Category Archives: Mountains

CS Concerto

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A name matters. Naming something is an action full of significance and statement. The namer tells a story in the name about him-or her-self, his or her relationship to the named and about other things as often as not unnamed.
This is as true for climbing routes as it is for streets or gated communities.
When Royal and Liz Robbins did the first ascent of the fine route “Nutcracker Sweet” on Manure Pile Buttress in Yosemite in September 1966, it was a milestone in American climbing. This beautiful, five pitches 5.8 route was the first ever put up in North America using only nuts for protection.
Thus, the name.
Within the month the Robbins’ and two British climbers also put up a thousand foot route near Sentinel Rock that became known as “Nuts to you.” The 5.9 route involved a bivouac and Robbins considered it the hardest route of that length done in America without the use of pitons. These were bold, innovative (visionary even) climbs that opened the way to clean climbing in America. They were landmark climbs with cute names.
Royal has something of a reputation as a punster. (A route he and I did on Half Dome in 1970 had certain aesthetic difficulties and half way up Half Dome I asked him what we would name the route. “The Dog,” he replied, but when he wrote up the climb in “Summit” he called it “Arcturus,” which means Bear Watcher, which is what dogs do. I kept the original and traditional “The Dog” when I wrote up the climb with less punning for “Climbing,” but “Arcturus” it is in the guide books.) But the name of “Nuts to you” was taken from a remark Chuck Pratt made when Royal first included some of the new, alien, strange, non-traditional pieces of metal called ‘nuts’ on his rack for a climb the two of them were going to do. “Nuts to you,” said Pratt, a traditionalist at heart.
Royal, of course, was the undisputed King (or, perhaps, CEO) of Yosemite climbing of the time, and, as such, an irresistible target for the barbed, earthy witticisms of the dirt-bag denizens of Camp 4, for whom monarch was a kind of butterfly and air something better for breathing than wearing.
Chuck Pratt was a King of a different sort in Yosemite climbing of that time. A natural intellectual with the soul of a poet, the social conscience (and lifestyle) of a hedonist, a shy personality and a wicked, wicked sharp and earthy wit, Pratt was as different from Royal as, say, Hunter S. Thompson was from Tom Wolfe.
As J. Taylor of Simon Fraser University in B.C. writes in “Mapping adventure, a historical geography of Yosemite Valley climbing landscapes,” “Examining climbing guidebooks for Yosemite Valley also reveals a cultural shift during the 1960s in how climbers represented themselves and their deeds. New trends in route descriptions and naming practices reflected shifts in social mores, environmental conditions, and sporting behavior. Guidebooks produced since 1970 suggest a coarsening progression in sport and an altered community demography, yet these texts also illustrate how change reinforced climbing’s values and customs.”
A coarsening progression. An altered community demography. Pratt says to Robbins, “Nuts to you” when Robbins wants to introduce clean climbing to the piton hard traditions of Yosemite. Robbins does a major route using just nuts and calls it “Nuts to You,” undoubtedly making his point with Pratt.
In response, Pratt, who reveled in the cultural shifts of the ‘60s, put up a lovely three pitch route on Manure Pile Buttress, a variation of “After Six” to the left of “Nutcracker Sweet.” It is a great route, though it has some run outs. He named it “Cocksucker’s Concerto,” undoubtedly making his point as well, though in the guide books it is listed as “CS Concerto.”

