inthebivy

[inthebivy]

Fear & Trembling in the Winds

Late July, 2016

I’d been scared all day, since Tommy and I started up the Wolf’s Head at dawn. My friend Zach had warned me that three groups of his friends climbed it and all said “Horrifying, terrible, don’t do it!” I already knew I didn’t like being on top of vertical cliffs, where there’s no escape. But here I was anyway. Here, halfway through the “Piton Pitch,” the most notorious 50 feet of the route. It was easy for a while, a ledge traverse with a crack nicely protected by old pitons, so plenty of places for my hands and feet - then I rounded a corner and suddenly the ledge and crack petered out into nothing, into a sea of holdless slab. 15 feet away I saw the end, a huge sandy ledge you could sleep on. But in between was nothing - just one old piton hammered into the middle of it, what seemed like a very far way away. 

I started out towards that piton, and found nothing good to hold, or stand on. Shit. I retreated. There was another way, going up a hard-looking crack, also with a piton in it. Maybe I should go that way? I pulled out the “beta,” information on which way to go where, and confirmed that indeed, I should just head out the slab. Damn it.

I looked out, and down. The exposure was relentless. “Exposure” meaning cliffs falling away below you for hundreds and hundreds of feet. Still no good holds. But a storm was threatening, and there was no going back, or down, so I cast off into the void, the sea of nothing. 

Wolf’s Head ridge looking steep from Pingora

How I got into this pickle 

A couple months ago I wrote about my mountain mentor and great friend Ben. I wrote about how he took me up climbs that scared me so much I couldn’t move. And now I was back in what I knew was Ben’s favorite kind of climbing - ridge traverses - like Evolution, or Palisades, or Forbidden. This is a climb Ben would have loved.  It’s a climb Ben would have taken me up, dragged me up, me paralyzed with fear, “gripped,” rattled, lost it, but still there.

Today I want to talk about that fear more.

Most climbers I know don’t have the same fear of heights that I do. Sure, everyone says they’re scared of heights. Even Will Gadd. But Ben would hop up on a tiny summit pinnacle. Greg does that too, and Ryan - “climbers” do that. They’re comfortable in thin air, like mountain goats. It’s not like that for me. Get me even 5 feet off the ground and I cling tight, I stay seated, I don’t want to stand up, I feel the vertigo, the “what if,” “what if I fall?” I like to hold on tight. I’ve bailed off beginner routes because I was scared - a 5.6 in Lander last spring, a 5.8 (with bolts!) just last week. So … why do I climb? I used to say “I’m retiring” after every climb. But then I go again. I’m probably the worst climber who’s been climbing for 10 years, because my fear resets my skills to 0 every season.

I’ve felt fear for a long time. Growing up, I was afraid of the dark. I would jump from my bed to the safety of the hallway to avoid being nabbed by the monsters under the bed, or on the floor. I wasn’t scared of heights, I don’t think - I spent much of my waking hours climbing trees in the yard, looking down at our roof. But as time went on, I gained that fear. The Fear, I called it. The paralyzing fear.

I’ve tried to work with the fear a few times. It’s a knot in the pit of your stomach. It’s a tight chest, or neck. It causes me to leave, to run away. In DC, in 2005, I tried “exposure therapy” to fear - I’d stay in dark rooms, or shut the door in the bathroom (with monsters hiding in the mirror). I re-read “Dune” and found the Litany:

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

I read Buddhist philosophy and practice about detaching from the illusions we think are our true self.

But I lost my nerve and stopped facing fears. When I hiked half the Appalachian Trail in 2008, I was scared of being alone, and never sat through to see what was on the other side of it. I clung to other people. And I grew ever more scared of heights.

Fear and the Diamond

Three mountains stand out as the peaks of my fear, all 2010 trips with Ben: downclimbing a 4th class slab onto the Little Bear - Blanca traverse (Ben had to talk me down); getting totally paralyzed, unable to move, on the East Ridge of Forbidden Peak (Ben had to break out the rope and throw me one end); and what has become the Ultimate Fear, the ultima thule of terror: getting three pitches up the Diamond on Longs Peak (also with Ben) and completely losing it; we bailed and he noted the cause as “Skye altitude sick” - a generous diagnosis. I may have been altitude sick, as I went from sea level to 13,500’ in a day. More to the point, I was completely psychologically shattered.

Little Bear to Blanca. Intense fear, and eventually came to terms with it.

Ben rapping down to the start of the Diamond, after my first rain-bivy, also at 13,500′. Note his smile.

Here’s me, petrified, on the side of Longs Peak just before we bailed. Note the terror in my eyes.

  Into the Winds

The Winds have been on my list for 2 years, and were high on the list for this fall. I planned to go in September, after the legendary mosquitos died down, but an old ranger friend from Philmont, Tommy, hit me up on Facebook a month ago.

Hey Skye! Nice looking pictures, you defintitely have the beta for Wyoming. Im looking for a climbing last weekend of july to climb Pingora or something in the Cirque. Ive got a rope and half a rack. Seeing if youre interested

I was interested. I hadn’t seen Tommy in a decade, and I remembered him as a bit of a wildman, so I made sure we were on the same page about risk:

Me: Also as a general caveat, I am pretty darn cautious / conservative when it comes to risk, and have lost the "summit fever" I used to have... my priorities are 1. come back alive 2. come back friends 3. get to a summit. You down with that philosophy? Tommy: Absolutely, Ive definitely learned to swallow my pride when it comes to summits. No more of a humbling feeling than when mother nature decides whether or not you send. Here are my priorities, 1. get on the route. 2. get off the route safely 3. enjoy the climb 4. summit.

So it was on. A month went by, I got my gear together, and I headed south after work, through the Cliff Creek fire zone (props to the wildland firefighters out there!), met Tommy in the morning, and hiked in to Cirque Lake. 

Hiking in, Pingora at right and Wolfs Head atop a cloud.

We climbed Pingora Peak’s South Buttress, the chillest sweetest sunniest rock, huge ledges and nice climbing and straightforward rappelling. 

We looked at Wolf’s Head from the top and were both fully intimidated. We camped at the lake again, shooting star photos. Tommy dreaming of Wolf’s Head. We woke, and we headed up. 

Wolf’s Head

I was scared from the first step onto the rock, up grassy ledges to the start of the route on the “Sidewalk.” Tommy was fine.

We got near the Sidewalk, and I felt inside: I should climb this. This is what Ben taught me to do - and I’m ready. I can do this. I told Tommy I was up for it, and he protested not.

I headed up the Sidewalk, 2 feet wide, unprotected, cliffs on both sides - and I wasn’t really there, mentally. I was moving tentatively, clinging. Halfway out I thought maybe I could get a piece of gear in, so I pulled out the “nuts” - metal chocks that fit in cracks to hold a fall - and, something I’ve never done before, I dropped half of them off the side of the mountain. Now I was trembling for real. This was a problem - a major portion of our safety gear, gone, and me shaking in the middle of an unprotected skinny slab.

Looking back down the Sidewalk

The nuts had landed on ledges below us, so I retreated back down the Sidewalk, downclimbed the ledges, retrieved the nuts, and got back up to the Sidewalk. Take 2. I breathed deep - this time, just go for it. And I just went for it. Feet, rubber soles smearing on sticky granite. Hands, holding the two edges, corners, solid holds. And I just moved. No funny business trying to put a nut in halfway - I just went. I crossed the Sidewalk, got to a solid spot, I put in solid gear, and I whooped with joy. I had done it. And my head was in the game. But The Fear was still there, underneath - fear of what was to come.

We climbed 4 pitches to get to the towers. The Towers. Four towers, each with its own “crux” or hard move. The “hard moves” were only 5.6 - easy, by any good climber’s standard - but still bone-chilling to do above hundreds of feet of thin air, when you have an almost-debilitating fear of heights like I do.

This whole time, I had The Fear. It was ever-present. And in turn, I worked on being present with the fear. On seeing the fear as something separate from me - so that I wasn’t consumed by the fear, but could hold it at arms-length, thank it for keeping me safe, and still not be paralyzed or ruled by it. “Ah, fear - that’s a feeling.” And keep moving.

Getting to the base of the first tower move was a scary and awkward down-crawl on loose rock without good protection, and we both got rattled. “Good gear, good rope, keep moving” became my mantra. I saw a rappel station and thought “maybe we should bail…” - better yet, maybe we should get the Canadians behind us with double 70 meter ropes to bail, and slide down their ropes back to our camp. But they weren’t bailing, and we kept moving.

Tommy did the boulder hug move in style, then got into a very tight awkward chimney and stopped, inside the slot, before the piton ledge. The Piton Pitch. He was around a corner and kept shouting back about how awkward it was. “Awkward is fine” I shouted back, “just make it safe.” He did. I followed, and popped out on the ledge. Tommy was not stoked, which is unusual with him, but he was hanging in there.

The ledge looked great, and I saw two pitons in the crack in the corner. Pitons are old-school climbing gear, metal hammered into cracks too small to take other gear. Solid. All’s well. I walked out, around the bend - and the ledge petered away into nothingness. There was another piton, out in the middle of a sea of slab. Slab meaning no cracks, nothing to really hold on to, grab, stick a hand or foot in securely. Just little holds. This is fine when you have bolts the whole way, and a short walk back to the car. But here, although safe, it still was terrifying.

I saw another route, a vertical crack, with a piton in it. It looked harder, and it wasn’t clear if it “went” all the way to the ledge. I looked back at the horizontal route. The ledge was only 15 feet away, huge, and inviting. I just had to get there across an infinity of slab, and one piton.

Tommy entering the Piton Pitch

I checked the beta again. Yep, definitely have to go out that slab. And so I went. Good handholds, one at a diagonal but it worked. Decent footholds. I headed down and right to the piton. I clipped it with a sling. And I headed out, into space, towards the ledge. There was another crack. I reached it. I let out a whoop and holler. I was home free. I placed a cam in the crack and headed to the ledge. I built an anchor, and told Tommy I was off belay. I was safe! I had made it through the hardest part! And I hadn’t really even looked down, down the hundreds and hundreds of feet to the ground.

This is just how climbers climb. It’s not anything special. But for me, with my fear of heights, it was downright magical. It was a breakthrough. The Fear was gone.

Waiting for Tommy to take down his anchor, I thought about Ben. I thought about Ben like I had thought about him on the Grand last summer, “my first big mountain alpine lead.” I thought he would have loved it, and I thought Ben I miss you fuck I miss you. I missed him, and I cried, and my eyes stung from the sweat and fear and sunscreen. Then I had Tommy on belay, and he was climbing.

