DESOLATION PEAK:
LOOKING NORTH
LOOKING

1
On the Road

Those afternoons, those lazy afternoons, when I used to sit, or lie
down, on Desolation Peak, sometimes on the Alpine grass, hundreds of
miles of snow-covered rock all around, looming Mount Hozomeen on my
north, vast Snowy Jack to the south, the encharmed picture of the lake
below to the west and the snowy hump of Mt. Baker beyond, and to the
east the rilled and ridged monstrosities humping to the Cascade Ridge.
–Jack Kerouac, "Desolation Angels" (1965)

"The lif so short, the craft so long to lerne."
–Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Canterbury Tales"

We began the pilgrimage, the five of us, to the sacred site before the
song of the bird, before dawn had been birthed, before daystar had
awoken. Much was still in slumber at this stripling, this young and
untried hour. Much was unformed and youthful, waiting for the day to
inform, enlighten and engage. But an awakening was occurring. The
dreams and restless wanderings of the night were almost over. The deed
of sleep was almost done.

I
woke before the notes of the morning were anthemed forth, before the
bride groom of the day left his ancient chambers. I woke with lines
etched deeply in my memory, a script waiting to be reread, returned to.
I needed to sit with the text, the script before I could safely and
surely move onward and forward.

The echo, to be sure, had grown fainter as the years between then and
now had grown, had widened, but the echo was till there, the early
quilled lines on the parchment could not be denied, censured or
suppressed. The smallest nudge or invitation would take me back to this
place of beginnings, of stirrings from sleep and slumber.

The lives of the American Beats, and their literature, had, when young,
awoken, embraced and held me, like a first lover. This could not be
erased or forgotten. This was in the dawn of my days, the dawn many a
moon cycle ago.

This, my Prelude of sorts, my Seven Story Mountain, my Apologia Pro
Vita Sua, my Confessions tells the tale of my inscape and the instress
within such an emerging. I was awakening from sleep and slumber, my
weaning from kith and kin a hard going of it. The naïve trust of
childhood, hard as it was, had to be parted with. “The Songs of
Innocence” had to be left behind, as I, for both good and ill, learned
the demands of “The Songs of Experience.”

I padded about in the low light of the kitchen, preparing a few things
to eat and drink for the journey. My memory turned to an earlier clime,
an earlier time, a dawn like season when much was eager and hungry,
thirsting and longing, no compass nor north star to lead or point the
way for such desiring.

There is no doubt that for many of us, "On the Road" was the Bible, the
sacred text of our era, our generation, a youthful generation that
questioned, defied convention and all the opiate like platitudes and
creeds of the Cold War years. It all began in the 1950s with these
words: ‘I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had
just gotten over a serious illness that I won’t bother to talk about,
except that it had something to do with the miserably weary splitting
up and my feeling that everything was dead’.

We did not want to be dead souls, the walking dead, the dulled yet
successful ones. We offered our trust and souls to the beatific ones,
the beat down ones, our saints and saviours. The rest, they say, is
commentary and footnotes. We had not lived through the depression and
the war, but we were raised and lived off the fruits of those who did.
We were a pampered, a restless, a generation that had been and was
being deceived by much, and we could and would not say yes to the lies
of those who once fought the good fight. “On the Road” was our ikon,
and it taught and told us much.

We would not be rooted; we would not be connected too much that
disconnected us from life and living. We would be ever uncommitted and
unconnected to a way of being that was not of life. We would be ever on
the road, no moss collecting on this rock, outsiders to the thinness of
the age. We said a defiant no to the dimming of things, and the Beats
taught us how to do this wisely and well, so we thought. And then, of
course, there was Howl. It was yet another must read, a canonized text
of the dawn era. Listen again to the stirring words, the uncomfortable
words that, gadfly like, provoked many to anger and action in the
1950s. ‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness’.
Howl was dedicated to Kerouac, Burroughs and Cassady. The circle came
full circle. We were invited, when young, in the dawn and birthing
season of our lives, we were drawn into this family, this tribe that
seemed to speak with such honesty and clarity. Who, but the Beats, saw
the madness of it all and howled with pain and suffering as they did?
Most were just court poets and singers of the empire, all optimism and
Pax Americana. The town of Hamlin was very much in a mess, and the Beat
Pied Pipers saw so, said so and drew us with their song.

And so, the dawn drew ever closer, daystar had risen from slumber. We
met at my place, in Abbotsford, at the base of Glenn Mountain. We began
the trek to the sacred site, to Desolation Peak where the Beat sages
and saga had a beginning. Andrea, Melody, Braden and Angus arrived, as
planned, keen to get on with the journey, reasons different. There was
no red sky that morning. A faint blue appeared on the roof of the
canopy.

Angus had come from Bristol, keen on doing a paper at Oxford on Merton
and Kerouac. He had sown the seeds for the trip. Angus had been to all
the sites, earlier, down the West Coast: Big Sur, Esalen, Berkeley—he
had even contacted Ferlinghetti. All the shrines had been seen, the
saints and their relics coveted and cared for, touched and treasured.

I had been to Berkeley in 1969. My cousin had headed to Woodstock and I
headed, my thumb my ticket west, ever west to the bead and scent filled
streets of Berkeley. I spent the summer on the beaches, on the streets,
on the road, soaking and basking in the many books and poetic vision of
the Beats. I delighted in the publishing venture of City Lights and
heard what I could at and for this season in my life. I found the RC
Beats more to my liking: Rexroth, Everson, the Berrigan brothers and
Merton. I was just open, open to whatever came my way; ready to turn to
the newest fad and fashion in the marketplace of creative ideas and
images, metaphors and new ikons. The invitation from Angus could not be
resisted.