Of Troglodytes and Technology

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I glide into the eighth decade of life on earth and the seventh of climbing and riding up and skiing down its snow-covered hills and mountains with the intention to continue doing so more attentively than tentatively. Personal intention and attention are things we can control, or at least influence, unlike the weather and the snowpack and the intentions and attentions of our fellow skiers and other citizens of the planet. Like every person past the age of innocence I am continually reminded of both change and constancy in the things of life and in the intentions and attentions of its peoples, and the world of skiing and skiers is, it seems to me, a microcosm of the larger world.
Years ago, Bob Beattie, one of the best friends American skiing has ever had, passed on to me a universal truism that I always try to keep in mind, especially if a situation or premise seems opaque, contradictory or just feels wrong. He said, “The basics never change.” Those four words have helped me more than words can describe, though sometimes the basics seem buried in an avalanche of modernity and have to be dug out and revived in order to be more fully appreciated, and their corollaries certainly describe some constant verities and directions: “If it looks dangerous it probably is;” “Why would something appear too good to be true if it wasn’t?;” “If it feels bad, it is;” “If you wouldn’t do it if the camera weren’t there and you do it anyway, perhaps your lens is not as well-ground and polished as the camera’s;” and the Kris Kristofferson koan so well known to people of my generation and bent of mind: ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.”
Such ruminations about the basics come naturally to one who counts himself basically fortunate to still be carving tracks seven decades down the slope, still contemplating and observing that in skiing as elsewhere sorting out the basics among the changes is a constant practice, as necessary as weeding and watering the garden. A list of recommended gear for the well-prepared, modern, back-country skier prompts some reflections and observations.
The modern back-country skier is encouraged to carry the following: backpack ($150), helmet ($100), skins ($100), saw ($20 to $50), probe ($30), stove ($50 to $150), cook kit ($15 to $60), water bottle ($15) (thermos ($30) optional), compass ($15 to $70), map ($20), whistle ($3), two-way radio ($35 to $100), phone (satellite if possible) ($50 a week to rent, $1500 to own), shovel ($30 to $70), Avalung ($130) or ABS Airbag ($800), snow study kit ($70 to $120), heart rate monitor ($60 to $650), first aid kit ($20 to $150), transceiver ($200 to $500), bivouac bag ($150), tool kit ($45 to $75), GPS ($300), goggles ($30 to $180), colored ribbon and orange chalk—for the helicopter in case of rescue—(ribbon and chalk are inexpensive but you can’t afford the helicopter), headlamp ($30 to $100), extra clothes, food and the knowledge and training of at least a Level I Avalanche Course $200 to $500) and a First Aid Wilderness Responder Course ($650) as well as the latest local avalanche advisory (prices included as caveat emptor for prospective backcountry skiers as well as caveat for those ‘earn your turns’ back to the basics Brahmins who sniff at the effete, less organic, lift-riding, alpine skier elitists who generally have far fewer avalanche concerns). These and other things are used in one of the three categories of avalanche gear: avalanche avoidance, avalanche survival and search and rescue.
These items and the admonition “be prepared to spend the night out” are among the modern prerequisites for a day trip into the local mountains. For an overnight tour or longer a tent, pad, sleeping bag and more food need to be added. The majority of the items mentioned are tools of security, not toys of recreation. The life of skiing is recreation, and while back country skiing may well be among the most dangerous of outdoor activities (including climbing, hang gliding and BASE jumping), the question arises: at what point do the anxieties of security diminish/destroy/deny the pleasures of recreation? The solo ski mountaineer is an anomaly in today’s backcountry in some measure because the soloist cannot rely on or, really, even consider technology as useful in a crisis, and yet for some the solo experience of the backcountry is the best recreation of all. The expansion of the possible in skiing big lines, steeper slopes and riskier situations has gone hand-in-hand with the technology of security. (It also goes hand in hand with the democratization of abilities that the technology of wider skis and stiffer boots has introduced to skiing.) It seems to me that both metaphorically and experientially the combined physical and psychic weight of all that security both changes and interferes with the joy and freedom of a well executed turn. I have already mentioned that skiing is a microcosm of our world.
It is true that the only sure way to stay out of an avalanche is to ski slopes less than 30 degree steepness, and that gets old and tame and not very exciting. It is (equally?) true as well that having and using all the most modern avalanche technology and scientific knowledge and analysis does not guarantee that the slope analyzed as safe will not slide. There are no guarantees, only risk assessment.
Two recent conversations are relevant. I was describing to a highly experienced and competent back-country skier an incident in Switzerland nearly 40 years ago when I shut down a film shoot involving the day’s work for 10 people simply because I didn’t like the look of the bowl we were set up to ski which slid on its own two days later, substantiating my sense of its instability. It was a huge slide. My friend said, “Didn’t you dig a pit?” I replied, “No. We didn’t know about the science of digging pits to understand avalanche danger.” What I didn’t say to my friend, for whom the techniques and technology of back country security are intrinsic to the experience, is that had we known such things and had the shovels to dig a pit the results might have confused more than clarified what was, for me, a straight forward issue. Pits are a treasure of useful information for the knowledgeable digger, but spatial variability in the snowpack is as real as the differences between every snowflake that has ever fallen or ever will. If we had dug a pit and the results showed stability there would have been enormous peer and professional pressure to keep the show going, to ski the slope and get the shot. While peer approval confers its own kind of security, it is basically as riven with a sort of spatial variability that makes the most trembling snowpack look like Gibraltar. Peer pressure, like the illusion of security in what is in essence a dangerous activity, tends to distract both mind and heart from the basics of survival. Before continuing, I wish to make it clear that this in no way is a call to not dig pits, study the daily avalanche reports, carry the tools of rescue or acquire as much knowledge as possible about the proper use of those tools and the contingencies of disaster, all of which have and will continue to save people’s lives in the back country. It is only to point out that they change the back country skiing experience in more ways than extra weight and expense. For some people they tend to make risk assessment a technological issue and instill an unwarranted confidence that, it can be argued, costs as many (or more) lives than it saves.
I mean, a great deal of backcountry skiing was accomplished before snow science, transceivers and the other gear was developed and used, and, while modern skiing in all ways is of a far higher standard with a greater range of possibilities it is worth questioning whether personal skills of survival are being replaced by technological fixes of security. It is an issue that I think deserves more attention than it gets. One leading avalanche professional commented on the subject, “I’m the sort to embrace technology to give me an edge. Having an edge is all it takes to stay alive sometimes.” The question is this: does embracing technology both give an edge and tend to push one over it?
Of the three categories of avalanche gear, the first—avoidance—is by far the most significant, important and useful. I know many people who have survived avalanches unscathed, a few who have survived with varying levels of damage, and all too many who did not survive. That said, in my view the only attitude and intention to take into the back country is that if you are caught in an avalanche you are completely fucked. Fucked. Fucked. Fucked. Using the gear in and of all three avalanche technology categories requires proper use of human faculties prior to and with at least as much proficiency as with the technology. At the (considerable) risk of appearing to indulge in what a devoutly Christian ski mountaineer in a decidedly un-Christian (or, at least, un-Christ-like) comment about a piece I wrote a few years ago about other changes in our world of mountains as another “troglodytian rant,” there is, is seems to me, a tendency among devotees of the technological to relegate to Purgatory or even lower realms the pure, organic, Caveman’s, basic judgment of the kind that knows in the bone that security and survival are not the same thing. The security of wearing a transceiver in an avalanche is insurance that one’s companions will be able to find and dig out the transceiver, but it does not mean that what the transceiver is attached to will survive.
Not long ago I was talking with a friend who is one of America’s best avalanche authorities. I had been expressing my admitted lack of knowledge tinged with skepticism about the relative merits of the Avalung and, more important, the subtle shift in a sense of security and thinking about the consequences of risk its bearer will take into the mountains. I know that a (very) few skiers have survived avalanches because they had one, but I was questioning the premise that most skiers caught in an avalanche will have the time, presence of mind and ability to grab the air tube, place it in his or her mouth and keep it there while the avalanche runs its bumpy course and finally buries the Avalung equipped skier. My friend agreed that it could be a problem but that a skier about to ski a slope that might slide will have the mouthpiece handy in case it becomes necessary. My friend prefers the ABS airbag system that will help keep the avalanched skier or at least the airbag on the surface, partly because the ABS rip cord is more accessible and easier to engage than the Avalung mouthpiece. An avalanche pro I know says  “…almost every time I put the Avalung mouthpiece in at the top of a run I hear a voice: ‘Can’t hurt. Could help a lot.’”
I agree.
However, as I carve tracks into the eighth decade I hope to continue my basic Troglodyte ways of never skiing a slope that I even suspect might slide, whether skiing alone or with a partner or partners. And though I make sure my backcountry partners carry shovels and know how to use their transceivers, I shy away from seeking a security I do not feel in a bag of air or a mouthpiece that any avalanche worth a collapsing snow crystal might rip out of my mouth as quickly, easily and irrevocably as, say, the SEC’s most recent failure to adhere and pay attention to the basics and protect the American economy.