Tommy followed to the ledge, unhappy on the slab too. Then he headed up around Tower 3… and right then, the sky opened up and the rock was instantly soaked with rain. Tommy continued, aiming for a cave at the base of Tower 4. He climbed quickly, then I followed. This was a hand crack traverse, over infinite space again, on a rope, and wow: heady.

Tower 4, the final crux. I wanted to hand it off to Tommy but instead just went for it. Did it. Climbed it, had fun with it! I stuck my foot in the crack, along with my 2 hands, in order to be solid to place a big cam in the crack. Now this is fun! The Fear was gone. I was just climbing.

We got through tower 4, then climbed 2 more pitches of easy, fun rock, and I ended up on the summit. The summit!

The clouds had vanished when Tommy was halfway through Tower 3, by the way, and stayed away for the rest of the day.

We headed down 6 rappels and a bunch of ledge-walking, some exposed, some mellow. I had a new rappel system down, taught me by my roommate Mike, for extra efficiency and safety. I felt efficient and safe on the rappels. I felt safe in the mountains.

We got back to camp, swam, ate, shared food with the Canadians who were right behind us all day, drank a beer and stayed up late taking star photos.

From camp, at night under stars and Milky Way, surrounded by mountains, and in the morning, sunrise advancing over the granite peaks, I bowed to the four directions:

Thank you, mountains Thank you, family Thank you, friends Thank you, Ben (and all who’ve gone before)

Life, death, what is this existence anyway??

This life, and the fact that it’s going to end for each of us, is a crazy thing to me. It doesn’t fit in with the day-to-day in our society, or the stories we tell, or what we take for meaning. Save money, buy a house, get promotions, buy a bigger house, buy a bigger TV, a bigger truck. All of that falls away during climbing.

Up on Wolf’s Head, a thousand feet off the deck, dark clouds all around and rain coming down, no escape other than keep going all the way over, for hours, with fear and trembling - that truth, that mortal truth, is very present. And the focus and presence, the “lead head” or “lead mind” that I have to get into in order to climb - that place of sheer utter presence, because you have to, of separating from The Fear, of sitting with it, not running away from it, for hours, on top of a 2 or 10 foot wide ridge, counting on your partner to stay with it too, to save your life by building a safe anchor and catching you if you fall - that specific mental focused place - that’s why I go climbing.

I headed up Wolf’s Head for Ben, because I knew he would have loved it, and would have taken me up it. I fought fear for hours, and found the presence and place that lies beyond fear. And by staying through it, I found something deeper, not for Ben or for anyone else, but for me.

Thanks to Tommy for being a great, fun, and safe partner (not in that order). Thanks to “the Canadians” - Rob & Jill - who were right behind us all day with a double-70m rope, giving me some extra security if we’d had to bail. And big props to Max and Ryan for free-soloing pretty much that whole route, in about an hour, early in the morning before we even got to the Sidewalk.

Postscript, June 2017

This is the Diamond. Two months before Wolf’s Head, I climbed a peak across the valley from the Diamond with Philmont friend Chris Sawyer. I’ve spent much of the year since re-learning the physics, mechanics, and safety systems of climbing. I bought a new harness, new rope, better shoes. And this year (almost a year since Wolf’s Head) I’ve climbed 50 pitches of “sport” climbing and am back in the game. I’m climbing as hard as I was at my peak in 2012, and getting better. This story about the Diamond may not be over yet...

[inthebivy]

Giving thanks for Standing Rock

Approach

After weeks of listening to news about brutal attacks on the water protectors facing down the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock, and after a crushing national election, and after reading Nick’s report, I resolved to head there for Thanksgiving week. Others in Jackson had the same desire, so a group of us left - some via Bozeman on Monday, me and my friend Jess via Casper on Tuesday.

Wednesday evening the sun set early as we approached Ocete Sakowin Camp. Google Maps took us the long way around, down gravel country roads. A few turns in, getting close, and I noticed a car tailing us. I slowed and signaled so they could pass. They slowed too, staying right on our tail. Cops. I continued down the road, and got to the final turn. The turn was guarded by a camo HumVee and huge floodlight pole. As I turned, lights flashed behind me. Finally, the cop showed his colors. Morton County Sheriff. Bald, built. Asks where we’re going. Ocete Sakowin Camp, we say, meeting friends there. You can’t go this way, he says. The bridge is out. He directs us back around via Cannonball. We ask if things have been peaceful. Lately, yes, he says.

We go back around, through Solen, past Cannonball. We stash the box of wine we forgot to ditch earlier, behind a telephone pole. We cross the Cannonball River and join a line-up of cars, trucks, vans, waiting to enter camp. “This is a peaceful camp. No drugs, no alcohol, no weapons?” we’re greeted. “That’s right,” we say, and enter. We find our friends’ RV, we find the media hill (which has cell service), we tell loved ones at home that we made it safely, we find friends and dinner. We talk about what we’re doing here. My friend feels dislocated, off-kilter, off balance - in someone else’s land, someone else’s camp. Yes - we are.

Orientation and action

Thursday. Thanksgiving Day. Here: Day of Mourning. Signs all over camp - on the portajons - “ACTIONS Thursday. Low / high risk. Meet 8am.”

Jess and I go to “orientation,” mandatory for new people in the camp. Too many new people, so we split into groups, squeeze into a Mess Hall. Trainers impart education and requests from the tribal elders. They ask everyone to consider our expectations coming in, and leave those expectations outside. The core principles here:

Indigenous centered

Build a new legacy

Be of use

Bring it home

As the trainers are describing Lakota values, a young woman comes through the back doorflap. “There’s a raid! Women and children to the Dome!” Jess and I agree to meet at the media hill after the raid, and I hustle back to our campsite to warn the others at the RV. People are streaming down the road to the bridge, and men on horseback shout “We need more warriors! All young men! Warriors! Join us!” I haven’t been through the action training yet so can’t take action. I warn our companions at the RV, and they head up to the road.

The riders return. “Go back to camp! No action! Back to camp! No action!” No raid, either. Police on loudspeakers from Turtle Hill, Turtle Island: “We are not going to enter your camp. Enjoy the holiday.”

I meet Jess on media hill, I call my parents. They’ve written Obama, asking him to stop the pipeline. Jess got her press pass - she’s writing for PlanetJH. At media training, they ask press people to go to the front lines, take pictures, show the world what the police are doing. They say that press are being targeted by police. It’s all the more important to go. So Jess goes. I go too, so that if things turn ugly, and she’s arrested, I’ll be able to tell the others.

A large group, marching slowly down the road past media hill. “Up! Up! Up with the people! Down! Down! Down with the pipeline!” they chant. Media people taking pictures (OK to take pictures of groups, not OK to take portraits without permission, or to take pictures of sacred items). One man, kneeling, hands in prayer.

Jess and I follow. She’s taking pictures, talking to people, trying to get a sense of the action. We arrive at the bridge. Burned out car, burned out road signs, barricaded bridge. Elders and youth get everyone to form a circle, and pray. Young leaders try to lead the group across the bridge, to outflank the police at Turtle Island. “To the bridge!” But elders respond - “no! We stay here.” And pray. Time passes. Police on Turtle Island over the loudspeakers: “do not cross on that bridge.” “Do not come up the hill.” We hear: “Do not put on gas masks. That is an act of aggression.” Brilliant irony. Are they trying to be funny? Probably not.

We head back to camp, then through marshlands to the island. Cars and trucks all along the dirt road. Hundreds, then thousands of people, massed at the water. A small bridge, kayaks and canoes. Men in wetsuits, “water safety.” Hundreds on the far side. Mostly Native. Signs, banners, shields and gas masks in defense of police attack. Turtle Island is sacred ground, it’s where ancestors were buried. Now it’s covered with cops - 65 at my first count - with guns, SUVs, firehoses, firefighters. Firehose handlers. We find our friends. Jess takes pictures. We take it in. Chants, songs, drumming. Mud, water.

Suddenly, activity. Cops on top have noticed one man is halfway up the hill, sitting. “Get down the hill!” they shout over speakers. “Get down or we will turn the hose on you.” He doesn’t move. “Get off our hill!” an elder woman near me shouts back at the cops. The crowd laughs and cheers. The police continue orders. The man doesn’t move. Finally another man walks uphill, talks to the lone protector, and they come down. Tension relaxes.

The sun comes out, after days of overcast. Bright sun under cloud banks, bright sun on river grass, on water, on the hill. Everything turns golden. The elders call for a prayer circle on the far side. Noone else can cross. They pray, they ask everyone to join in prayer to the four directions, to the sky, to the ground. Someone calls “Mic check!” and the circle responds “Mic check!” And they shout, loudly, clearly, to the officers atop the hill: “We come with love. We come with peace. We come with respect. Our ancestors are buried on this hill. If you leave the hill, we will go back across the bridge.” Repeated. No response. Time passes. People return, people cross. We sink deeper into mud, sticky mud. Time passes, sun warms. A man starts playing guitar and singing a song for the water protectors. Time passes.

The elders call for everyone to return back across the bridge. Slowly, everyone returns. And we form a circle - the largest circle I’ve ever witnessed, ever been part of. We’re in the mud corner of the flats, hard to move, but we move. Shoulder to shoulder, holding hands. It must be a quarter mile across the circle. Thousands of people. I’ve never seen anything like it. Another mic check, and we invite the police to come down, join the circle. Now that would be something. We’ve been hearing of police turning badges in, joining the protectors.

The Youth Council leads prayer. Hats off, heads bowed, holding hands. Prayers for the water, for the land, for the people. “This is a war - a war of prayer,” we’ve heard. It sure seems true. At the core, this is simple: people protecting their land from invasion, from destruction. And other people here in solidarity with them. Time passes, sun warms. Prayer ends. Everyone heads back to camp. Our friends have cooked dinner, we eat, we talk.

We talk with our friends about our experience. We had heard in orientation that there are now more non-Natives - “settlers” - than Natives in camp. Some non-Natives seem to chafe at the core principle of indigenous centered. They are experienced activists, Occupiers, protesters, climate justice fighters. They want to do something. They want to fight. They want to protest. But we keep hearing: this is not a protest. We are not protesters, we are protectors. This is about prayer, about building enough powerful medicine to stop the pipeline, to move the pipeline. At training they had asked us: “if you’re only here a few days, please don’t do actions. Please help in camp: winterizing, cooking, cleaning.” Yet we had all gone to the action. Why were we here? Who were we here for? Were we recolonizing this camp too? Gentrifying it? Difficult questions when you think you’re just here to help, but your idea of help may be so deeply built on a colonial mind, a settler mind, that you can’t be free of it.

