Skippy Knew this thing - this Truth. It was all Crystal Clear and Diamondy in his pointed head: He knew it as surely as he knew that he was Skippy. It was not Sad or fearful, only Certain. You do not have a Soul of Your Own - Skippy saw - But from time to time you may Step Into the World Soul and for a moment you are a Part of It. For a moment you Feel a Part of it Forever. Just for a moment. And then, as the poem goes: "Human voices wake us and we drown."
The Next morning Skippy went to Hemingway's Grave in Ketchum and he took the Banyan Leaf which he had cut the summer before from the tree which Papa planted behind his house in Key West and then he burned it over Papa's grave. Skippy had completed another Zen Task, another Pilgrimage. That's a Swedish Artist's rendition of Margaux Hemingway, one of Papa's granddaughters. She killed herself the Evening of the Anniversary of Papa's own Suicide in Idaho. She made it until 41. The Artist shows her with incorrectly slit-wrists and an extra arm growing out of her cunt. He says its a Meditation on Fame. Who's to argue? Fame creates Myth and then you have to live with that. Monkeys don't do well in the face of their own Myths. Kit Carson was haunted by his. Marie Laveau was Sainted by hers. Papa ate his shotgun. Both Barrels. He was larger than life because he had to be. In his own mind he had fought Tolstoi to a Draw. Maybe Margaux is Emblematic of the Sound of One Hand Clapping? But that's just Bathetic. Maybe Papa knew the fight was in the Tank? Or Maybe Skippy was only experiencing another of his Transient Temporal Lobe Seizures where the Voices come back and tell us Truths. I don't know. I remember how odd those Railroad Tracks looked as they cut a Straight Path thru the timber alongside the Salmon River. Nothing in Nature cuts a path like that at all. It must have awoken me from the Oversoul and left me - just for a Transient Moment - a Memory of its essence. It's fucking Singularity. And how without the Others and their Multiplicities there was nothing but Peace. And Darkness. Skippy now believes that the Fall of the Monkey began when our consciousness expanded to the point where it could step outside the One Peaceful Dark and see It and Itself as somehow detachable. There's the Sound of One Hand Clapping. I think it must be a Warning, or a call for our Attention. It's probably not Applause. Revelation is a Moment you get to Step Back Inside where the Cosmos goes away. And then just for that Moment you and the Mystery get to be One again. But then we wake, shudder, and go back to building our Myths. So I guess we can use the extra hand.
Click on This to get to the Last Chapter in the Speed Limit in America: The Drowned Biker of Cataract Canyon