A True Hero of the Old West

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“We have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.” Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
Skiing is as crucial to the vitality of many mountain towns of the modern west as, say, mining and logging and ranching once were and, in some places, still are. It is arguable whether the cattle, mining and logging barons (some of them robbers, some not), and the gunmen who did their bidding, of the west’s 19th and early 20th centuries could be viewed as heroes, but they certainly were powerful icons of undisputed influence who have, for the most part, left environmental and therefore social devastation in their clear-cut, open-pit, over-grazed, violent wake. Skiing, however, has some genuine heroes who, as Joseph Campbell points out, have left a thread to guide us to the center of our own existence where it is possible to see more clearly what we do and why and what it might mean.
Each year there are more and more skiers venturing into the backcountry. They seek different rewards—nature, solitude, untracked skiing, a relief from the congestion, pretension and effortless convenience of modern ski resorts and a better workout than can be found on their lifts, and adventure with consequences for lapses in judgment, knowledge or respect—traveling out to find “the center of our own existence.”
And in western America the first great hero of backcountry skiing must surely be the Norwegian immigrant known as Snowshoe Thompson. Born Jon Torsteinson-Rue (later changed to John A. Thompson) April 30, 1827 in a small town in the Telemark region of Norway he came to America at age 10, living in Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin before moving to Placerville, California in 1851 to join the gold rush. In 1855 he saw an ad in the Sacramento Union newspaper: “People lost to the world; Uncle Sam needs a mail carrier” to carry mail from Placerville east across the snow of wintertime in the Sierra Nevada to Mormon Station, Utah which later became Genoa, Nevada.
Like most Norwegians of Telemark he had learned to ski as a child and brought those skills to the New World. He was the only applicant for the mail job, and in January 1856 a crowd in Placerville watched him leave on his first 90 mile journey across the Sierra. His homemade skis (called ‘snowshoes’, thus the nickname) were 10 feet long, made of oak and weighed 25 pounds, though in later years he got them down to about 9’4” and a bit lighter. Few in the crowd thought he would make it, but five days later he returned, having delivered the mail going east and bringing back the mail going west. Thus began the career of a true hero of the old west, the father of California skiing, and a truly legendary postman.
Two to four times a month for the next 20 winters Thompson made the trip, 3 days east, 2 days coming back west, covering between 25 and 40 miles a day. Because his sack of mail weighed between 60 and 100 pounds he carried minimal personal equipment: a few crackers, some bread and dried meat to eat; a heavy Mackinaw and a wide rimmed hat for shelter and sleep. He didn’t use a compass and once said, “There is no danger of getting lost in a narrow range of mountains like the Sierra, if a man has his wits about him.” Every modern day backcountry skier—with lightweight tent and sleeping bag and insulated mattress, compact stove, skis, boots, poles, gloves and layered system of clothing weighing less that one of Thompson’s skis, GPS, cell phone, transceiver, shovel and probe—can appreciate the simplicity and austerity of Snowshoe’s tours across the Sierra.
The Sacramento Union wrote of Thompson, “His reliability, kindness and physical prowess quickly earned the admiration and respect of the Sierra residents.”
He was never paid for his efforts and service. He continued to do it for reasons that are speculative; but every skier can appreciate that skiing is something other than the economics of skiing, especially in the backcountry. Ron Watters wrote of Thompson, paraphrasing Dan DeQuille “The mountains were his sanctuary, and storms were just another part of its raw beauty. On his skis, he could freely move across the snow covered landscape. The feeling of freedom must have been never more real to Thompson than when gliding downhill, holding his balance pole out in front of him, dipping it one direction and then the other, his wide-brimmed hat flapping in the wind and the Sierras spread out in front of him. At times like that, he must have felt like a soaring eagle.”
And S.A. Kinsey, the postmaster of Genoa, where Thompson is buried, said, “Most remarkable man I ever knew, that Snowshoe Thompson. He must be made of iron. Besides, he never thinks of himself, but he’d give his last breath for anyone else—even a total stranger.” A true hero of the old west, at the center of our own existence.

Water, water………where?

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Most of the living tissue of every human being is composed of water, constituting about 92 percent of blood plasma, 80 percent of muscle tissue, and 60 percent of red blood cells and over half of most other tissues. Water is an important component of the tissues of most living things. This (in its unpolluted, natural state) odorless, tasteless, transparent substance is the world’s most familiar and abundant liquid, covering about 70 percent of the surface of the earth, some of it in solid form (ice). In varying amounts it exists as well in the atmosphere. Water is the lifeblood of planet earth.
Put another way: as goes water, so goes life on earth. Water is the ultimate indicator.
Forty five years ago all indications were that the water of the U.S. wasn’t doing too well. Some people knew that, but many more were too busy or detached to know it, or, perhaps, too invested in the status quo of industrial pollution to want to know. It took something dramatic to get the country’s attention. On June 22, 1969, a train on a bridge above the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio dropped a few sparks into the waters of that river which were so polluted with industrial wastes that these sparks caught them on fire. Flames roared fifty feet into the air from these waters, and the images from this event were covered in the national media. Even the busy, the detached and the overly invested could not ignore the wrongness of the waters of life on fire. Rivers are supposed to nurture life, not burn it. Water is for putting out fires, not fueling them.
The public indignation over the Cuyahoga River fire eventually led to legislation known as the Clean Water Act, one of the most successful environmental laws in American history. It was enacted in October 1972 in a sadly rare example of the U.S. Congress exhibiting more courage than callowness by overriding Richard Nixon’s veto. At the time only 30 to 40 percent of America’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters were considered safe for fishing or swimming. Thanks to the Clean Water Act of 1972, today nearly 60 percent of the country’s waters are considered safe.
While having 60 percent of the waters of life safe to swim in and fish from is better than 30 percent, it still means that at least 40 percent of the waters of America are dangerously polluted. 40 percent of our country’s lifeblood is toxic. Whether this number is acceptable can be viewed, I suppose, as a personal decision except for those persons adversely affected by other people’s decisions; but with the energy industry’s assault on environmental regulations in full swing and escalating every day that percentage will climb. We are in the process of reverting back to the water quality standards of 50 years ago, and each of us is mostly composed of water. The implications are obvious.
Water is the ultimate indicator.
Industry is the largest polluter, but not the only one. Many communities discharge untreated or only partially treated sewage into waterways, threatening themselves and their neighbors and all life downstream. Thorough treatment of sewage destroys most disease-causing bacteria, but does not take care of viruses and viral illnesses. Most sewage treatment does not remove phosphorus compounds from detergents which cause eutrophication of lakes of ponds. That is, it kills them.
Other contributors to the mix of undrinkable, unfishable, unusable waters include runoff from highways with oil and lead from automobile exhausts, construction site sediments, acids and radioactive wastes from mining operations, pesticide and fertilizer residues and animal wastes from farms, feedlots, dairies and hog factories. Almost all water pollutants are hazardous to all life forms, including humans. Sodium is implicated in cardiovascular disease, nitrates in blood disorders. Mercury and lead are known to cause nervous disorders. Many contaminants are carcinogens. Polychlorinated biphenyl compounds (PCBs), used in lubricants and many kinds of plastics and adhesives, cause liver and nerve damage, skin eruptions, vomiting, fever, diarrhea and fetal abnormalities. PCBs and DDT, banned in the U.S. since the same year the Clean Water Act was enacted but still manufactured in several other countries, are widespread in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Dysentery, salmonella and hepatitis are just three of the maladies transmitted by sewage in drinking and bathing water.
Once pollutants reach underground water tables it is somewhere between very difficult to impossible to correct, and it spreads over wide areas.
In western America we have historically tended to take water for granted since we had an abundance of it nearby that was safe for drinking, bathing and fishing. And if water wasn’t handy we could always build a few dams, dig a few canals, buy a few water rights and politicians from the next state over and get on with business as usual which is often confused or conflated with progress.
But that dynamic and reality has changed, even if human expectations have not.
If history is any indication, it will take another Cuyahoga River fire type of incident to shake the citizenry out of its lethargy about the state of its waters. In the meantime, and, in fact, in all times, each and all of us affect the state of our rivers and streams and lakes and oceans, and we are responsible for them. That’s because we are responsible for the lifestyles we lead, the cars we drive, the products we buy, the companies and industries we support, the food we eat and our knowledge of where it comes from, and, of course, for the people we elect to manage our government according to the dictates of the industries that pay for their campaigns. These things affect the quality of the waters of life, and water is the ultimate indicator.
And what water indicates is a big, big, fracking problem, brothers and sister, fellow inhabitants of planet earth. What are we going to do about it?