Food and fire

Black Friday but nobody’s thinking about that here. Sunrise is a salmon sky over fog over golden grass. A song over the loudspeakers. I wait in line at portajons. Frozen ground grass, thin sliver moon. Ring of floodlights, military vehicles. Generators humming, tipis at the horizon. Cold fingers, cold car, warm RV for breakfast.

Jess heads out to do interviews, other friends drop off the Jackson donations. I want to help around camp. I go to the construction site: how can I help? The construction boss asks if I have skilled hands. Carpenter? No - but happy to help however useful. He has enough unskilled volunteers. I go to the donation site: need help sorting? Sure - but they have too many volunteers sorting, I’d just be in the way. I find a kitchen, I go in. It’s busy, full, people preparing all kinds of food. They give me full trays to bring to the mess hall and serve. I bring trays. The other servers tell me to wash my hands and come back to serve. I wash my hands.

The kitchen leader emerges with a small plate of food. “Do you know where the Sacred Fire is? she asks. I think so - “by the drumming and singing?” Yes. “This is breakfast for the Sacred Fire. Give it to the Firekeepers. When you get back, we’ll serve breakfast in the mess hall.” She hands me the plate: small servings of everything we’ll be eating. Eggs and kale, sweet potatoes and onions, bison.

I walk back to the Sacred Fire, find people sitting around it, find singing and drumming. I ask a woman sitting by the fire: “Are you a Firekeeper?” She looks at me, shakes her head. Points at an elder in the middle. He looks at me, I tell him this is for the Sacred Fire. He walks around the fire, breaks off a sprig of juniper from a branch with other sacred items, takes the plate. Puts the juniper into the fire, then the food. He gives me the plate, he looks me in the eye, shakes my hand, smiles. I smile.

I return. They have enough servers now. I go back to the kitchen. Another volunteer, Dan, has me start cooking a massive pot of wild rice. I need hot water to cook, I need cold water to rinse, I need pots and strainers. We need water and the tap is frozen. It’s like the old riddle where you have a 3 gallon pot and a 5 gallon pot and you need to measure 1 gallon. But the tap is frozen. Many people cooking many foods; I need to just figure the rice out. I borrow hot water from the dish cleaners, I pour it on the tap, the tap loosens. “We have flow!” I heat water for rice in an enormous pot, Dan brings the 50 pound bag from his car, “dusty,” I rinse it, give the rinsewater to the dishwashers, I figure a 2-to-1 ratio in the massive pot, I get the propane going.

One dishwasher leaves and I take his place. Dishes come in waves. We wash, we monitor hot water, we talk. I make friends. Mary, coming to Jackson in January to work at the Teton Science Schools. LuAnne, an engineer who wants to do environmental work. Shea from Chicago. Paula, the kitchen leader. Paula’s shirt says: “500 YEARS OF:” and a bulleted list: genocide, smallpox blankets, alcohol, reservations, boarding schools - “AND WE’RE STILL HERE.”

Head down, scrubbing, cleaning. Hours pass, time passes. In work is meaning. Chop wood, carry water. Boil rice, scrub pans. I could stay and do this for days, weeks.

I see the kitchen, I see the mess hall. Everything is for everyone. There’s no money in camp. This boggles my mind. Everything is given, donation, done by volunteers. Everyone eats. This is the other world Arundhati Roy spoke of hearing. This is the old way, perhaps. It sure isn’t America today.

Suddenly it’s 1:25 and I have to go back to camp, pack and head home - Jess needs to get back to her 2-year-old. I thank and bid goodbye to my kitchen compatriots, and walk back to the camp. I pass by the Sacred Fire and drumming pulls me in. Many men around one big drum. Many singers. Power. Energy. Drumming. Journalists walk by with cameras on tripods, builders walk by with 2x4 stud frames. People gather around the fire. I approach, and I look into the inner circle.

The Firekeeper still sits by the fire.

This is their land, and they are still here.

The Army Corps just ordered Ocete Sakowin Camp to leave by December 5th. Please support the Standing Rock Sioux and Ocete Sakowin Camp with donations, petitions, presence, and prayers.

[inthebivy]

Apostle of Stoke: You are the music while it lasts

Memorial Day, 2016: My mom texts me that she’s heading from Mass to go hike in Front Royal, VA with Ben’s family & friends. We lost Ben to the mountains four years ago, and every year they do a memorial mass, hike, and eat burritos. I re-read these reflections that I wrote years ago and never published. Looking back now, I can see how losing Ben, and reflecting on it by writing, has shaped what I’ve done and who I’ve become since. Just today I went climbing, still working with fear, risk, danger; and enjoying time with friends out in nature. I think of Ben, and I decide to share these stories & memories of Ben and our friends. These reflections are offered in a spirit of honor & respect for Ben and his family, and to continue Maintaining the Light. I’d love to hear your reactions, reflections, and stories too.

July 2012: I’m hiking down out of the Enchantment Lakes in Washington after leading my first real alpine climb – the Boxtop, a small summit on Temple Ridge – a cathedral of high golden granite peaks set among diamond-sharp lakes and glaciers in a hidden valley. Our ride never showed up in camp, so as we hike down I turn on my phone to see if she’ll be at the trailhead. I see 16 text messages roll in, and a bunch of voicemails. I drop back and let my friends hike on, already knowing what this means: one of my best friends is dead.

Ben Horne and Gil Weiss were climbing a new route on Pacalraju in the Cordillera Blanca in Peru. When they missed their flights, friends got worried. Search teams were in the field and a college friend led a satellite imagery search. All weekend – hiking, camping, climbing, rappelling – I was hoping and praying that Ben would turn up, sending him energy and strength through the thinner air between high mountain ranges.

Two years before, Ben and I did a similar climbing trip in the Enchantments. We backpacked in, climbed an easy route up Prusik Peak, and climbed the classic route “Outer Space” on Snow Creek Wall on the way out. Ben was my mentor in the mountains – he taught me everything I know about alpine rock climbing and most of what I know about mountaineering. And now he was gone.

Me, Ben, and friends Erik and Ryan after climbing Prusik (in background) while larches turned gold, Oct. 2010.

As I hiked down, I remembered our previous trip. After climbing Prusik, our team of four got into a debate about risk and responsibility – whether it’s okay to do dangerous things, knowing you could die and hurt the people who love you. We had that discussion so many times. I never wanted to say, “See – I told you so – look what happened.”

Mountain climbing

A decade ago we both worked at Philmont, the Boy Scouts’ high adventure base in northern New Mexico, Ben in 2002 and I from 2003-2005. I heard of his adventures, such as the “Cons Marathon,” a grueling 65-mile trek from the top border of New Mexico, Little Costilla Peak, down to an abandoned camp at the very south of Philmont. Ben hiked it, alone. He told me about hiking down the first peak in the middle of the night, running into a cougar in its den. “It sounded like it was hawking a loogie,” he told me. Three years later I attempted the challenge with my friend Bryan, and set a record of the slowest time ever to (almost) finish it. As of 2005, nobody had ever finished the hike in the required 24 hour time limit. I think no one else has since. Ben did it under 20 hours.

After Philmont, Ben joined the PeaceCorps and went to Kyrgystan, where he got into mountaineering. The next summer I went to Philmont, and he advised me on New Mexico mountains: 

“i think bushwhacking is the best way to appreciate the largeness and beauty of a mountain.actualy, … i mean being one with the mountain is so important to me. that's why il like climbing here (kgz), there are no trails (there cant be, it's all snow/ ice) so you find the route yourself, experience the mountain more fully.” (In his typical email grammar, 6/11/03)

Then Ben taught me how to rock climb in 2006, in the unlikely place of Washington DC. I was not a morning person, and was often out late partying, but I’d get up at 6am on Sundays to go out to Great Falls or Carderock and climb. We did a road trip through Connecticut and Rhode Island (the “Rhode Tripp”), climbing beautiful rock and marveling at the fall colors. Ben coached me on my first sub-5-minute mile at the Dunbar HS track by my house (see the immediate aftermath).

Happy or haggard after a 4:59.42 mile, near the Ramos House, DC. July 2006.

Then I moved to Seattle, he moved to San Diego, and we climbed mountains out West. We attempted Washington’s Mt Adams and Ingalls Peak in November rain and ice, before I understood Cascades weather. We failed on both, big time. We climbed Rainier in May in two feet of fresh powder, Ben breaking trail the whole way.

Ben leading up under Gibraltar Ledges, Mt Rainier, 2009

We did week-long climbing trips in Colorado and California. We did the “four classic 14-er traverses” in Colorado in 2009 and 2010. He led me up my first alpine climb: the Crestone Needle and a traverse to Crestone Peak. I was scared, and when we reached the top I was elated - and feeling the altitude. Ben was strong, did all the leading, lowered me on a tough section, set an alpine rappel when we ended up cliffed out in the wrong gully, and went down the rappel first. Now I do those things with friends, teaching them. He was the greatest guide I’ve ever known - although he claimed to hate guiding, he would always do it with friends.

Happy after getting haggard on Crestone Needle, summer 2009

Nobody cares

One summer we climbed Pyramid Peak with our friend PJ Parmar, and when we reached the summit ridge PJ stopped. Ben tried to convince PJ to continue, to come to the top with us. “Nobody cares,” PJ said. It was his motto of why he didn’t need to go to the summit, didn’t need to take the risks. Years back he used to summit, and then a friend slipped off a ridge on Holy Cross Peak and died. Since then, he stops when it feels sketchy. Pyramid was sketchy - loose rock, with real danger of rocks pulling out and falling. Just the previous week, a father had knocked his son off the neighboring Maroon Bells. I couldn’t imagine that pain. PJ’s point was that nobody cares if you get to the top or not. Nobody cares what you summit. Only you. So don’t die doing it.

Ben and I safely got to the top and back down, got dinner in Aspen, met up with friends, changed a sign from “ICY…” to “PRICY conditions may exist” and the next day climbed the Maroon Bells traverse. More loose rock, more caution, and safe travel. And PJ’s line stuck in my head. Now, a few years later, seeing a thousand people grieve on the “BEN AND GIL come back” Facebook page, seeing the news on CNN and Washington Post (perfect headline: “Climber saw mountains as cathedrals”), being with friends and family at the memorials – PJ’s line of “nobody cares” has changed, into everybody cares. They want you to come back. 

