I was jolted awake and sat upright in my sleeping bag. It
had to have been past midnight. I could see stars twinkling through the pine
forest we were camping within. My friend's dog had not been alerted by whatever
had awakened me, and she as well as my climbing partner, still slept soundly.
Then I heard it. The unmistakable high-pitched scream of a mountain lion nearby
– but strangely my companions did not stir at all. I was motionless and
listened for several minutes. Nothing. The trickle of water from the stream
nearby was all I could hear. Had I imagined the cry of the mountain lion?
We were here at our basecamp in the Trinity Alps Wilderness
of Northern California and not far from the Stonehouse. We had plans to climb
Stonehouse Buttress, a 1000-foot long vertical and quite technical climb up a
mountain of granite. Our search prior had yielded very little information about it,
save the first ascentionists that wrote a tiny blurb in a 1972 Ascent Magazine
that they encountered “Yosemite-style climbing”. It sounded promising… On the
hike in it looked intimidating as hell.
I was nervous for sure and took the auditory anomaly that
had just awakened me for pre-climb jitters and settled back in to sleep –
tomorrow would be a massive day. Then it happened again. I was jolted upright,
awakened from a deep sleep. It was still nighttime. I waited, I listened. This
time I watched as a streak of light flashed through the trees - A huge shooting
star. I watched it race across the sky and impact and explode in the next
valley over with a massive flash of light - the earth literally shook. I looked
to my friends and they still slept. I was now fairly convinced I was losing it.
I appealed to the spirits of the place and asked forgiveness for our trespass.
I didn’t know what else to do. I cried for a moment. I pulled it together
finally but was afraid to go to sleep, fearing I would be again awakened…
I did fall asleep. And I was awakened again. This time as I
sat up I could see we were all underwater and the surface a few feet above us.
I watched a water-strider glide across on surface tension from beneath. I was
worried my friends would try to breath in so I instinctively took my hand wand
waved it and the water was instantly gone. We were alone in the dry, dark
forest again. Something was happening and I still had no idea what. I sat and I
listened. As I looked straight ahead I could see lights twinkling through the
trees, but we were hours and miles from the nearest city or even home. And
that’s when I left the forest…
The next morning I was of course back, awakened at dawn by the dog nuzzling me... It was a strange way
to start a climb. As we approached up the talus I tried to explain to my
climbing partner what happened. We cast off on perhaps the most physically and
mentally demanding climb I had ever encountered. Sections of rock seemed
glued together by what resembled the solidity of crumbled up saltine crackers
mixed with water that had been left to dry in the sun. I felt committed. We had
just one rope and some of the anchor choices demanded the use of large blocks
of dubious holding power. A retreat would have meant leaving a ton of gear and
trusting suspect rock that made the option very unappealing. We reached the
summit spire and rappelled to a nearby spire that allowed for an easy walk-off.
But on pulling the rope to retrieve it, it stuck. I figured it a sign and made
use of the knife and left Stonehouse with a half a rope. A fair trade I reasoned…
We spent another night in the shadow of Stonehouse. I
requested a different camping spot. This time we slept among boulders and
closer to the trickle of water. It felt comfortable. That night I had powerful
dreams. I dreamt that the water we slept next to was curative water. The dreams
were hopeful, healing dreams and incredibly welcoming after the mind-bending intensity of
the night previous and the climb… Before the long hike out, I knelt at the edge
the stream and drank deeply…
It has taken some time for me to realize this, but I believe
for millenia, this kind of experience has been commonplace and searched for.
It is a distinctly human experience, but sadly one that is getting more and
more difficult to access as we mover further away from the natural cycles and rhythms of unpaved earth. After I got over the fear that I could be “losing it”,
I shared what happened with a professor of Native American studies at Humboldt
State University. He seemed totally unsurprised by my recounting. He smiled,
asked a few more specifics before responding.
“You were in the high country. The Trinity Alps has been
neutral territory for four local native tribes for generations. The Hupa,
Karuk, Tolowa and Yurok all go there to seek power, often to be healers…”
This happened in 1995. At the time it did not make “sense”
to me. Although unique, it now feels somehow elemental and even “normal” having
spent a thousand nights in wilderness. Last night however, I was awakened
again, but I was beneath the roof of my home. I think because I have been
brought into this train of memory again by recent events, and through the sharing
of this experience to others from nearly two decades ago… It is incredibly
fresh again, unforgettable... I realize, that for me, the pull from the high country and from
mountains is truly a gift to be explored and shared because it has the power to
inform us on so many levels.
It was through the magic of the internet at three A.M. this morning, in the glow of electrons, that I found this - thoughts shared by some of
the local Northern California indigenous and published by an ethnographer… I
found it an intriguing way to describe this pull skyward…
Pg.
122"A person who is well prepared ... can go into the "high
country," the physically and spiritually highest mountains. He will
encounter spiritual beings associated with specific places, and they will teach
him – "talk to him." ... these beings are immemorial spirits ... .
... training really ultimately means just sitting down with spiritual beings
and talking with them."
"There’s
great power in tears. ... If you don’t shed your tears your prayer won’t work,
and you won’t get what you’re after."
“When
spirits appear unbidden, in a dream for instance, they come to announce that a
person has a certain option, or potential. It is now up to that person to
realize this potential through application of will power ... . A person might
dream of powerful beings or a place where "power" is available, for
instance, but it remains to obtain the spirit’s blessings and to bring them
under control."
Thomas
Buckley : Standing Ground : Yurok Indian Spirituality. U of CA Pr,
Berkeley, 2002.
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