19. Matterhorn Peak

I recently read Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums. The story is narrated by a character called Ray Smith; he heads off with his beatnik friends - Japhy and Morley the yodeller - to climb Matterhorn Peak in the Eastern Sierra, on the Nevada border, in search of solitude and the Zen way of life. I enjoyed the book and was inspired to climb Matterhorn Peak myself.

I left San Francisco at 7am on Saturday morning and arrived in the tiny settlement of Bridgeport around midday. There I filled out a wilderness permit before driving the 10 miles to Twin Lakes, following in Kerouac's footsteps. I parked my car at Twin Lakes and set off up the steep Horse Creek trail. The trail led me alongside a chattering brook, through beautiful scented pine glades and eventually up into a magnificent, boulder strewn valley. Kerouac wrote:

With my sneakers it was as easy as pie to just dance nimbly from boulder to boulder, but after a while I noticed how gracefully Japhy was doing it and he just ambled from boulder to boulder, sometimes in a deliberate dance with his legs crossing right to left, right to left and for a while I followed his every step but then I learned it was better for me to just spontaneously pick my own boulders and make a ragged dance of my own.

'The secret of this kind of climbing,' said Japhy, 'is like Zen. Don't think. Just dance along. It's the easiest thing in the world, actually easier than walking on flat ground which is monotonous. The cute little problems present themselves at each step and yet you never hesitate and you find yourself on some other boulder you picked out for no special reason at all, just like Zen.' Which it was.

Kerouac describes the beauty of this valley - part of the Hoover Wilderness - in detail. He does not exaggerate; it loses nothing by comparison with the finest valleys that I have seen in the Alps. The jagged Matterhorn Peak (3738m) rises serenely above it.

Matterhorn Peak

I climbed for four hours and then bedded down for the night at a tiny, unnamed lake just below the North Face. There was a fearsome gale blowing by the time I climbed into my sleeping bag. I made some Kava tea which a friend of mine had recommended to me. Kava is a herbal relaxant; Polynesians consume large quantities of Kava and I imagine it must have some active ingredients since it is illegal in both the Netherlands and the UK. However, I noticed next to no effect. That may have been due to the fact that I was camping at just over 3000 metres, so my breathing and heart rate were probably already rather higher than usual. In any case, I saw many shooting stars which more than compensated for the disappointment of the tea.

Lake Camp and Northeast Couloir

The gale blew itself out overnight and the following morning dawned with perfect clarity. I packed my rucksack and climbed up a long scree slope to the northeast couloir. I had read a description of this route online and it had sounded quite straightforward. This turned out not to be the case. I think the recommendations were intended for winter climbing; with snow and crampons, the couloir would have been steep but not too hard. However, the small amount of snow left over was really just compacted ice and I didn't have crampons. I climbed up the rocks alongside the 'snow'. The going was very steep indeed and the rock was crumbly and treacherous. I was lucky to be climbing alone since I dislodged some fairly sizeable slabs which bounced their way menacingly back down towards the lake.

Eventually I made it onto the eastern ridge. From there I was able to traverse to Matterhorn Peak itself and then pick my way up the less steep south face, though even this had its interesting moments. At the summit I discovered an old metal cartridge box containing a few sheets of paper filled with names and dates. I contributed my empty moleskine notebook as a summit book; I have always thought that is a fine tradition.

I climbed back down the south face and was able to descend the soft sandy scree slope with huge lung-gom-pa leaps. At the bottom of the south face was another tiny lake. This is Kerouac's description:

We finally got to the foot of the Matterhorn where there was a most beautiful small lake unknown to the eyes of most men in this world, seen only by a handful of mountainclimbers, a small lake at eleven thousand some odd feet with snow on the edges of it and beautiful flowers and a beautiful meadow, an alpine meadow, flat and dreamy, upon which I immediately threw myself and took my shoes off.

Kerouac's 'most beautiful small lake.'

It was midday and hot by the time I got to the lake, so I undressed and jumped into the water. There is an interesting physiological phenomenon which occurs when I jump into very cold water (sub 5 degrees): when I emerge, my vision is cloudy for a few seconds. The first time it happened I thought thought there was dust in the air, but I have now noticed it on a number of occasions. I would like to know more about this but I can't find anything online; I'd be grateful for any information.

From the lake I took the pass between Twin Peaks and Matterhorn Peak - a much more pleasant route. The descent back down to Twin Lakes took about 5 hours during which I didn't see another soul; from there I drove back to San Francisco, quite content.

Good Climb

18. Night Swim at the Dolphin Club

Night Swim at the Dolphin Club



Cars backed up to the Golden Gate, bumper to bumper;
Drivers rubberneck through windshields, curiously;
Is it a suicide? Do we have a jumper?
No? Then let’s blame the Governator, spuriously.