A mountain goat gets a bit too close on Pyramid Peak, 2010 (PJ photo)

PJ shoots Ben getting air time, high up on Pyramid Peak, 2010

Stoke

January 2010: 10pm, and we slowly struggle upward in deep snow at 10,000’ on California’s San Jacinto peak. A helicopter comes in to rescue us. We wave it off. Darkness settles over us again. And Ben says “I think we’re just about at the end of the gully – about to hit the ridge.” He had said this at least 20 times already. He was lucky I was so far behind, so I couldn’t hit him with my ice axe. (He broke trail the whole way – significantly more work.) On top, the snow was too deep to find the summit hut, so I carved out an ice trench with my axe and we shivered through the night. Ben’s comment: “We’ll get to see John Muir’s favorite sunrise!”

His endless optimism was at times too much for a mortal like me. But that’s the stoke. He was always positive. When he ran trail races, Ben passed people on the uphills. He complained that the Western States 100 “didn’t play to his strengths” – not enough mondo uphills. He enjoyed alpinism because it made suffering into an art.

Very haggard, utter delirium after the San J bivy. Death Valley, 2010.

The stoke sometimes manifested as impatience and not playing well in groups. But most of the time he had endless patience with newbies, and loved organizing trips to get friends out camping, climbing, or hiking for their first time. Greg Wagner, another of Ben’s mountain students, wrote,

“I realized that my very first lead climb was with Ben himself, at Joshua Tree, this January.  Ben was in the middle of his greatest climbing season and accomplishments, and still insisted on taking me to Joshua Tree to climb. He led me up epic, classic climbs all day and then watched me fumble up a 5.3 laden with all of his gear, on his rope, for half an hour with no complaint. What a guy.  Ambitious, experienced, excellent - and selfless. … he showed that it was possible, or maybe that it was really the only way, to live life in the full and furious storm of one's passions.”

In 2010 we backpacked in to climb the Little-Bear Blanca traverse. We drove a long way around the state, picked up the least-talkative hitchhiker ever, and didn’t start hiking until about 6pm. Ben was sick and moving slow, so we set up camp most of the way up the trail. I was rudely awakened in the middle of the night by Ben shouting “BEAR!”. I was trapped in my sleeping bag in my bivy sack. I rolled around trying to get out before the bear attacked... until Ben realized the “bear” was at most a mouse. 

The next day we hiked up into the basin, dropped packs and climbed Little Bear Peak. From there, we could see the jagged ridge over to Blanca. I was terrified. 

Atop Little Bear, about to “walk” the ridge to Blanca. 2010.

The start was the hardest, with hundreds or a thousand foot drop on both sides. Ben was unaffected - he was literally walking on the knife-edge ridge. I slowly crawled on hands and knees. I didn’t think I was going to be able to do the whole ridge. I thought seriously about turning back. Ben encouraged me, and got me through it. As we continued along a half-mile of this ridge, I gradually worked through my fears. I let the doubt come up to the surface, embraced it, and eventually found that I could stand and walk too. 

A very haggard sock atop Blanca Peak.

We then climbed a third 14-er and descended to the valley. We ate huge food: mac & cheese with extra cheese. We watched the sun set down the valley, and I remember his “Catholic” hat, sunny rain showers all afternoon, sitting up late looking at stars and the reflection of Blanca in the lakes, and a herd of deer in the morning.

Sunset, Blue Lakes Basin

More than mountains

Ben’s stoke and strength extended far outside the mountains. Ben loved travel (he and PJ did a podcast about Power Travel), seeing family and friends, eating cheese, and Lithuania. He loved writing opinion columns for the student paper (tagline: “subvert the dominant paradigm”). He actually lived, and was, non-commercial, non-material - unlike anyone I’ve known, except maybe Eric Lee.

Ben loved music with a passion – real, independent, meaningful music, music that makes lives and the world better. He loved hip-hop especially. We went to a KRS-ONE show in college and he was so stoked, jumping around up front, that KRS gave him the mic and he took over and rapped a whole verse.

He dj’ed for and ran our student-owned college radio station, and most importantly led a student rebellion when the administration arbitrarily shut it down in 2001. He organized protests, including people standing in line outside the entrance to a board meeting – and won. The station was saved. 

“Wiess College junior Ben Horne, a KTRU DJ director, applies a KTRU bumper sticker to the mouth of Willy's Statue yesterday afternoon. The radio station was taken off the air at 8 a.m. yesterday.” – Rice Thresher Dec 1, 2000. Photo: Rob Gaddi. This photo inspired me to go to Rice.

10 years later, Rice’s new president David Leebron sold the station out from under the students in a secret and underhanded dirty deal. Ben again sprang into action, organizing alumni to save KTRU. He wrote:

I am a PHD Candidate in economics. The basic premise is that money rules the world, and people are motivated by it. Plato had a different idea. He said ideas rule the world. KTRU is an idea. A philosophy. KTRU is not just a club. It is a cause. KTRU is, even, possibly a religion.

I’ll never forget him dictating a letter for President Leebron as we drove to Longs Peak, cell phone service cutting in and out. We lost that fight, but his passion for music remained.

And Ben loved running. In 2009 we climbed Wetterhorn Peak in Colorado, and on the way down I told him about how I wanted to run a 100-mile race. He said he didn’t think his body was right for it, but then started training and suddenly he’s running 100-milers. I paced him in Badger Mountain (see the film!) in 2011, and then he went on to run Leadville and Western States. By his trip to Peru, he was in the best shape of his life – both climbing and endurance – and ready to put a new route up Pacalraju.

Badger 100: 107 miles under 24 hours. BELT BUCKLE! (With Nick.)

Pacalraju

In the days and weeks after Ben died, I often had to serve as a mountaineering translator for friends and Ben’s family who didn’t know the terms and concepts of the mountains. I learned how to describe what happened. I had to come up with an answer to everyone’s question: “Were they doing something dangerous?”

I saw the search team’s photos, and Ben’s photos from the camera that the team recovered. Ben and Gil climbed a big new route on the south face of Pacalraju. They were roped and belaying on the steep face, and summited some time in the late afternoon. Searchers saw footsteps on the descent ridge, and it appeared that they kept hitting unexpected obstacles – cliffs, seracs – and had trouble finding a safe way down. At some point, one of them fell off the edge, maybe because a cornice broke off – and since they were roped together, both then tumbled hundreds of feet off the ridge to the base of the mountain below.

Ben must have loved the climb. His pictures looked amazing: steep climbing, solid belays, smiles, PullHarder poses at the summit. It looked like his ideal climb. And a first ascent of a big peak! I can’t help but wonder what he was thinking as they were descending the ridge. Did he know they were in danger? Or was it a total surprise?

“Mortality”

After the San J ice-bivy, we did some climbing in Joshua Tree. My feet were so torn up from my ski boots that I couldn’t stand the pain, so we just did one short route even though Ben wanted to take me up a classic 4-pitch route featuring an off-width chimney (the most unpleasant kind of crack climbing - thus his favorite). As we were hiking out I realized I left some gear at the rock so I ran back, through desert dirt, cactus and rocks. I grabbed the gear and walked back out, alone. And suddenly, between the path and the rocks, it was like the universe opened up. Nietzsche wrote of when the cracks open in the world and you see to the core, and it’s like trying to hold the tail of a tiger. And I suddenly had a full and direct apprehension of mortality. Most of the time you don’t think about it, that you’ll someday die. And then sometimes the void opens in front and you see it, full-on, clear in the perfect sun of a desert afternoon. “I won’t live forever, I will die someday.” It’s hard to put the sheer raw ultimate power of that feeling into words. And it’s only more powerful because Ben was there for that moment, and now he’s gone.

Then the moment passed, and we hiked out, drove out, mailed some postcards, drove through salt flats and slept out in Mojave National Wildlife Refuge, eating sad undercooked pasta (ran out of fuel), drinking Tecate, and hoping no scorpions sought our warm bodies for their nightly warmth.  

Mojave National Wildlife Refuge bivy, 2010

Risk

I keep thinking about our debates about risk in the mountains. A few months after our big conversation in the Enchantments I sent him this quote from a blog post by Andrew McLean:

Bro’ing down in the mountains with your buddies is a big part of what makes backcountry skiing so fun. There’s an intensity that comes from trusting your friends to rescue you if things go wrong (and vice versa) that leads to strong relationships, which may, or may not extend beyond the mountains. It’s common to exchange dialog along the lines of “I’m okay with skiing this. Are you?” while skiing with your partners, but it actually extends way beyond this circle.

After spending hours on the skin track with a buddy and hearing about his family and friends, the worst place to actually meet them in person for the first time is at his funeral. “Oh, you’re Steve’s mom. He talked about you all the time. It’s great to finally meet you. I’m so sorry.” At that point skiing looks incredibly stupid and you’d do just about anything to turn the clock back.

This is the crux. Is climbing incredibly stupid, because he’s dead now and our hearts are broken? I can’t answer this for his parents, and I don’t even think I can answer it for myself. I hate the trite “he died doing what he loved.” As his brother Eric wrote, “They say that Ben died doing what he loved, which is true. He also loved running, and his family, and his nieces and nephews, and his faith.”

We argued about the risks he took in the mountains. When he climbed Evolution Traverse with friends, they had some serious close calls:

“On the traverse to Huxley, the final peak, a car-engine sized block come off under Konstantin’s feet. His Russian reflexes allowed him to leap to safety.”

I didn’t like reading that. I’ve been on ridges like that. You can get lucky – and skill and reflexes definitely help your odds – but you can’t win every roll. So I felt that he was acting dangerously, and said so.

In hindsight, though, there’s another layer. Sure, if the goal is to live as long as possible, Ben messed up.  

But Ben died not just “doing something he loved”, but really living. It’s hard to explain this to people who don’t climb, who read newspaper articles about how they were “trekking in Peru.” Because climbing - being exposed, in dangerous situations, with another person’s life in your hands - is an elemental part of our nature as humans and animals that we so rarely get in modern comfortable consumer society. Ben was out touching reality, and reality is dangerous.

He had a whole “paleo” philosophy about this, an evolutionary psychology: we need to get out and run/hike/climb/adventure together, like we used to before history. I know people who bet millions on the stock market – they take the risks most valued by our society. Ben took paleo risks.  

And there’s always a risk of dying. I’ve come extremely close to it while biking to and from work. I’ve lost friends to drunk driving. Ben and Gil were true experts moving with strength and grace in dangerous terrain. It’s a roll of the dice. Ben won many times, and this time he lost.

You can also stay safe and never roll the dice. Just have no ambition to summit the mountain, make the change, start the revolution. “No ambition” is really good for safety. And it’s really bad for living. Ben, like revolutionaries and mystics all through history, saw that staying alive isn’t the most important goal in life – ultimately, it isn’t even possible. 

