The California Matterhorn, September 23th 2001

Six years ago, I read Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums (1955). It is my favorite Kerouac book, describing his adventures with Pulitzer Prize winning poet Gary Snyder, and their trip up the California Matterhorn. Near the end of the book, Snyder prepares to leave for Japan and tells Kerouac: "...Know what I'm gonna do? I'll do a new long poem called 'Rivers and Mountains Without End' and just write it on and on on a scroll and unfold on and on with new surprises and always what went before forgotten, see, like a river, or like one of them real long Chinese silk paintings that show two little men hiking in an endless landscape of gnarled old trees and mountains so high they merge with the fog in the upper silk void. I'll spend three thousand years writing it, it'll be packed full of information..." Jack Kerouac, Dharma Bums

Then 41 years later in 1996, Gary Snyder gave a poetry reading at St. Olaf College during my sophomore year. He was there to promote a long, book-sized poem. It was entitled "Mountains and Rivers Without End." Dressed in a sport coat with elbow patches, he approached the podium in Boe Chapel, glanced down briefly, and then held up a book. "Lutheran liturgy," he said, "I could make even this sound interesting."

Afterwards, in the autograph line, I asked him about his days with Jack and how accurate his character was portrayed. He reached for my book, saying "Some of it was true..." and signed the second page, "and some of it was not" handing it back to me. A few minutes later I saw that he had autographed my book not by his real name, but by his character's name and an interrogative notation: "Japhy Rider?"

Surprisingly (given his feelings about Beatniks) a few years later, my Father looked into the area a bit, and found that it was the perfect mountain to hike: The Sierra Matterhorn, or the California Matterhorn, or Not-The- Real Matterhorn is located just off of the northern edge of Yosemite National Park, at 12,279 feet. It is a challenging one day hike, sparsely populated, and a reasonable driving distance from Reno.

Our first attempt in '99 was a failure. We didn't realize it would be such a challenge and neither of us were in good enough shape to make it, even if we had left early enough and knew where to go. We were forced to turn back, assuming we were close, but not really knowing just how far away we really were.

Now, in September of 2001, the mountain was definitely winning. Five total summit attempts between the two of us, and five failures. We were returning a month after our most recent failure in August.

This time would be different. This time we would make it to the top. We wouldn't let anything stand in our way of the peak, be it exotic animals of the upper altitudes, a dwindling water supply, or even the terrible wait staff of the park's restaurant. After all, if a couple of beatnik's did it, so could we.

I have mixed the pictures of both the August and September attempts in the following travelogue. Gray boxes contain excerpts and quotations from Dharma Bums. If pictures appear distorted, please refresh your browser. To eliminate the advertisements appearing in the upper right hand corner of your screen, click on the arrow in the upper right hand corner of the advertisement.

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