The sun is in front of me, descending, blinding;
I’m stuck in rush-hour traffic when I should be unwinding.
This is not right, not how life was meant to be.
I make a U-turn – sheepish, hurried, hot;
Is this too drastic? Have I cut the Gordian knot?

At the Dolphin Club white painted boards catch the last of the light.
This rickety wooden building has sheltered shivering bodies for over a century.
What does it represent? Escape from the quotidian 9 to 5 penitentiary?

I stride out between twin piers,
Without the wetsuit which members frown upon,
And dive into the icy water, transfixing like sharpened spears;
But for Dolphins this cold is the sine qua non.

Just get to the second buoy,
Then the pain will subside.
But the water is black,
I can’t see my arms.
Aim for the flag,
Look for the lights.
But what if I get lost?
Can I swim by the stars?
Would I recognize Orion?
Whose is that bark?
Is it a sea-lion?
Do they feed in the dark?
Are there jellyfish?
Are there eels?
What about those amorous seals?
What of the sharks?
Do they enter the bay?
Be still, mind!
This is not a game I want to play.


It is dark now, too dark to see,
And my goggles steam up, annoyingly.
But my breathing is regular, cyclical, strong,
And I feel that water is my element - here I belong.

The wind has died; the surface is glassy, flat.
Salt water washes away the day’s crust, the caffeine sweat, the cack.
My strokes come easily, epassyterotically;
Thoughts flow gently, hypnotically.

I swim back in beside the pier,
And emerge from the water like a primordial pioneer:
The first to stagger from that inky primal soup,
Bold leader of some prehistoric splinter group.

Memories of the day sloughed off like a second skin,
And the blood is coursing deep within.
My mind is clear and I survey the scene:
Dark sea, dark sky, and one grateful swimmer in-between.

17. Burning Man

I myself have been the victim of more than one inveterate bore who has trapped me in a corner and proselytized about Burning Man. I don’t want to be that guy.

However, I do want to describe this extraordinary event.

Burning Man is an annual week long event held in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, about 7 hours drive from San Francisco. The event attracts up to 50,000 visitors whose camps and installations form a temporary city in the middle of the desert. The city is carefully mapped out in the form of a giant horseshoe, approximately 6 miles from side to side. The open space in the middle is known as the ‘playa’. It is a vast and flat white surface on which enormous works of art are exhibited, including the eponymous effigy of the wicker man which is burnt at the end of the week.

Pyramid Lake, 70 miles south of Black Rock Desert

Black Rock Desert, Nevada

Within ‘Black Rock City’, as it is called, the normal rules do not apply. There is no currency: you either rely on your own supplies, or you barter for goods. Many people set up lounges, bars, clubs and disco tents in which everything is free. There is no requirement to wear clothes and many people wander around naked. There is an attitude of extreme permissiveness; the freedom to take drugs is a part of that.

So, those are the facts. Does it actually work? Well, to an astonishing extent, the answer is yes. I found it very interesting to see that, when people are trusted with the freedom to behave as they want, they tend to behave responsibly. When people visit a bar or lounge where food and drinks are provided through a stranger’s generosity, it is remarkable how rarely that generosity is abused. Admittedly the event only lasts a week; I am not sure what would happen if resources became scarce, but everything seems to function very smoothly for that week.

You certainly don’t have to set up a free bar or disco tent. One of the aims of Burning Man is that people should feel free to offer whatever skills they have. Artists display their creations - there are many spectacular works on display in the desert and many of the pieces would have taken months to create. Other people give trampoline or trapeze performances or set up anything from healing tents to padded dungeons for couples who want to explore S&M and bondage fantasies. And if you just come as an observer, as I did, no one seems to mind.

At first it is disconcerting to be invited into people's lounge-bar style camps and to have drinks pressed into your hand by strangers. However, I thought of Khalil Gibran and reminded myself that there is charity in receiving as well as in giving:

And what desert greater shall there be than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?

And you receivers - and you are all receivers - assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.

Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;

For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.

From The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran

Another interesting aspect of the event is the extreme friendliness of participants. It is of course possible to question to what extent this is real and to want extent it may be fueled by psychotropic drugs. However, it does go hand in hand with the attitude fostered by a community, albeit a temporary one, based on gifting and not selling. I noticed people's friendliness most in the early morning, when I was wandering around by myself, having been woken by the sunrise (since I was sleeping out in the desert in my sleeping bag). Everyone I walked past – everyone who wasn’t doing yoga, that is – would smile and say hello. I started greeting strangers in that way myself and I certainly begun to feel better for it. It makes me think of the school of psychology which argues that certain behaviors will, in and of themselves, lead to certain mental states. Adherents suggest that you should smile at yourself in the mirror every morning because that muscular action will automatically trigger a more positive mental state. It sounds silly but perhaps it works.