Friends spoke about this at the memorial service. Daniel talked about how Ben believed in him more than Daniel believed in himself – and this opened up new possibilities in how he could climb – and live. His belief in us made us stronger and better people. Lisa wrote to friends afterwards,

“I just want to live a tiny bit more fearlessly. I’ve always had an inner cynic who has talked me out of taking personal, academic, professional, and even spiritual risks. I think the cynical voice makes me feel smart and in control, but I think Ben understood that those feelings are illusions and that there is much more power in risk-taking.”

So would I rather he not have been out there, rolling the dice? I can’t really answer that, other than I don’t think he would have been Ben. He was “out there, up ahead” as Eric wrote, living, truly living: an apostle of stoke.

July 2012 Back in Seattle after the memorial services, I think about the last time I saw Ben. Shortly before his Peru trip, Ben organized a trip to Zion National Park in Utah. Plane tickets were expensive, and I almost didn’t go. But when else could I see a full-on solar eclipse, hike the Narrows, and maybe climb desert crack too? Now, I am beyond grateful that I went to Zion, met new friends, and saw Ben one last time.

I’ll always remember him standing up on the ridge, looking at the sun through two pairs of eclipse-goggles. Hiking the Narrows in a silly hat, snacking on haggard spinach. And climbing a huge hard route with Gil and their friend Brad, while I bushwhacked around in the desert attempting to climb West Temple.

Ready for the eclipse, Zion, May 2012

And I think about the trips we’ll never do: pacing him on the Wasatch 100 in September, him pacing me on my first 100-mile run someday, climbing in the Torres del Paine. I think of our plan to climb in Colorado every summer for 50 years - to do it through our whole lives, up til old age. (We’d leave the “easy” peaks for when we slow down in our 70s.) And I think of us both raising families, taking our kids to the mountains together.

It’s hard to wrap my mind around this: none of that is happening. We aren’t going to Utah this summer, aren’t climbing in Colorado for 50 years. I’m never seeing him again. It’s heartbreaking. And yet. And yet I know that when I do run 100 at Badger, Ben will be with me. And when I do climb the Torres (if I do, because nobody cares), Ben will be there too.

Me and the Torres del Paine, November 2011. Note Team Family Wiess hat.

August 2013

It’s been a year since we lost Ben, and I’m back in the Enchantments again. I’m backpacking and climbing with Patrick (who was there when I got the news) and six other friends. We scramble, fish, cook, wander, and watch the Perseids meteor shower. Pat proposes to his girlfriend Shannon, and we all celebrate with champagne he hauled in. Pat and I climb Prusik Peak by the same route I climbed with Ben a few years back. I feel and miss Ben. We spend three nights in the high alpine glacier-swept wilderness.

Pat & Shannon, the Meteor Lounge Crew, a Smirnoff Ice, and Prusik Peak, 2013.

Atop Prusik Peak: Pat, me, and “the scary red pants” - Ben’s “speedpants” - pulling harder, maintaining the light.

As we hike out, I remember hiking out last year and getting the bad news, and hiking out three years before, deep in debate with Ben. I pass under Snow Creek Wall, home to the classic climb Ben took me up. And this time, for the first time, what comes to mind isn’t “goodbye, Ben” – what I’ve been saying and feeling on climbs, in mountains, and at shows over and over all year.

This time what comes to mind is something new: “Hello, Ben.” I know he’s gone, and I also know where to find him. I smile, pick some wild salmonberries, and hike on.

May 2016, Memorial Day weekend

Time has flown. It’s three years later and I’m in Jackson WY. I’ve learned more mountain craft, learned to hunt, stopped climbing then started again. I stayed in touch with Greg, who I met through Ben at Zion. We climbed the J-Tree route “Right On” Ben wanted to take me up, we went back to Zion and finished climbing West Temple, and this year we did a 4-day ski traverse around the Evolution range in the High Sierra - honoring our memories and what we learned from Ben. And I’ve worked hard to stay in touch and check in with friends - something Ben did incredibly well and that everyone mentioned at the memorial service in San Diego.

Tonight I watch the sunset from our back deck balcony. It sets goldenrod painted over Snow King, aspens chattering in the breeze, Robins cheep cheeping and frogs peeping nearby. I drink a swig of whiskey, and think of Ben. Ben loved sunsets. I’ve poured out whiskey for Ben (not that he drank whiskey, but still) in some of the most amazing places I’ve been. Mt Baker, most recently, after climbing and skiing it, at sunset, in the lookout tower where Erik and I slept.

Park Butte Lookout Tower, Mt. Baker, 2016

I watch the sun set, I think of Ben with warmth in my heart. I realize this is his memorial weekend, when his parents, and my parents, and our friends, will go hike, and eat burritos, and visit the grave site. I wonder if I should go back next year – if I should visit his grave more. I did once since the funeral, with my friend Liora. I haven’t gone on my own. I realize that I don’t think of Ben as being there, at the grave. I don’t see him there. I see him everywhere. In the mountains. At concerts. At sunset.

When I bow to the four directions, out in the mountains or along the creek in town, or at sunrise or sunset, or just when feeling grateful or full or happy, I bow West last, and when I bow West I think of Ben. Ben and the others who have gone before – Andy McCoy, and my grandmother. I haven’t lost many people, but I know I will. For now, I bow West and I say “Thank you Ben.”

I have a haggardornot bumper sticker above that Rainier photo I took of him, that he submitted to a photo contest and won – I took the t-shirt that was the prize, and I wear it thinking of him. I have a KTRU sticker on my car.

ktru sticker party before the funeral, 2012. Ben loved making creative ktru stickers.

I just ran the Sunflower Marathon in an old Virginia running jersey he gave me. Most of my climbing gear was his. Most of my biggest climbs were with him, way above my comfort level. Slab downclimbing from Little Bear to Blanca. The first few pitches of the Diamond on Longs Peak. The Forbidden traverse (one of his “top 25 most beautiful mountains”) – pulling a 5.8 overhang with him belaying just above. I write of Ben when I write a letter to the town council asking them to help start a climbing gym, a mountain training center for the next generation. 

So as the sun sets tonight, and dark settles over a quiet town, occasional dogs barking, cars humming by in the distance, and a truck driving nearby, slowly, playing Mexican music on the radio, windows open,

I look out West, and I say

Thank you, Ben.

Olivia’s backyard in Rangely, CO, 2010 - where we first learned the beautiful concept of “haggardness.”

Sunset, Blue Lakes Basin, after Little Bear - Blanca - Ellingwood traverse, 2010.

"You are the music while the music lasts… Steal the rhythm while you can” was Ben’s blog header. “Steal the rhythm while you can” is from Soundgarden’s “Spoonman”; I didn’t realize it for a while, but “You are the music while the music lasts” is from T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets,” coincidentally my favorite poem. Ben would send around Eliot’s “Ash Wednesday” every year on Ash Wednesday.

[inthebivy]

A large and incredibly fortunate car crash

Yesterday morning I was in a nasty car crash in Star Valley. I was driving back to Jackson with my cousin Style and I had stopped for a schoolbus picking up kids. The woman driving a VW Bug behind me did not stop. She ran her car into mine at ~65 mph, sending my head into the steering wheel and knocking me out, and sending my car into a 450 degree spin while she did a 180 careening towards the schoolbus. The impact also sent my car into a third car which held a baby in the backseat. Luckily, incredibly, thankfully, as far as I could tell, nobody else was hurt. I may have gotten the worst of it by going face-first into the steering wheel (even with a seatbelt; the airbags didn’t deploy - do rear impacts not trigger them?). I ended up with a broken & cut nose (1 stitch, very haggard), concussion, whiplash, lung air-leak, and assorted other face & chest bruises. Most importantly, we’re all still alive and those kids were safe. It could have been so much worse.

I had a lot of time to reflect, driving to and from the hospital, in the ER, and at Ron & Mamie’s house. Brushing up against Death brought Mary Oliver’s great line to mind: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I wonder - here, in this brief window of clarity, of seeing past the day-to-day, the myths and distractions given us by the TV and news and false binary choices - should I do things differently?

What arose was mostly gratitude. I’m grateful that Style didn’t get knocked out and was much more with-it than me, and that his first thought was to check on the driver who hit us and make sure she was OK. I am very grateful to the first people on the scene, an awesome couple from Colorado recently moved to Alpine who made sure everyone was OK and let us stay warm in their “Hayduke Lives”-stickered car (it was 12 degrees out and we were at the site for a couple hours). Then to the EMTs, fire fighters, state police and county sheriff who took good care of all of us on the scene. And the good nurses and doctors and CT techs at St Johns ER, and to Aunt Mamie (a nurse!) who has us all under her watch and good cooking now, and Uncle Ron as well.

More broadly, I feel fortunate and grateful to be alive - in general, and especially today. I am extremely grateful for all the care we got and all the support I have in family & friends, and for having health insurance and a good hospital nearby - so many things I usually take for granted but am directly appreciating right now. And I feel a lot of love & energy going out towards the people I know (and don’t know) who have gone through so much worse and survived (or not survived) - and the people who love them.

Getting beat up just a little bit also made me reflect on the ways in which people beat people up so much more. Somehow I feel more tuned in to the frequency of receiving high-energy physical violence and force right now. And I am sad that our country, to which I have pledged allegiance and pay taxes, has been responsible for so much unjust violence and torture, from slavery in the 1800s (just saw Twelve Years a Slave; highly recommended) to segregationist beatings in the 60s, to supporting Latin American death squads who killed Jesuit priests and peasants in the 80s, to rendition and torture nowadays and presidential candidates calling to crank up the torture dial even more. Sure, everybody else does it too, and there are lots of bad guys out there… but could we please lead by example and just stop doing torture?

Life is so fragile and quick, and so easy to lose - out of nowhere, without even a warning. As much as it’s a cliche, I deeply felt that every day really could be the last, whether from an avalanche in the Tetons, a bomb in a war, or just a driver who inexplicably goes 65 into a stopped car by a schoolbus with blinking red lights. So, while we’re all here right now, let’s prioritize peace and healing, however we can.

I welcome any thoughts you all have on the fragility of life and how to end torture, or more mundane topics like best practices for dealing with insurance of a very totalled car, what I should replace it with, or how to care for concussions and broken noses.

Above all, I’m feeling very grateful for all of you family & friends, my community.

 p.s. because this is inthebivy, here’s a photo of one night I slept in the Subie in the middle of Montana. Goodbye, Subie – we hardly even knew ye.

