July 2015
This story features Pistol Pat, from The Dirtbag Chronicles; Four Hours of Fucked
Marty pulled up to meet us for the hike with the Grateful Dead blaring from his car while
sportin’ a Dead vizor.
I knew I’d like this guy, I thought to myself with an affirming nod.
He was 47 years old and had a small stature with hair just about to his shoulders. Turns
out, Marty had an aversion to trails. A bit disconcerting for Pat and me considering our
track record when going off of them (Trail: 1, Molly & Pat: 0).
What about a game trail? Yeesh, I thought to myself, this fella is wild! It apparently doesn’t take Pat and me much time to fuck up in the great outdoors. Good thing we have Marty for guidance.
Something (or a few things) about Marty told me that we were in good hands.
It had been three weeks since the epic fail in desolation wilderness in northern California with my new pal, Pistol Pat (aka Pablo). We parted ways and continued on our solo journeys. Until yesterday. Of all the parking lots in all of the parks, who did I see in a parking lot in Glacier National Park in Montana? Pat.
We were giddy to reunite, sharing our latest antics from tent living and the ramblings of life on the road. Pat stayed at my campground that night and invited me for a hike the next day with a fella named Marty, a family friend of his. Marty tracked grizzlies. Marty also believed that “PCTer’s”—(the hikers of the 2600+ mile hike stretching from Mexico to Canada)—were pussies.
Marty was a mountain man.
When Marty extended an invitation to hike, Pat assumed it’d be no cakewalk. When Pat further extended the offer to me, I anxiously accepted.
Journal entry 7/28/15
“Marty tracks grizzlies. Yeah. Fucking mountain man! Pat said it’d probably be an epic hike, given Marty’s nature and the fact that he apparently thinks PCT’ers are pussies.”
We spent a few miles trekking through a beautiful valley before we were met by a river. I’m not particularly good with rivers, so it wasn’t surprising when I immediately took a gnarly spill. All of my weight landed on the outside of my upper right thigh, on my first step into crossing. It swelled right away and protruded about three-quarters of an inch—a massive welt that I knew would make for a spectacular bruise.
We carried on.
We hiked along the perilous river for quite a while. I noted the beautiful foreground: a flowery meadow around us with nothing but monstrous peaks ahead. Being a bit of a control freak and not having any idea how much distance we’d cover or elevation we’d gain was a new level of spontaneity for me.
Where could we possibly be going? There are no trails in sight and seemingly nowhere to go but up… I contemplated with a quickened pulse and a shit grin on my face.
Marty must have picked up on my energy because at that moment he pointed to the highest peak:
“See that summit?”
I peered up into the sun and nodded. “Yeah.”
“That’s Mt. Henry.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s also where we’re going.”
Holy fuckity fuck! We’re going to summit a mountain? Off trail? With no climbing equipment? How does one even do such a thing?!
I would find out, and my calves would burn more fiercely than they ever had before.
For the majority of the elevation gain, Marty was about thirty yards ahead of me, and Pat was about fifty yards behind me. Every few minutes, Pat and I would turn to look at each other, in an eye-rolling-at-our-own-exhaustion sort of manner, and point with a thumbs up to confirm neither of us were going to die.
This seemed to go on forever.
Marty stopped to smoke a bowl and roll a cigarette, as Marty frequently did, and mentioned that we’d be going over and around a very steep area.
“It’s scary,” he said solemnly. “Not as bad when it’s not raining or wet, but you have to go slow and be careful, especially when it’s windy.”
It’s usually pretty fucking windy on mountain tops… my inner dialogue chimed in.
That day was no exception, and I would later learn that it wasn’t uncommon for winds atop Mt. Henry to reach 100 mph. Marty took another puff.
“The locals call the pinnacles we’ll cross the pillars of doom.”
“How inviting.” Pat and I chuckled.
Deserving of their name, we were soon faced with these pinnacles. They were about thirty feet high and two feet wide on top (or should I say narrow?) and became wider on down to the bottom. The problem was that we couldn’t cross below. We had to cross where they were just a couple feet across. Remember, we’re on the top of the mountain at this point looking down on thousands of feet and what could be our last view. And this isn’t a trail—not a well-traveled area with proven success in crossing like Angel’s Landing in Zion or an anchored climbing route. There was no designated or “right” place to start or end or step or grab. It was a free climb, and it was fucking exhilarating.
Marty led the way, I followed, and then Pat. Marty said to always have three out of four on—two hands and a foot or two feet and one hand. Never two of either off the rock at any given point. Somehow I was comfortable and confident. It felt so natural. I even climbed back up for some pictures. Marty told me I should try climbing because I had excellent hand and feet placement, good use of my lower body, and good weight shifting. A big compliment from the mountain man!
It would be nearly a year before I would indeed try and fall in love with climbing.
Pat and I just sort of stared at each other, bewildered. We were in awe of what we had achieved. We felt rewarded and fulfilled. We sat for an hour or more refueling on water and our usual PB&Js. The 360-degree visibility from where we sat was astonishing.
Finally, a view to top the last legendary vista, Half Dome. A hike to top it, too.
I don’t know how many vertical feet we tackled. Mount Henry’s prominence (surrounding area) is 1,368 ft and its elevation (highest peak) is 8,852 ft. It of course depends on where we started since we weren’t on a trail. It seems the easiest way is an out-and-back hike, which is not the way we went, but that would be a minimum of a 4,000 ft gain. I’m not sure exactly how high we got, but one can surmise that it was about as high as Snoop Dogg before the Super Bowl.
The whole way down was a scramble, technically a class 4 scramble, as I would later discover. This classification is defined as “Technical scrambling on exposed terrain. A fall could result in death.”
We each had to wing it, stopping every few yards or so to evaluate our individual trajectory and contemplate alternatives. Given the disruption of rock and rubble beneath our feet with each step, there was no following in one another’s footsteps. It was incredibly steep. Our efforts were put to shame by comparison when we were met with about a dozen bighorn sheep. Pat immediately pulled out his bear spray, and I just about shat my pants laughing at him. He jolted his head towards me in response with bear spray in hand, assuming a ready position:
“Have you seen the series Planet Earth! I’m not taking any chances!”
When it was all said and done, we made it back to the little town outside the park where I could ice my vividly purple thigh, and we could all decompress and reflect on the day over some Mexican food.
I still believe there are few things better to celebrate victories with than tequila or a cold cerveza.
Pat and I had planned to hike Pitamakan the next day, an eighteen-mile loop. Since Marty had kicked our asses, we decided on twelve miles instead. The trek mostly consisted of me bitching about my calves and Pat about his quads. We got to the top of Dawson Pass, and the highest peak we could see was Mt. Henry.
“We hiked that shit!” Pat exclaimed with conviction.
I stayed with him and Marty that night and made my way to the other side of the park the next day, where I met Marty that evening for a few beers at East Glacier lodge. I’d called Marty once or twice in the years to follow to ask about recommendations in the area for friends or to just say hello, but it’s now been quite a few years since we’ve had contact.
Pat and I would rendezvous for our last time in Yellowstone the day after my lodge date with Marty, where I met his friend Montana from Chicago. Pat got a little sappy on our last night as I sat on his lap while we reminisced about our antics and travels together: Tahoe, wine country, camping in Crater Lake in Oregon, backpacking in Olympic National Park in Washington, and beyond. We shared a long goodbye the next day with a monstrous hug and the agreement that I would visit him in Whitefish, MT. He had decided to relocate there after our ventures together rather than continue on his path in Chicago. He said I had inspired him to take the leap, and this warmed my heart. I never did visit.