For many people, planning for next year’s Burning Man begins as soon as this year’s event ends. My own trip this year was much more spontaneous and only came about because a friend had kindly left a spare ticket for me at the gate. So, I drove the 7 hours into the desert with a sleeping bag, a lightweight camping gas burner, a few tins of chili beans, some trail mix, and a few water bottles. I parked my car on the outside of the outer ring of the horseshoe. From there I was able to walk into the desert and to sleep near the foot of the encircling mountains, hundreds of meters away from the nearest tent.

When I left Burning Man after two nights and three days, I opened the boot of my car to change back into my jeans. As I did so, I had a strong sense that I myself had changed, that I was no longer exactly the same person who had stowed those jeans in the back of the car upon arrival. I think a lot of people have this feeling, and it is partly what keeps people coming back. However, it is hard for me to be scientific about it. Hard to investigate the reasons for this feeling. There are too many variables.

For a start, I love the desert. I have always loved the desert. I love its dry heat and the unabashed intensity of the sun. I love the feeling that the desert is very clean – sure you get dusty but there are no flies, no unpleasant smells. Despite not washing for three days, I never felt dirty. I love the extremity of the desert, its absolutism. Everything is black or white – alive or dead – there are no shades of gray, no gradual processes, no slow rotting or decay. Throw away a banana peel and it will have disintegrated by evening. I love the fact that the desert forces me to confront these extremes and, in doing so, maybe to gain a new perspective on my own day to day concerns.

There are hills and mountains surrounding black rock desert, but the desert floor is flat and white. It reflects the sun’s rays and creates a very intense and unusual light. On the second day I had a feeling that I usually only get when I am high up in the mountains, and even then only rarely. On those occasions, I have the impression that I can see objects more clearly, that the objects themselves are more individualized, more clearly defined. I feel that each object is sufficient unto itself, each object is dignified by its own sphere of existence. The things in the world seem more lonely but also more proud. It is hard to explain but I certainly had that feeling in the desert.

There is a very interesting aesthetic at Burning Man: it feels like a millenarian vision, a Mad-Max post-apocalyptic phantasmagoria, sci-fi meets Conan the Barbarian. It may be what the future will look like. People wander around in every conceivable form of dress (and state of undress) though most wear dark goggles in case of sand storms. Fantastical ‘art cars’ prowl around in the distance – these are the only vehicles which are allowed to cross the immense ‘playa’. They are the creations of Burning Man devotees – for example, a huge metallic spider with eight functioning legs, a fire-breathing dragon and a giant pirate’s ship on wheels. At night these vehicles weave their way across the vastness between floodlit works of art, their edges defined with electroluminescent wire. It is quite a spectacle.

art cars

Tree made from animal bones

You don’t have to be high to enjoy Burning Man, but it helps. I dosed myself with a cocktail of LSD and ketamine and spent some time in awe at the miracle of my own breathing; I felt as if I were breathing life into the universe with each breath. Then I walked some distance out into the desert and conversed with my own shadow. I lay down, limbs splayed, beneath the burning desert sun. I spent an hour staring at a piece of mud (and exploring the interstices of stellar space). I thought I saw infinity in a handful of dust.

Later, when the effects were beginning to wear off, I made my way to one of the music tents on the very edge of the Black Rock City. I sat in the shade of the white canopy and stared out into space; there was nothing between me and the distant mountains. I felt as if I had arrived at the ragged edge of something. I was reminded of the end of Philip Larkin’s magnificent poem, Here:

Loneliness clarifies. Here silence stands
Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken,
Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken,
Luminously-peopled air ascends;
And past the poppies bluish neutral distance
Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach
Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence:
Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach.

I certainly intend to return to Burning Man. It is a fascinating human experiment as well as a tremendous visual spectacle. There were a number of things I was apprehensive about before going, though I need not have been. Firstly, I thought the event would probably take itself too seriously. I don’t think that is the case. I particularly enjoyed the piece of art below, in which a ‘spiritual’ looking woman says, ‘Art will save the world’, to which her interlocutor replies, ‘Fuck Art, I’m here because breasts.’




Secondly, I was afraid of encountering a lot of holier/greener-than-thou attitudes. If anything, the opposite was the case. I was surprised by the wanton burning of refuse, petrol and propane as part of the installations and art cars, and by the generators of the thousands of RVs.

Thirdly, I was afraid of a lack of sanitation and a sense of being packed in like sardines. However, the desert feels pure, the portaloos are plentiful and cleaned with impressive regularity, and space is really the last thing that I needed to worry about.

short self-interview