[inthebivy]

Hunting

A few weeks ago I went hunting for the first time. I had tagged along on hunts with my uncle before, but never with an “antlered deer” tag and rifle in hand. We hiked through sage, crossed creeks and ridges, and posted up under a big tree. I had a 270 degree view of a valley that hosted a parade of deer over the next few hours. No bucks, so I couldn’t shoot them, but I practiced getting in position, taking aim, and steadying my breath and vision through the scope. 

The afternoon drew on, shadows lengthened, and the sagebrush turned gold with evening light. We started hiking back. I had been so keyed up all afternoon, emotionally prepared to take my first shot, and now I relaxed. “Guess it’s not going to happen today,” I thought. “Probably for the best - gives me more time to learn all the skills, which is why I’m out here.” And we hiked back towards the road.

No deer on the backside of the ridge either. We continued down, slow and quiet just in case. And then my uncle stopped me. “There’s a buck right over there!” he whispered. I didn’t see it. Then I did. Just above a small pine tree, and below the next ridgeline: a mule deer buck. What I was here for. 13 years after becoming a vegetarian, I was ready to find out if I could shoot a big animal. 

In 2002, I saw a film showing the horrific conditions inside factory farms - burning the beaks off chickens and cutting the tails off pigs so they could live in tiny cages without pecking and biting each other to infected death. I swore I would never eat meat again, and didn’t, for the next six years. I learned to cook as a vegetarian, spent a delicious 40 vegan days with my housemates in DC, and discovered ever more reasons to boycott our factory farm industry: not only cruel treatment of animals as intelligent as the dogs I grew up with, but massive pollution and industrial sludge, terrible treatment of workers, and corruption of politicians. The Meatrix says it all.

But not all meat is from factory farms. I had also grown up eating venison and other game that my grandfather and uncle hunted, and none of the same ethical red flags went off with hunting. It was just a question of was it OK to take another animal’s life. I turned to wisdom traditions - the Catholic faith I grew up with, along with Buddhism and Native American ways that I had been learning about in the Rockies and Pacific Northwest. Buddhism was challenging, in particular the mantra “sentient beings are infinite, I vow to save them all.” I learned that mantra from Gary Snyder’s Etiquette of Freedom, where he also wrote

Coyote and Ground Squirrel do not break the compact they have with each other that one must play predator and the other play game. In the wild a baby Black-tailed Hare gets maybe one free chance to run across a meadow without looking up. There won’t be a second. The sharper the knife, the cleaner the line of the carving. We can appreciate the elegance of the forces that shape life and the world, that have shaped every line of our bodies--teeth and nails, nipples and eyebrows. We also see that we must try to live without causing unnecessary harm, not just to fellow humans but to all beings. We must try not to be stingy, or to exploit others. There will be enough pain in the world as it is.

… Other beings (the instructors from the old ways tell us) do not mind being killed and eaten for food, but they expect us to say please, and thank you, and they hate to see themselves wasted. The precept against needlessly taking life is inevitably the first and most difficult of commandments. In their practice of killing and eating with gentleness and thanks, the primary peoples are our teachers: the attitude toward animals, and their treatment, in twentieth-century American industrial meat production is literally sickening, unethical, and a source of boundless bad luck for this society.

In the end, I decided that if both Jesus and the Native Americans did something, it couldn’t be wrong: thus eating fish was back in. Assuming they were harvested well - I had seen the ravages of industrial fish farming and overfishing firsthand in Chile.

But what about deer, or bison? I no longer had reason to avoid eating them. And as a vegetarian, I was eating plenty of milk and cheese and eggs from animals that suffered great cruelty in factory farms. So I made myself a deal: if I stopped eating factory dairy and eggs (to the greatest extent practical), I would start eating hunted and truly free range meat. And I would find out if I could pull the trigger myself.

So five years ago I headed to Montana to join my uncle and grandfather for a weekend of hunting deer near the Missouri Brakes. I wanted to see and feel hunting - to see if I had the stomach to even be around it. I still remembered the first squirrel I ran over with my car in high school, and looking back in the rear view mirror to see it twisting in agony on the road. Not a good feeling I wanted to repeat with a much bigger animal.

I flew to Billings, drove to the middle of nowhere and arrived at my uncle Ron’s cabin. The next morning we set out hiking early in the morning. A couple miles in, I spotted a buck standing on a rise. Ron took aim and fired. The deer was injured and ran. We ran after it. I somehow sensed where it had gone, down a draw into a creek. It was sitting in the creek, panting, knowing the end was near. Ron shot again and it was over. We pulled it out of the creek and cut it up in the field. I was surprised at how I didn’t mind cutting a deer open. While it was suffering I was sad, but as soon as it was dead, we were just dealing with a piece of meat. The animal was gone. I helped with field dressing and we hiked out the meat.

I remember thinking that part of my being vegetarian was trying to deny death: attempting to step outside the cycle of life and death. If I don’t participate in killing other beings, maybe I won’t have to suffer that fate either. It’s living “in the world but not of the world,” it’s renouncing the material world, the body, and the flesh. Of course, it was a doomed enterprise, but I felt it was part of what I was doing, subconsciously.

I left Montana one step closer to hunting. Now all I had to do was pull the trigger myself. I made another deal: if I hunted and killed an animal myself, I would put the question to rest and be OK with eating “happy” animals. If I couldn’t pull the trigger: back to vegetarian or vegan.

Last year I moved to Wyoming to work at the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, and to learn hunting from uncle Ron and his family. In the fall I tagged along on a number of archery hunts. I ended up between Ron and an elk three times - one of them the biggest he’d ever seen while hunting - but witnessed no killing. We saw the cutest animal I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting: a pine marten very angry that we were disturbing his breakfast on snowshoe hare. And I started to learn the craft and skills of hunting.

A year passed and I became a resident of Wyoming, able to get my own hunting license for an affordable price. I took hunter safety over in Casper and practiced shooting high powered rifles at the gun club. Hunting season rolled around. I was out of town at friends’ weddings in Seattle and New York when Ron got a deer and an elk. I wondered if I would have a chance to even go hunt before the season ended.

Then, almost a month ago, schedules lined up and I was out in the woods with Ron, hiking back from the valley of deer. And I was in position, 200 yards from a nice mule deerbuck. 

He was looking right at me, and I figured he would run away as soon as we moved. But I sat down and got in position anyway - and he didn’t move. I got the rifle steady on shooting sticks, I zoomed in with the scope - and he was still there. He was beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous. Dry fall grass up to his stomach, he was brown, and with a white and black muzzle and face. The perfect, dream, deer. Four antler points on each side: a nice big deer.

I was sure he was going to get away, and since I had relaxed on the hike out I wasn’t emotionally or mentally ready to take a shot. But he stayed, and I realized that this was my chance. So I got the scope on his vitals and prepared to shoot. I put my finger on the trigger. And my hands started shaking. Too much adrenaline. I took my finger off the trigger, looked away, breathed deep a couple times.

Finger back on the trigger, crosshairs back on the deer - and again the shaking. Again stop and breathe. I felt like I was giving the deer his chance to get away - a big chance - and he wasn’t taking it. I felt like he was saying to me that he was OK, he was ready. So I lined up the scope again. My hands weren’t shaking this time. I pulled the trigger - and - nothing. What?! I looked and the bolt was partly open. I must have knocked it when I set up.

I closed the bolt, aimed again, and slowly pulled the trigger. BANG the gun went off and for a second I couldn’t see anything - and the deer was gone. Vanished. My uncle said he flipped upside down and was done. We gave him a second then hiked over. He was down, but not dead. I had hit his spine so he was immobilized, and dying, but still alive. I got close, I looked him in the eye, he looked at me. I shot him again, and he died.

I felt sad, and mostly just shocked that it had happened. I had killed a deer. A big, beautiful deer. A deer whose hide was still warm, and felt like a big cuddly dog. I felt sad for taking his life. His essence was gone. His spirit, gone. He was gone.

We cut him open to take the meat. It wasn’t as easy as with the deer my uncle had shot five years before. This time I had killed him, I was responsible, and it was hard. But this is why I killed him, so I got to work. As we dressed him and bagged the meat, wolves howled nearby. We kept watch for bears. Night fell, we finished, and we hiked out with packs full of food. I felt sad: I felt that I liked him better as a live beautiful animal than as a dead piece of meat. But I had known it wouldn’t be easy, and I knew I needed time to reflect.

Almost a month later, as I write this, I find I’m sad again. I know I don’t “need” to eat meat. But not eating meat doesn’t mean animals won’t suffer. Dairy and eggs for one. The infinite mice and other small animals killed by industrial grain and vegetable agriculture for another. There may be no way to live “hands clean” as I would like, given the world we live in. (Growing more of our own food helps, of course.) But even if it’s not enjoyable to take a life, it may not be wrong. I read Snyder again:

It seems that a short way back in the history of occidental ideas there was a fork in the trail. The line of thought that is signified by the names of Descartes, Newton and Hobbes (saying that life in a primary society is “nasty, brutish, and short”--all of them city-dwellers) was a profound rejection of the organic world. … They not only didn’t enjoy the possibility that the world is as sharp as the edge of a knife, they wanted to take that edge away from nature. Instead of making the world safer for humankind, the foolish tinkering with the powers of life and death by the occidental scientist-engineer-ruler puts the whole planet on the brink of degradation. Most of humanity--foragers, peasants, or artisans--has always taken the other fork. That is to say, they have understood the play of the real world, with all its suffering, not in simple terms of “nature red in tooth and claw” but through the celebration of the gift-exchange quality of our give-and-take. “What a big potlatch we are all members of!” To acknowledge that each of us at the table will eventually be part of the meal is not just being “realistic.” It is allowing the sacred to enter and accepting the sacramental aspect of our shaky temporary personal being.

Hunting positions us inside the food chain, the circle of life, the Great Mystery of Life-and-Death. Especially hunting in Wyoming where you are not only predator but also prey. (Trail running became a lot more interesting with Grizzlies.) It’s about who we are - existentially and essentially - whether we are “spirits in a material world,” different from the rest of the animal kingdom, or whether we are animals too, omnivores who eat others to live, and in turn will be eaten - and thus return to our place in the Great Chain of Being.

And given how much of our “footprint” on the world is hidden from sight - food production, sweatshop labor, capital punishment, drone assassinations - perhaps it’s not a bad thing to see and feel the blood and sinew that we eat, as fellow beings on this planet. After all, some day King Worm will do the same to me. Until then, I vow to honor the Mystery in all sentient beings, to treat them with the respect they deserve, and if I take their lives for food, to offer them deep gratitude and use their bodies well.

