journal entry
. February 12, 1988
Landed on Sun Glacier about noon. The flight in rattled the hangover
right out of me, and severed those strangling roots of reality that is the
world below. The sky’s clear, like blue crystal. The kind of sky they slap
on postcards to lure the tourists in, complete with a shimmering sun
dog around the cold, white sun. I’m taking it as a sign that this climb
was meant to be. The wind’s about ten knots.Temp’s a balmy ten below.
Glacier’s broad as Whoring Kate’s ass, and icy as her heart.
Even so,Kate gave us a proper send-off last night. Even gave us what
you could call a group rate.
Don’t know what the hell we’re doing here, except you gotta be
somewhere doing something. A winter climb on No Name’s as good a
something as any, and better than most.
A man needs a week’s adventuring now and then, adventuring that
excludes bad liquor and loose women. How else are you going to appreciate
the liquor and the women if you don’t get away from them for a
while?
And bumping into a couple of fellow Lunatics turned not only my
luck at the table but my mood in general. There’s little that bums me
more than working a job for a daily wage like the rest of the mice on the
wheel, but the woman sure will push the buttons.
My windfall should satisfy my girls, so now I’m taking a few days
with pals just for me.
Going up against the elements, risking life and limb in the company
of other men just as foolish is something I’ve got to have, just to remind
me I’m alive. To do it not for pay, not for duty, not because a woman’s
nagging your balls blue, but just for pure idiocy is what keeps the spirit
sparked.
It’s getting too crowded below. Roads going where they never used to
go, people living where they never used to live.When I first came, there
weren’t so many, and the damn Feds weren’t regulating everything.
A permit to climb? To walk on a mountain? Screw that, and screw
the tight-assed Feds with their rules and their paperwork. The mountains
were here long before some government bureaucrat figured out a
way to make a buck off them. And they’ll be here long after he’s winding
red tape in hell.
And I’m here now, on this land that belongs to no one. Holy ground
never can.
If there was a way to live on the mountain, I’d plant my tent and
never leave. But holy or not, she’ll kill you, quicker than a nagging wife,
and with less mercy.
So I’ll take my week, with like-minded men, climbing this peak that
has no name and rises above the town and the river and the lakes, that
skirts the boundaries the Feds throw up on land that mocks their puny
attempts to tame and preserve.
Alaska belongs to none but itself, no matter how many roads or signs
or rules are erected on her. She is the last of the wild women, and God
love her for it. I do.
We’ve established our base camp, and already the sun’s dropped below
the great peaks and plunged us into the dark of winter. Huddled in
our tent, we eat well, pass a joint around, and talk of tomorrow.
Tomorrow we climb.
northern lights