Remembering Galen and Barbara

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In 1969 I was walking along the base of El Capitan in the lovely Yosemite with a couple of climbing buddies when we ran into Galen Rowell. I was new to climbing and not up on my Yosemite climbing history and had never heard Galen’s name, but we were introduced and I was immediately struck by the fierce intensity of his person. His handshake was firm, his smile sincere, and there was a gleeful, wild passion in his eyes that I liked and trusted from the very beginning. We climbed together part of that day and began a friendship that endured and immeasurably enriched and informed my life.
Galen Rowell immeasurably enriched and informed the lives of many, many people. I believe Galen’s work has enriched and made more secure the lives of all the creatures which inhabit the earth. I say this because that work has raised man’s awareness of the beauty, the inherent dignity, the fragility and the spiritual dimension of the wild places, the wild creatures, and the wild people of the world. As we all know, too many of the wild places are being polluted and destroyed, too many of the wild creatures are either domesticated or on the verge of extinction, and far too many of the wild people are becoming corporate executives. Only human awareness can save the wild, and we need the wild.
We need the wild in order to survive. Nature needs the wild in order to be nature. We need the wild as individuals, as a people (Americans in our case), as members of the biological community of the planet (Homo sapiens). Galen’s images, writings, activism and the path of his life are reminders to us of that need. There are others better qualified to comment on Galen’s contributions and accomplishments in the climbing world, and others still who know far more about the skill and beauty and ultimate value of his photography and writing. But as his friend I know that the essence and source of his success, accomplishment and vision was in that wild passion he brought to whatever he was doing. I have known very few people with the kind of energy and ability to focus in the moment as Galen Rowell. Whether he was climbing, taking photographs, giving a talk, discussing the ideas of Konrad Lorenz or the observations of John McPhee or the music of Villa Lobos, or taking one of his power runs in the Berkeley Hills, life was always an adventure for him. And, of course, anyone who was ever in an automobile with Galen at the wheel knows that driving with him was always a memorable adventure for his passengers.
It has been one of the great privileges of my life to have shared some of that adventure with Galen—-in his beloved Sierra, in the Rockies, in China and Tibet, and, of course, in Berkeley and Yosemite.
In the mid 1970s I was working as a ski coach in Squaw Valley. A woman named Barbara Cushman was involved in a small clothing company called SPACE COWBOY, and she wanted to make ski parkas for our coaches. I met her and her handshake was firm, her smile sincere (and beautiful), and there was a no bullshit honesty in her eyes that I liked and trusted immediately. She said she would make (and sell) us the best parkas we had ever seen. True to her word, as always, she did. All the coaches cherished and stayed warm in our SPACE COWBOY parkas. A couple of years later she had left behind her SPACE COWBOY phase of life and was working for the North Face when we met again and she became a good friend. Barbara was a rare and charming combination of toughness and vulnerability, personal ambition and concern for the world, playfulness and seriousness. Like Galen, she had a wild and deep source of energy and a great ability to focus on the task at hand. As a businesswoman she could drive a hard bargain, but she believed in what she was doing and she always delivered the best. Barbara strove for excellence with integrity in everything. Those two words—excellence and integrity—come easily to mind when thinking of Barbara Cushman Rowell. She was a loyal and wonderful friend to me, and we had a lot of good times and many laughs together.
When Galen and Barbara met in 1981 at the North Face, it was love at first sight. They immediately embarked on a phenomenal partnership. Like every relationship, theirs was not without difficult times, but I consider Barbara and Galen to be one of the true great love stories of our circle of friends. In so many ways they were a perfect match. The most obvious example is that while Galen provided the images that made Mountain Light what it is, it was Barbara who made the business of Mountain Light what it is. They supported, encouraged, prodded and pushed each other in the life long project of continuing to grow, continuing to learn, and continuing to expand their personal horizons and capabilities.
Sometime in the late 1980s I noticed that I seldom thought of Galen alone or of Barbara alone. I thought of them as Barbara and Galen, Galen and Barbara, a unit, an entity larger and more significant that the sum of the two of them. And to the end, that entity of those two beautiful people continued to grow and to explore and experience life with wild passion and no bullshit honesty.
We should all do as well.
And there is this: a few years ago the Yosemite Institute hosted an event in Galen’s honor. I was asked to say a few words. Though I had planned on saying something else, on the spur of the moment I took that opportunity to publicly thank Galen and Barbara for being my friends for many years, for their support and encouragement in some very bad times, and for sharing in the good ones. I told them I deeply valued their presence on this earth, and I thanked them for enriching and informing my life. I am so very glad and grateful that I did that when I had the chance, for there will never be another.
It seems to me that the most meaningful, living tribute each of us could offer to Galen and Barbara is to make the extra effort to keep in touch with those who have mattered in our lives and to make sure they know they matter. Keep in touch with old friends. Keep in touch with new friends. Keep in touch with adventure. Keep in touch with passion. Keep in touch with the wild. Keep in touch. Keep in touch. Keep in touch.
And say “thank you” for family, and “thank you” for friendship while you can.
Thank you.