[inthebivy]

The original brilliant shiver bivy film. This has inspired many ideas...

[inthebivy]

Living in Public

Excellent companion blog to inthebivy, formed from one long urban backpack bivy weekend.

[inthebivy]

Good luck

July 2010, on a bike ride from San Francisco to LA.

About a week in to the trip, we roll in to Morro Bay in the evening. 

The state park doesn’t have hot showers, and one of our group wants hot showers, so convinces everyone to go to another campground a few miles inland. We stop by a Mexican restaurant and get to camp well after dark. I’m camping without tent on this trip, so I throw down my tarp and get in my sleeping bag. 

From my trip journal: “Rudest awakening. I woke up and found a big scary spider under my head - dead.” 

Everyone’s waking up (in their tents), I’m talking with Dave, and I find this nasty dead spider. Dave comments on how that’s gross. And then, I hear a whistling noise above me. I look up just in time to see a huge bird in the tree above me, and a huge pile of bird crap hurtling downwards... right onto my forehead.

Dave collapses with laughter.

Luckily we have hot showers, so I go wash off my face, and hair. 

When I get back to camp, I realize - in the daylight - that the entire place is completely covered in bird crap. This campsite is their latrine. And we slept right in the middle of it.

People bring up the old cliche that getting pooped on by a bird is “good luck.” And after waking up on a dead spider, the day can only go up from here anyway.

We eat oatmeal, pack up, and bike on. 

Two minutes into riding, a yellowjacket flies down the neck of my shirt. It starts walking around on my stomach. “Uhoh,” I think. I take one hand off the handlebars and try to flick it out from under my shirt. It doesn’t want to leave... and stings me. “OW!” I shout and slightly jerk the one handlebar.

I go off the road and head over handlebars into a thicket of bushes. 

Luckily the bike is OK. Ben helps me fix it up and all is well. “Well, today DEFINITELY can’t get any worse, any more.” We ride on to Pismo Beach, rent surfboards and get in the water. Beautiful day.

The next day, I wake up itchy all over. That thicket of bushes? Poison oak.

That trip featured two more notable bivies, for the record:

A stealth site in Big Sur with sea stacks and beach firepit.

A mosquito-ridden stealth camp at the base of Tahquitz Rock, before climbing Whodunnit with Ben.

[inthebivy]

Understanding The Heinous Paths of Glory

A hardcore climbing blog declined publishing this trip report in 2010. Now, inthebivy dusts it off and publishes it, with photos.

San Jacinto Peak, Feb 2-3, 2010

There hadn't been much snow in Seattle this winter, and my friend Ben told me of some epic storms in SoCal, so I headed down to sunny CA for my winter turns. We hoped to climb and ski (me) and ride (Ben) the famed north face of San Jacinto. We drove past the mountain a couple days earlier on a weekend  trip to Josh and were stoked about the amount of snow in the Couloir. But the excessive snow and mid-season ascent meant conditions were slower than anticipated.

The trip was a success at more than 11,000 feet of ascent (details on why not only 9,600' later) and 5,500 feet of ski/ snowboard descent. But we learned three main lessons during the trip:

If you don't find the cairns on the Snow Creek approach, you will experience some truly heinous conditions. Other routes than the exact brush tunnel are not remotely “almost as fast”. They are atrocious.

Lots of snow makes for invisible cairns and slow uphill travel, but epically glorious skiing back down.

If you bring lots of food and winter gear, don't leave it all in the car on a 10,000' climb.

Monday night we slept a couple hours, packed up and headed out from San Diego to San Jacinto at midnight, to the surprised and horrified looks of Ben's roommates who were just starting to party.

We parked at the electricity station outside town and started hiking at 2:20am. We walked the road into Snow Creek village and into the no-trespassing area, then headed x-country over Snow Creek and headed up the ridge. 

Approaching the heinous, with Snow Creek Couloir in background

We didn't find the nice cairned route, and wound up climbing through an absurdly steep boulderfield. No problem in rock shoes; a bigger problem in tennis shoes with a snowboard on your back. One camelbak popped when caught between a rock and a hard place.

Unlike many other peoples' Snow Creek TRs, we did not find the caretaker to be the crux of the route. The crux came after we made it up the ridge, through the meadow and isthmus and found it covered in snow – no cairns to be seen. We missed the “well-cairned tunnel”. Another TR had warned that if you miss the tunnel you will end up in heinous bushes. There has never been a truer warning. We were bushwhacking towards a notch in a ridge as per instructions, but wound up in the Heinous: walking on top of snow on top of bushes. This is a rare and particularly pernicious condition. The first person at least has enough snow on top of a thornbush to balance across; the second just has a thornbush. It is difficult to describe in words just how atrocious this sort of cross-country travel is. Also terrible is that once you're in it, getting back out requires even more of the same. Ultimately, we spent four hours balancing on thorns, grabbing thorns, falling into thorns and struggling back out, and otherwise off-route. It definitely redefined what the word heinous means.

The heinous

Finally around 1pm (!) we emerged to an obvious and cairned notch on a ridge over the Snow Creek drainage, overlooking the snow tongue. We had hoped to be on the summit by this time, and knew we could no longer hope to summit and safely descend that day. Tough decision: would it be worse to continue up or go back through? The memory of heinous bushes so fresh in our minds sent us onwards. We decided that if the couloir snow was deep postholing (as in the notch approach by a waterfall) we would have to turn back; otherwise it would be less heinous to just keep on pushing.

The couloir snow was excellent and hard, we never gave a second thought and pushed on with excitement.  The 5500' snow gully was the most beautiful alpine climbing that Ben said he had done in America. There was so much snow that the “chockstone” was almost completely buried in nice white stuff – no need for class 3 or 5 or any rock. So we kicked quick and easy steps to the first main junction.

At this junction we thought we must be at 7400' and so should turn right. We did, but soon couldn't see I-10. As we continued, we remembered that the whole couloir route was visible from I-10 when we drove through a few days before on the way to Josh , so something was wrong. Indeed, that junction was a hidden one at 6400' and we should have gone left- we were now headed for “Folly Peak”. We went back down to the junction and started back up, 1000' lower and an hour behind.

Onwards. Still good snow. Around the 8400' junction, dark closed in on us. Benighted! We took another left – always following what seemed to be the main  couloir route to the summit ridge. We planned (our revised plan) to hit the summit ridge around 8:30pm. However, higher up the snow became ridiculously deep and loose. Ben broke trail and we continued up, but when the slope steepened to 45 degrees, any upward progress was exhausting. Sugar snow would fall away instead of taking steps; we got out of the couloir and started using rocks and roots to pull ourselves up. This lasted for hours but was actually quite good climbing nonetheless-just slow.

Around 10pm, probably near 10,000' we had the most surreal experience of the night. We heard a helicopter in the distance, rapidly approaching. I had the strange sensation “it's coming for us” - and indeed they quickly zeroed in on us with a spotlight and flew in close. What is going on?! We wondered. Ben continued climbing, seemingly just annoyed with the distraction. I waved “hi” and “no need” and gave a thumbs up (not knowing official “we don't need a rescue” signals) until they turned and flew away. Ben then asked, “how did they know we don't have a permit?” thinking that was why they came for us. The man is very paranoid of authority. My thought was that more likely, someone saw our lights high up at night and thought we could be in trouble. Thinking about this later, I can only imagine how amazing it would have felt to see the chopper if we had been in trouble. So, we were really appreciative that rescue teams are out there.

Endless snow staircase

But as it was, we continued up the exhausting business of postholing and pulling loose snow 50 degrees to the ridge. Finally we topped out on a rib that led to the ridge around 11pm. The angle mellowed (as Ben had been promising “about 20 yards up” for the past – literally – four hours). (I was not pleased with his heinous optimism, and eventually made that known. Luckily, he stayed far enough ahead to escape my constant invectives...) We slowly traipsed up the meadows, heading for the fabled Summit Hut. Ben had been telling me about this alleged summit hut – with sleeping bags, food, and warmth – for thousands of feet. We were excited.

We never found it. Once again, the massive amount of snow covered any landmarks Ben would have recognized, and in the dark it was impossible to find either the summer trail or the summit hut. We dropped packs on the summit at 11:45, and Ben set out on his own to find the hut. I put on warmer clothes and started brewing hot water. After more than an hour of fruitless search going up and down the summit  on various sides, Ben returned hut-less, and we decided to bivy it up there since the weather was good. I dug a small snow shelter among some trees and we spent the next 5 hours shivering and heating water, enjoying the stars, and awaiting the sun.

In the bivy

[Editor’s note: it’s interesting that this original trip report spent only a single sentence discussing the bivy. As this blog is all about the experience of the bivy, allow us to elaborate.]

This was a true shiver bivy. As Ben searched for the hut, I started to melt snow and heat water. Eventually, I realized he wasn’t going to find the hut, and so we needed to make our own shelter. I didn’t have a shovel, so I started hacking away at the hard snow with my ice axe. I chopped out what was essentially an ice trench, big enough for both of us. We got in, bundled up, and settled in for the night. At first, I was excited: “I can spend all night looking at the stars!” I looked up, then instantly was rocked by shivering and tucked into as small a ball as I could. Head in balaclava and jacket. No stars for me that night. I think we slept about 20 minutes at a time, then would both wake, cold, and heat some more water. Drink some hot water, and sleep for another 20 minutes. 

At some point in the middle of the night, Ben realized that his pants were wet. Since we were just out for a one-day trip, he hadn’t brought snow pants. (Mistake...) Our heat in the trench melted enough snow to create a puddle and he was now cold and wet. So he got out of the trench and sat next to it for the rest of the night. Less body mass in the trench = colder trench. But we sat, and waited. Not the sort of star-watching spiritual bliss I had initially expected, but a deeply powerful experience of raw connection with the elements nonetheless.

[Now we return to the original trip report.--Eds.]

Morning came, with John Muir's favorite sunrise (San J), and the sunlight immediately oriented Ben to the hut. We ate some trail mix generously provided by the hut and grabbed four hours of sleep. 

Dried some clothes and melted some water, and around noon headed out. Up top we had a clear view of the community and power station where we had parked – and couldn't see any sign of Ben's car. He became convinced that some combination of caretaker, SAR team, and/or power station staff had towed it, and we would be forced to bivy again, in the desert.

We took some summit shots, saw our only human of the event (a snowshoer up from the tram), and headed out on skis and board. The summit block was glorious corn snow down to the ridge. From there, we dropped into a couloir and proceeded down incredible powder (the same we were struggling up – it had been well worth it) for 4000' of great snow. 

Excellent turns, incredible views of the desert and San Gorgonio – by far the best backcountry ride down either of us had tasted. Then the final 1500' were ice chunk / avy debris – not so much fun. But those first 4000' were incredible – and definitely worth the heinous entry cost.

The hike out was fairly uneventful. We found the cairned route into the tunnel and followed it most of the way through, before again losing it in snow. But we escaped without too much heinous brush, and made it back to the easy meadows. At the ridge drop-off, we lucked onto the cairns again, and followed an easy 7% trail out, instead of the vertical boulders. This put us in plain view of the caretaker's house, but we were beyond worrying too much. We reached the bottom and limbo'ed the pipe (I think there was a security camera on top), headed xc over river and eventually back on to the road and out. 40 hours after starting (of which 4 were sleep), at 6:40pm we hit the power station – and Ben's car was still there. Sandals and a Tecate were glorious, and we headed to J-Tree to dry out and warm up. 

We spent the next few days enjoying desert sun and scenery through J-Tree, Mojave, and Death Valley, watching the storms pass through, and reminiscing about The Heinous.

Mojave bivy, with fear of scorpions

Times 2/2/10 

12:05am – Ben's roommates look aghast as we leave home 2:20am – start (power station) 8:40 – entry into bushes 9am – turn back from most heinous bush 1pm – finally exit the bushes 2pm – start up couloir 3pm – 6400' junction, go wrong way 4pm – 6400' junction again 5pm – 7400' junction 6pm – 8400' junction 10pm – SAR chopper 11pm – rib to main ridge 11:45 – summit 1:30-6am – bivy 6:30am-11am – summit hut 1-2pm – ski / ride down 6:40pm – car 6:41pm - Tecate

[inthebivy]

Bivy on ice

Over the past few weeks, I planned a mid-week bivy to celebrate Solstice and Alastair Humphreys’ #microadventure challenge. I emailed the usual suspects, and got two yeses and a maybe. We planned the trip: we’d meet at Blacks Beach* at sunset on the Wednesday before Solstice.

Wednesday came. I checked my mail and saw I had a postcard from postbark.tumblr.com. I read about this guy who sends postcards from awesome places to anyone who sends their address, on my favorite outdoor blog, semi-rad.com. “Hmm,” I thought, “I don’t remember sending him my address.”

I turned it over and read a quote from Van Wilder, and then:

P.S. You might want to check under the front window of your house. Might be a surprise there for you. -Chris/Erik

And I knew immediately what had happened. My friend Erik had just gotten me - and gotten me good. I went out front and found a paper bag under the window - dusty and cobwebbed. Erik had clearly planned this out a while back. Inside the bag: an ice. Damn it! But it was 8:30am and I was heading to work, so I claimed a rare Ice delay exemption, and saved it for the evening.

Evening came and I rolled out of my office towards the park, 7 easy miles away. I got there just at sunset and hiked down to the beach, stopping to drink my Ice along the way, and get eaten by hordes of mosquitoes.

I arrived at the beach as the sunset flamed above the water, walked up past day-hikers and got to my usual spot. I settled in, ate dinner, meditated, and watched the sun go down. I sent pictures to some friends, and then sent a GPS waypoint to my normal bivy crew.

The two yeses and one maybe had turned into one yes, who was at a soccer game until late. So when it got dark I went to bed. Soon after, I was awoken by the huge prehistoric flapping of a massive great blue heron - and when I sat up it freaked out and flapped off. I lay back down, and a rodent ran over my bivy bag. The camouflage was working a little too well. Back to sleep again, always fitful - cargo ships, planes, frogs all keeping me alert and up. But I drifted off…

… and woke up to what I first thought was a gang of raccoons scoping me out. Then I realized they were otters! Four river otters, with their humped backs and skinny tails and just all-around cute antics. They frolicked, they jumped on each other, they played, they swam, and I heard otters talk for the first time. Fifteen feet away or less - and they kept stopping and looking at me (still pretty well blending in, I thought). Was I in their playground? Were they mad? They didn’t seem scared, and eventually frolicked away down the beach. It was magical, and I felt the blessing that comes with exposure: with sleeping outside of walls and doors and windows, not blocking out the universe but just blending seamlessly into it. You don’t sleep well in the bivy, but you live a lot.

I fall asleep again, and wake when my friend Bill* arrives. The soccer game went well, he found me (using the GPS app I recommended and my waypoint) and he settled in too. We stay up talking of work and the deep systemic issues usually overlooked in capitalism. Around 1am we go to sleep - again fitful. But eventually I sleep deeply…

CRUNCH CRUNCH heavy footsteps on gravel wake me, and there’s a huge bright light in my eyes. “You are not allowed to be here.” I hear, and flash back to my Spirit Lake bivy last summer, woken at 1am by police searching for a missing boy. “Not again” I think as my heart falls. “Sit up!” I sit up. “Put your hands in the air!” I do, and think, “should I say I’m not wearing pants before he orders me to stand up?” But instead, he leans down and puts an Ice in my hand. It’s not a cop. It’s Erik. And I’ve been Iced at 4am on a remote beach in an illegal bivy. ICED! We all collapse with hooting and hollering and laughter. I drink the Ice in one long, joyous swig - much happier to be iced than to be arrested - and we ask Erik how on earth he did it.

“I woke up at 2am and couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I realized I had your exact location on GPS, since you sent me the waypoint, and I had Ice in the fridge…”

Epic. Erik leaves for work, Bill and I fall back asleep. We soon wake with sunlight at 4:50am, and doze until 6:30.

Then we run a beach/forest loop around the park - probably the most painful loop I’ve run there, out of dozens or hundreds of runs there - the Ice and sleep deprivation did not treat me well on the hills. And then we bike to work.

Another bivy, another truly unexpected night of wonder and fear and joy.

* names changed to protect the innocent

[inthebivy]

Buddhism and bivouacs April 2-3, 2014, Lower Woodland Park

The only hope for a society ultimately hell-bent on self-destructive growth is not to deny growth as a mode of being, but to translate it to another level, another dimension. … Nobody can move from Right View to Right Occupation in a vacuum as a solitary individual with any ease at all. The three treasures are Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. In a way the one that we pay least attention to and have least understanding of is Sangha – community. …

            —Gary Snyder, “The Real Work”

Siwashing It Out Once in Suislaw Forest

I slept under              rhododendron All night              blossoms fell Shivering on           a sheet of cardboard Feet stuck         in my pack Hands deep             in my pockets Barely able       to     sleep.

            —Gary Snyder, "Four Poems for Robin"

  Witching hour

I wake up again, looking up into a cedar tree’s low branches, tree extending large up above my head. Rattling trash cans, not-too-distant shouts, and trumpeting in the distance. My companion is awake too, and looking around.

  “You hearing weird noises?”

—“Yeah.” More trumpeting.

“Was that an elephant?”

  I fitfully sleep, resisting the urge to look at my watch, knowing that will just slow time even more. Eventually I need to know what time it is, and look. 3:42am. Fully in the witching hour.

  Seven hours earlier,

we started our urban backpack from Pacific Place, where we met with friends about how to support the Parks campaign this summer. Meeting over, we put on our backpacks and walk north.

  We soon run into a friend, working to start a subway line and a new magazine in Seattle. We talk of running an article about this experience, but he won’t pay. So we hike on.

  Westlake Plaza.

“Dude – look, two attractive women and a dog.”

—“Need a wingman?”

“Yeah. Grab the dog!”

  A friend meets us by the railroad trestle, on bike. We walk into Fremont, sunsetting along Lake Union. Broccoli and kale never tasted so good, and we dissect best practices of online dating.

  10:42pm

we arrive at our bivy site in Woodland Park. After exploring, we settle on a spot under a low-branched big cedar. Protected from view on three sides, but on the edge of a large field, it doesn’t give us full confidence that we are out of sight.

  “Hey, is this your sock?”

—No.

“Oh.”

  Others have slept here too.

  We get into sleeping bags, bivy sack and tarp. We talk, read Gary Snyder, listen to an owl. Eventually conversation winds down and I hear my companion has fallen asleep.

  I am still awake. Feeling exposed, though my bivy is full camouflage and we’re pretty well tucked in. But what if the sock man comes?

  Mid night

I wake throughout the night. I feel like I don’t sleep at all, but I must, for 20 or 30 minutes or an hour at a time. The noises start: like trash cans being knocked over, someone shouting. Trumpets.  Trumpets!? We are near the zoo. Must be the elephant.

  Sleep, wake. Feel fear, full fear for being found, caught, attacked, arrested – nothing quite rational, but subconscious real fear. Feel the privilege of not usually having to feel this fear. Remembering my clients when I worked in street outreach and housing in Brooklyn: daily hearing the stories of assault after illegal eviction, unfair beatings by police, attacks by strangers. The vulnerability of being homeless: for one night I’m feeling it, though knowing it’s in no way the same – I could get up and walk home, lock my door and be sound asleep in 30 minutes if I wanted to. I have a bank account, friends and family – support. All the same, a small taste of the real fear of being outside. And gratitude for my companion: the bivy is better together.

  The witching hour continues, I stare long up into the cedar. My companion wakes, sleeps, rustles. I wake, sleep, rustle. I sleep. I feel alive to the mystery of existence. I’ve always felt closest to the beating heart of the mystery of the world when up all night, under stars, in woods, on beaches, by fires – up, through the dark night, keeping a fire lit for warmth or spirit vigil. I sleep.

  I hear loud music – Selena Gomez “Come & Get It” – loud, like on stage. Louder, into the part where the beat drops – and a woman has run in and is pushing me, yelling “Please don’t stay under the tree!”

  And I wake up, with a shout. Heartbeat racing, then slows.

  It’s 5:45am. Close enough to 6 to get up. My companion is up too. He was dreaming too:

  The road was close by, and two homeless guys standing on it, looking our way. One throws an apple core, it rolls under the branches in between us. He walks over to pick it up, grabs it – we’re looking at each other, silently What should we do? – he goes back. We hear him say to the other, “I think there are people under that tree.” We’re furiously trying to pack up so we can act like we’re just hanging out. I pack up faster and sit back; my companion is struggling to pack, he looks over and I’m cool as a cucumber playing a clarinet. He wakes up.

  We pack up, walk down to the track. He heads home: “with a pot of coffee and a shower, today might still be salvageable.” I drop my bags on the bleachers and do a track workout – 12 laps of sprint/jog intervals, as the sun rises. Walk home, shower, and head to work. Salvageable indeed.