 

 

Downhill Slide

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Every person who lives in or near or who visits any ski town in America has cause to read “Downhill Slide” by Hal Clifford. Every person interested in the effects of the corporate bottom line on the daily life of common people and the larger (and common) environment has cause to read this book. Every American mountain town citizen who has not been disconnected from the world around him or her by greed or become brain-dead and frozen-hearted from the cumulative effects of looking at life from the ostrich position has cause to read this book. Even the latter have cause to read “Downhill Slide,” but their reaction to it will be different than those whose love of skiing, mountains, elk, deer, lynx, wolves, eagles, clear running streams, authentic experience, the natural world, and community as something more, and more valuable, than political and economic power is deeper than, say, a latte topping, a copper roof on a 50,000 square foot house lived in two weeks a year, or the relationship between, say, the President of Vail Resorts and the Latino population of the trailer parks of Leadville, described by Clifford as, “hardworking, foreign-born, often semiliterate laborers, many of them illegal, who commute long distances to work the menial jobs that keep four-season ski resorts functioning.”

This book is properly described as “an impassioned expose” of how America’s ski corporations “are gutting ski towns, the natural environment, and skiing itself in a largely futile search for short term profits.” Most people who have spent their lives in ski towns know this at some level, but “Downhill Slide” is the first time that all the relevant history, the pertinent facts, the well researched documentation and such an informed insight has been gathered in one place so that the big picture can be seen by the little people. Clifford has done a masterful job of journalism, and the ski towns of America and everyone who loves skiing and the mountains should be (and, I believe, will be) grateful to him. For he not only describes the uninviting, destructive and inauthentic social and environmental landscape of corporate American skiing, he suggests a genuine option to the predominant theme park culture and business of today’s Ski Town USA. That alternative is nothing more radical or complicated than shifting control of local businesses away from absentee and usually corporate ownership to local control. It is a concept as authentic and American as Mom, apple pie, the town hall meeting, self reliance and self determination.

“Downhill Slide” is full of lines like “One does not have to be a hard-core environmental activist to question the wisdom of letting corporations develop public land in order to service their debt and boost shareholders’ profits without materially advancing the public good.” Clifford dispels any illusion the uninformed or the naïve may have that the U.S. Forest Service is able to protect publicly owned lands for the public good. He writes, “There are plenty of individuals in the forest Service who recognize their agency is falling down on the job and who wish things were different. But so long as the agency is obliged by Congress to find its funding in places beyond Capitol Hill, it is going to be compromised in its stewardship of America’s public lands. Those who pay the highest price for this co-opting reside in the communities, both natural and human, situated near ski resorts.” The key phrase is “both natural and human.”

It is evident and well documented, but not well enough publicized that Clifford is accurate when he writes, “The development and expansion of large ski resorts on public lands degrades the natural environment in ways that are as pervasive, far reaching, and difficult to remediate as those caused by excessive logging, grazing and mining. Around ski resorts, these consequences are effectively permanent.”

Clifford describes several instances of the impact of ski resorts, directly or indirectly, on the migration paths and calving habitat and, therefore, survival of elk, including a herd in the Roaring Fork Valley of Aspen and Snowmass. Local residents have long been critical of the Aspen Skiing Company, the U.S. Forest Service and local government’s ineffectiveness in protecting these elk. Many years ago a high ranking official of the Aspen Skiing Company (which today has the best environmental policies and record of any American ski resort) said to me in reference to this very herd, “Fuck the elk. They’re going to die anyway. We might as well get it over with and get on with it.” By “it” he meant progress, development, the fattening of the bottom line. Though this particular official would publicly and hypocritically deny his own statement, just as corporate ski executives and ski town developers all over America would distance themselves from the attitude behind it, “Fuck the elk” (and the water, and the environment, and the people who commute 100 miles a day and more to work for less than $10 an hour) is the modus operandi of the corporate ski world of America. Clifford describes this world with insight, facts, and unflinching honesty.

He touches on the philosophical/theological schism in western consciousness about the proper use of land, particularly public land. He asks, with a touch of irony, “Is nature a warehouse or a temple? (Albeit perhaps a temple with a gym attached.)”

And Clifford does not leave unscathed the warehousers and the novus rex of Ski Town USA. “The conceit,” he writes, “Is that money can get for you what you gave up. The implicit message in the marketing of the modern skiing lifestyle, and especially of the real estate associated with it, is that although the buyer chose at an early age not to drop out and live an alternative life on the edge, but instead to stay on track with his or her nose to the grindstone—that despite this fact, with enough money, the buyer supposedly can go and purchase the alternative life he or she did not choose. Stated like that, such as assertion seems patently false.”

Yes it does because it is, but there is nothing false about “Downhill Slide” or the assertion behind it. Hal Clifford has performed an invaluable service for the ski towns of America. His book is a cautionary tale, and, more, what it describes can be viewed as a microcosm of the effects of corporate ownership on mountain communities, their citizens, wildlife, and the environment throughout the world. “Downhill Slide” is a reminder of some of the consequences of ignoring John Muir’s insight of 1869: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

“Downhill Slide” is hitched to all our lives and is a great read.

 

Emile Allais

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On October 17, 2012 Emile Allais died at the age of 100. The following is from my essay “Europe: Fourth Time Around” about a trip to Europe in 1973 with Pat Bauman and Jon Reveal to make a film for Warren Miller. The essay appears in my book “Night Driving.”

 

Emile Allais. A magic name in different times and places of the skiing world. Emile was world champion before I was born. He was the leading French skier of the 1930’s. During World War II he belonged to the French underground. After that war he went to Sun Valley to teach skiing. In accordance with the mentality of that Austrian dominated place, Emile, one of the best skiers who have ever lived, was relegated to teaching beginners on Dollar Mountain. He took this in stride and taught his pupils quietly and well. In those days, as today, the Exhibition Run on Baldy was one of the most serious ski runs in America, and it had never been skied without several turns. One day, during his lunch break, Allais took the bus over to Baldy, rode the lifts up to Round House, skied down to the top of Exhibition, stopped to check it out, and then skated four or five times into the first schuss of Exhibition. When he finished, he skied down River Run, took the bus back to Dollar, and taught his afternoon beginning classes in skiing. His point had been made on all but the emptiest of heads, but he left Sun Valley the next year.
Allais then became the first Director of the Squaw Valley Ski School. When I was a young boy I used to watch Emile every chance I got to ski at Squaw. It was amazing that a man could ski that well, that fast and with such assurance. He was one of my first boyhood heroes. He was the coach of the 1952 U.S. Olympic Ski Team and Brooks Dodge later said Allais was the best coach he had ever known. It is worth remembering that Bill Beck’s 5th place finish in the 1952 Olympic downhill was until 1984 the best U.S. result in that event.
Now Allais is Director of Skiing at Flaine, and he owns a large ski shop there: He is 61 years old, has a beautiful mane of white hair, and is a gentle, soft spoken, reflective man. He has a three-year-old daughter, a thirty-year-old wife, and he wants to have another child.
Warren used to teach skiing for Emile at Squaw Valley in the early 1950’s and he holds high esteem for Allais. The grand old man of skiing was very receptive to Warren’s request to ski with us.
And early one morning all of us were on the first telepherique up the mountain. We were going skiing with this fine, grey-haired old gentleman who used to be a champion. We would have to slow down, take it easy; and in the privacy of our own minds, all three of us were condescending; and that attitude is a mistake in any situation. We knew that Emile sets his bindings so loose that none of us would be able to make two turns without coming out; and how, we thought, could anyone ski hard, fast or in difficult terrain with bindings so loose? With feeling, with feeling.
None of us will forget that day. That evening I wrote in my notebook: “Emile really blew us out today. He was leading, and we were honored, however condescendingly, to be skiing with him. After all, he is 61, and his mane perfectly white. On the first take he just smoked down the mountain doing fast, short turns in marginal snow, jumping off small cliffs and, in short, gettin’ it on. I was grinning (skiing last) and thinking, ‘you sly old fox, Emile.’ And we had to ski to keep up. I loved it.”
After the take, Warren said to Jon, “Now that he’s got your attention, what shall we do next?” Later, Warren mentioned that everything in life depends on your attitude. “Emile still skis the hardest runs. He works only during the winter. In the summer he goes sailing in the Mediterranean. He has enormous amounts of energy that some would mistake for enthusiasm; but he covers it with a quiet, almost reserved dignity. He must have been a hard competitor, and a ferocious fighter for the underground. I have noticed that he spends a lot of time looking quietly at the mountain. He has a lot of years’ experience and living to reflect upon.
From my notebook: “Emile gives me great joy and confidence. I can look forward to, with luck, 30 more years of good skiing. At least.”
When the light got too bad for filming we went skiing with Emile. Headed off into untracked snow, full of trees, gullies and steep, rolling terrain. We were cruising along at a moderately high speed when Emile disappeared into a gully, losing it just as he went out of sight. I stopped at the edge, more than a little concerned, and looked down to see Emile sitting in the snow, both skis off, snow all over him, and laughing like Chaplin makes you laugh. He laughed and laughed, and I couldn’t help but laugh with him. “Oh,” he said with gentle firmness, “it’s good for us to fall down every now and then,” and he laughed some more.

 

Finding Friendship in Snow

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A big winter with an unusually heavy snowpack leads to a big spring’s runoff which will be a benign wetness or a destructive flood, depending on a variety of factors. Among them are location, how fast the snowpack melts, when it melts, how full (or not) are key reservoirs at crucial times, the strength of levees and what progress and hubris has developed within historic floodplains. Big snow years, periods of drought, times of flood, and other natural occurrences like forest fires, tsunamis and earthquakes are as natural, recurring and predictable as……well……big snow years, periods of drought, etc.
It was only a hundred years ago that the beginning of a reliable method of measuring the water content of a snowpack in order to estimate the size of the springtime runoff was developed. This was almost entirely through the efforts, ingenuity and imagination of one man, Dr. James Edward Church, Jr., known as “Ward” to his friends. Church was born in Michigan in 1869 and was a professor at the University of Nevada in Reno from 1899 until his retirement in 1939, teaching courses in Latin, German and the appreciation of literature and beauty in art and nature. The Church Fine Arts Building on the University of Nevada campus in Reno is named after him, and his and his wife’s ashes are interred in its cornerstone.
One description of Church reads, “Quiet and unassuming, he was the essence of the Renaissance man, with his interests in science, the classics and art. Dr. Church died in Reno on August 5, 1959 at the age of 90.”
Church, the accomplished Renaissance man, became fascinated with the Sierra Nevada, a completely different landscape from his native Michigan, particularly Mt. Rose which rises above Reno like a sentinel. In 1895, on a dare, he made the first known mid-winter ascent of the 10,776 foot peak. Church and his wife, Florence, made many winter ascents of Sierra peaks, including Whitney and Shasta, and they wrote about their adventures in the Sierra Club Bulletin. Though their backcountry gear was rustic and heavy by modern standards, it is reported that Florence lined their sleeping bag with rabbit furs.
His attraction to mountains was intellectual as well as adventurous, as befits a Renaissance man. In 1906 Church and Sam Doten of the University’s Agricultural Experiment Station built by hand a weather observatory on the summit of Mt. Rose, ferrying all material either by backpack or horseback. The observatory recorded data on snow deposits, wind velocities and runoff, and its remnants are still in place. Church developed the Mt. Rose snow sampler, a hollow metal tube with a serrated collar which removed a core of the snow pack which could then be weighed to calculate the water content.
Church developed the first system for accurately comparing snow and water content against the subsequent flow of streams in the Lake Tahoe area which allowed people to forecast water availability and to plan accordingly, in the case of Tahoe by knowing how much water to let into the Truckee River at what time of year. This system became known as the percentage or Nevada system and became the standard one used in the west. It is in use today throughout the world.
Though Church was a fine professor and popular with students, he was world famous because of his expertise with snow surveying which had nothing to do with his chosen profession. He became a world traveler as a snow survey consultant, visiting and working in Russia, Europe, Greenland, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Argentina, all of which used the Nevada system to provide runoff forecasts and regulate reservoirs.
After an eleven month study in Argentina, Church, described as a peace-loving man, noted that in both the Andes and the Himalayas water sources were in one country and their outlets in another. He wrote, “Thus, barrier ranges and trunk streams merge national interests like children in a family. My wanderings have become adventures in international peace. At the end of the rainbow I sought snow and found friendship.”
How very many people who live in the mountains and mountain towns of western America can identify with that statement, “At the end of the rainbow I sought snow and found friendship.”
In this time when the snows of winter are changing patterns and moving north and the leaders of our nation continue to seek oil and power and wealth and continue to find enemies, it is good to remember Ward Church, the Renaissance man who sought snow and found friends and adventures in peace.

 

Bargaining for Eden

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“Greed is all right, by the way… I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.”
Ivan Boesky
“Money doesn’t talk, it swears…”
Bob Dylan

Every so often a book is published that brings the larger world into clear focus through a well-polished, high-quality lens directed at one small part of that world. “Bargaining for Eden” is such a book, and everyone who is interested in the human condition and the natural environment and their connections to and effects on each other will be well served by reading it. Stephen Trimble’s skills and perseverance as an investigative reporter honors the craft of writing and serves its readers by bringing integrity, honesty, intelligence, humility and hope to a story that is about their antonyms.
The larger story here is that of the diminishing and degraded landscape and environment of the American west and the reasons it has gotten that way. The smaller part of the world Trimble focuses upon is the Snowbasin Ski Area in Utah and the machinations by which its owner, Earl Holding, used the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, political influence, obscene amounts of money, abuse of public trust, ruthless and imperious determination and implacable secrecy to expand his financial empire at the expense of the common good and the environmental health of the landscape.
Holding, who is 81 years old and worth approximately $4.6 billion and listed as the 59th wealthiest American by Forbes, also owns Sinclair Oil, Grand America Hotel, Westgate Hotel, Little America, 400,000 acres of ‘working cattle’ land in Wyoming and Montana, as well as Sun Valley. He is a self made man whose financial success in life is the stuff of capitalist legend, material excess and human shortcoming. The ski lodges at Holding’s resorts are unrivaled anywhere in the world for luxurious fixtures and expensive décor, including marble selected personally by Holding and his wife from the “finest materials from around the world” for the bathrooms. One long-time Holding employee who for obvious reasons must remain anonymous said, “If Earl Holding treated his employees half as well as he treats his bathrooms this would be a better world.” As America is a capitalist country and as each of us represents its value systems, “Bargaining for Eden” can be viewed as a morality play and, perhaps, an object lesson for each citizen. Greed, like its companions, lust, gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy and pride, are part of the human condition and no human is exempt from them. Trimble certainly does not spare himself and he makes the case (a weak one in my opinion because Earl’s transgressions against the ideals of perfect morality, environmental consciousness and the common good deserve more weight than Trimble gives them) that his own empire-building, self-serving maneuvers in constructing a small house in the desert of southern Utah makes him not so different from Holding.
As metaphor, however, by connecting his own abuse in developing, owning and thereby unalterably changing the landscape to the demonstrably much larger abuse of Earl Holding’s, Trimble encourages the reader to examine what former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson terms “…our values, our commitment to action, and our sense of connection with place, community, and the essence of who we are as inhabitants of this wondrous planet.”
As metaphor, the development of Snowbasin from local ski area to luxurious development spun behind the smoke and mirrors of hosting a couple of the Olympic events on Ogden Mountain above the “idyllic Ogden Valley” which contains a Trappist monastery and its fastest growing community, Eden, could not be better. Trimble writes, “The seven thousand citizens of the valley, monastic and nonmonastic alike, relish a sense of living in a private paradise. They harbor a fierce love for the place, and the names they give to their towns capture these feelings: just down the road from Eden is its satellite village, Liberty.”
As the title, “Bargaining for Eden: The fight for the last open spaces in America,” indicates this is a sordid tale with a few bright spots (and people) of integrity and hope, most notably (perhaps heroically) in the persons of Greg Parrish and Mac Livingston who own a business called the Flower Patch in Salt Lake City on property Holding wanted for his Grand America Hotel. The Flower Patch wasn’t for sale and, despite his best efforts, political influence, wealth and imperious persistence, perhaps for the first time in his business career Holding couldn’t buy what he wanted. Trimble describes the final negotiation: “On March 20 Mac and his allies had their one and only meeting with Earl….Earl was ten minutes late. When he arrived, everyone rose to greet him except Mac, who remained seated…Earl answered most questions himself. A query about cost led him off into a long monologue about engineering, earthquake protection, and Salt Lake Valley geology…As he left, all once again stood—all except Mac Livingston. He wanted to force Earl Holding to reach far across the conference table to shake his hand, and he told me that he had never seen quite so much hatred in anyone’s eyes as in the glare Earl turned on him.”
If the fight for the last open spaces in America uses hatred as a weapon, it will, like its nuclear counterpart, destroy the landscape and all that live upon it. Stephen Trimble has offered us a way beyond hatred with a great and shocking story of the past and a template for the future in “Credo: The People’s West” which ends the book. The last paragraph reads, “We call it paradise, this land of ours. We call it home. Like our nation, the West is in the middle of its arc. We must remain both vigilant and tender if we wish to preserve its authenticity. We can do this. We are not yet too old, too greedy, or too cynical to take wise action together.”
The first action to take is to buy Trimble’s book, read it, study the credo and act accordingly.

 

 

The Blue Sheep of Rongbuk

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Our last morning at Rongbuk monastery was emotional with farewell to a unique and spectacular place and time. It was 1981 and we were among the first westerners to visit the Rongbuk Valley, under the massive north face of Everest, since China began its experiment with openness to the rest of the world.
At 16, 500 the monastery had been the highest on Earth, the home of some 300 Tibetan Buddhist monks. Rongbuk means “valley of caves” and long before Buddhism arrived from India followers of Tibet’s ancient Bon religion sought out these caves for spiritual quests. The landscape was as stark as it was beautiful, but it was steeped in the energy and tradition of high human spiritual aspiration as well as the highest of human mountaineering ambition.
We were 13 Americans, most of them old friends of mine from Nevada; two Canadians; and three Chinese escorts. I was leader of this commercial trek to see Tibet and its people and to visit the north side of Everest where our permit allowed us to reach an elevation of 18,000 feet, but no higher. Since our Chinese guardsmen went no higher than the monastery where the trucks that had driven us across Tibet from Lhasa deposited them, we were free to do as we pleased and were able above 16,500. That wasn’t much in terms of elevation gain, though a few of us managed to wander up to around 20,000, but it was huge in terms of experience, perspective and appreciation of one of the most stunning and moving places on earth. None of us wanted to leave that last morning. All of us were disgusted and angry with the Chinese because of what China had done and was doing (and in truth is still doing) to Tibet and its people. Everyone in our group was enchanted and filled with admiration and concern for the people and countryside of Tibet.
We had learned that Tibet bore a striking physical resemblance to Nevada and that its people were cheerful, open, curious and deeply religious. They won our hearts with their shy friendliness.
The land, its creatures, its people and traditions had been subjugated and brutalized by the army of the People’s Republic of China—the invader and unwelcome occupier of Tibet, a pugnacious gang of thugs in a temple.
The once exquisite Rongbuk monastery lay in ruins, shelled and reduced to rubble by the Chinese military which might more accurately be described as the army of the Pugnacious Republic of Thuggery. Of the more than 2500 Tibetan monasteries in existence when the Chinese invaded in 1951 less than 10 were intact 30 years later. In the jumbled remains of Rongbuk were thousands of shattered examples of Buddhist art, mani stones and frescoes, the work of centuries by patient and skilled and devoted monks, sad glimpses of another time, poignant reminders of impermanence.
Tibet’s mystery and the allure of Everest had been our enticement, but the dignity and grace of Tibetans in the face of Chinese brutality and desecration of their culture and landscape were our memories. Tibetans know how to smile, even though life has never been easy. The Chinese invasion only made it harder, as always happens when barbarity invades compassion, including, among other things, the deaths of more than 1.2 million Tibetans and the additional deaths by torture of some 26,000, many of them Buddhist monks and nuns. The snow-covered Himalaya loom over sparse, green valleys from which efficient people had long nurtured a living from infertile soil and climate with the tools of labor, intelligence and faith. Our group of tourists viewed both people and landscape with awe. Our Chinese hosts viewed and treated them with disdain.
We had seen a few hares, ducks, geese, a condor-like lammergeir and various other birds and domesticated animals during our journey, but there was a notable scarcity of wildlife. We deduced that this eerie paucity of life in a vast land was related to the conduct of our Chinese escorts. Every time a wild creature appeared, out came the pistols, shotguns and rifles. They were poor shots, though an occasional unlucky hare and pigeon were killed. The most enthusiastic killer (‘hunter’ is the wrong word as it implies deliberation and connection to the natural world) was Tong, our cook, who claimed to be hunting food for us. This was untrue, as none of Tong’s kills were ever cleaned, much less cooked and eaten. Tong killed for the thrill and, perhaps, for the small sense of control in a life over which he had little control; but Tong had his story and stuck to it.
Tong was a handsome, athletic fellow with an abundance of malevolent energy that he channeled into suspicious resentment toward our party. But he was no cook, as three weeks of his mostly inedible meals proved. We learned that he had come to Tibet with the Chinese army. He had married a Tibetan woman and had a family in Lhasa, but he treated the native people with angry condescension and an always visibly implied threat of violence. His profession was coaching soccer and he looked every bit the part of a tough, unflinching Asian warrior/athlete. I often thought that if I had known Tong in the context of coaching soccer we could have found some common ground and trust. But Tong had violated some stricture of Communist life and had been stripped of his job. Cooking for the enemy was his society’s method of instilling humility into his proud soldier/athlete soul and bending him to its will. Such upheaval is common in Communist China. At that time it was not unusual for doctors, engineers and scientists to spend some of the best, most productive years of their lives as field hands and miners to keep them from thinking too deeply or independently or setting any example that might cast doubt on accepted dogma or inspire a questioning of authority. The result in this case was a deeply resentful and hopelessly inept cook who fought back by sabotaging his own social/political system and our physical ones in every way possible. Each member of our group lost between five and 20 pounds during our time together.
There wasn’t much about Tong to like, but if he could not fight without dire and possibly fatal consequences the system that would make of him a cook for the hated westerners, he would and did fight us with every tool at his disposal. He took pride in letting us know he did not need or bow down to us. His government was despicable, his cooking disgusting, his demeanor deplorable, but there was something about his spirit that I admired and that made me laugh (not very often). He was a warrior and he would hold his ground even as that ground diminished, and while he might be defeated and beaten he would never surrender. In that he was more like the Tibetans and perhaps his Tibetan wife than he would ever know.
The last morning of our two-week base camp stay at Rongbuk we were all loaded into the “Chinese Liberation Truck” (the Chinese actually named the truck that in honor of the Orwellian deceit that China had ‘liberated’ Tibet) for the dusty, arduous 500 mile ride on dirt roads back to Lhasa. Emotions were high. My own reluctance to leave Rongbuk was less sentimental than visceral—as if I were leaving home for the first time. We looked with gratefulness, longing and a recognized sense of humility upon Rongbuk and Everest.
Suddenly, a herd of nawa, the graceful, endangered Tibetan blue sheep, magically appeared in the monastery ruins. Two of them jumped up on the remnants of a wall. We knew that the blue sheep were in the valley but we had not previously seen them. It was a thrilling farewell sign, an enchanted few moments, a portent, and a time warp in which man and beast were in harmony.
Like Eden, it didn’t last long.
Tong, rifle in hand, was out of the cab (Chinese rode in the covered cab; paying guests in the open back) with the speed of a trained soldier. As he raised his weapon to fire, an amazing thing happened. Everyone in the back of the truck spontaneously rose in unison and shouted as one voice a warning to the nawa, and, more significantly, a condemnation warning hinting at threat to Tong. We had finally had enough of mindless slaughter. A message in sound via the animal chemistry wireless was transmitted to Tong which said that shooting a nawa would start an international incident detrimental to everyone concerned.
Tong lowered his rifle. He looked up at the westerners he so disliked with a look of bewilderment followed by one of slow, cunning realization on his face.
The blue sheep took the hint and vanished as quickly as they had appeared.
We gave Tong a standing ovation, shouting approval and clapping like mad. The freedom to make life or death decisions could not come easily or often to a poor, over-regulated soldier like Tong; and for that reason when they did come he usually chose death. He was stunned by our exuberant show of approval. The enemy applauding. Then Tong shrugged and gave us a wide, handsome, heartfelt smile, the first we had seen from him. He got back in the truck, still smiling.
We drove out of the Rongbuk valley, gazing back at the north face of Everest as long as possible, feeling good.