The drive from Abbotsford to Ross lake, cross the border, south into
the empire was fraught with anticipation, revived, restored, renewed
memories, memories that were part of the dawn, of the waking, young
days. The mist was thick in the lowlands as the Volvo with the five of
us packed into it eased and inched its way round winding, asphalt thick
roads, through dense pine and poplar forests, up, up and ever up. We
passed through the just rising towns of Sedro-Wooley, east ever east to
and through Marblemount (the American Alps). The mist was thick,
hanging low in the tree laden valley as we climbed higher and higher,
past Concrete, Newhalen and Diablo (energy garrisons to be sure,
feeding non-stop the growing appetite of Seattle)

Angus was the faithful and firm driver at the helm, as we navigated our
way. The dawn was turning, ever turning to morning as we motored up,
ever upwards. The contours of the mountains could be seen as the mist
parted, evaporated and the glacier white peaks brooded over us, looked
down on us. We chatted about much as we headed up and ever up. The
mountain air was fresh, clean, pure to lungs.

I turned inwards, inscape and landscape speaking back and forth, speech
not to be missed, the echo clear, little or no static. I wondered why
the American Beats had taken and held me, circled many of us Canadians.
Why was I, why had we, as Canadians, been so wooed, wed and bed by
these anarchists and apostles of protest? Why had we allowed these
Americans, these children of Whitman of the long line, Thoreau of
Walden, Emerson of the eternal East and William Carlos of the new
poetics to take our memory, our national birthright from us? The DNA
and genetic code had been deeply implanted, and I wondered how the
imperial message could be removed without much damage, hurt and harm.

The car was warm now, the five of us compact and close, the ideas in my
head rising above the tops of the trees, above the snow packed peaks,
up, up ever up to the blue canopy above. It was not easy to resist, to
oppose, to protest against the dominance of the American Beats in the
True North. It was easy to see through warbirds and birds of prey that
defended the empire against communism, the eagle ever in conflict with
the bear. It did not take much insight to see something was amiss and
askew when American body bags were coming home in the thousands from
Vietnam, COs were aplenty in Canada and the cruder notions of American
patriotism and manifest destiny had lost any moral meaning.

Most of us did not see, though, for most of us were still in the dawn
days, much mist was still about us, that manifest destiny can take many
forms and guises, many garments and cloaks. It was hard to see, in such
a stripling hour, that the dissidents of the empire were also apostles
of the empire. How could we, whiskers not yet with us, see through all
this? The darkness can come as an angel of light, and it takes much
wisdom, many years on the path and trail to see through such things.
The sword of insight is double edged, and we only knew how to swing it
in direction. We were soundly and roundly convinced we had resisted the
empire by bowing, genuflecting and doffing caps and souls to the
American Beats and their animated and never to be forgotten protests,
but, but, but…

My mind and imagination, my leanings and interests, my longings and
loves had been so shaped, so preprogrammed, that we just looked
elsewhere, any place but Canada for the water and meat that could and
would slake the thirst and hunger of our souls and hearts. The dawn was
now well behind us, mourning and morning were with me now as we
continued ever up past mist and tree thick forest. Much was coming
clear, coming into focus as we rose above the lowlands into the
highlands and stone slabs. I could look down and see things better as I
looked ever down and back, ever behind and up.

We followed the Skagit River up past Diablo, Diablo Lake and finally,
surrounded by the snow thick mountains, we found the place where the
long drive ended. The morning was still cool in the higher region. We
took what we needed from the trunk of the car and descended the trail
through trees again, back and forth on many a switchback, the wind
cutting though clothes, biting into skin, finally reaching the south
end, by water’s edge, of Ross Lake. We were picked up, after a phone
call, by the water taxi, from Ross Lake Resort. We sipped much hot
coffee and tea, sweaters well wound round us, as we waited, too long we
thought, for the taxi to cross the water to the bay we were huddled and
doing our best to stay warm in. Boat now with us, we jumped in, found
places to sit, held tight, headed up the Lake, northward, ever
northward.

The powerboat sped with much haste and hurry across the choppy and
white-capped waters of Ross Lake as we headed ever north to the
Desolation Peak trailhead. This was certainly a quicker and simpler
trip than Kerouac would have known. This is where so much of it all
began, I pondered, as we sliced through the dark blue water. This is
where much of it began—glacier white mountain peaks, sturdy and
well-built lookout cabins, ever wary of small fires becoming a forest
blaze that will not halt nor cease, desist nor quit until all becomes
desolation.

Sourdough Mountain held my gaze and attention as the driver of the
silver coloured craft hastened us ever forward, ever towards our mark
and destination. This was where Snyder and Whalen spent their summers
in the mid-1950s as lookout rangers, ever looking out for the fires
that might consume land, soil and nation. These early Beats, perched,
bird like in nest, contemplatives of the most demanding sort, indeed
Zen-like, both meditating on the state of the inscape and landscape and
watching, ever watching and observing, ever quick to say a defiant and
definite No to the ‘vita activa’, the work ethic of Protestant America.
Snyder and Whalen, like many of the Beats of deep longing, turned East,
ever East like those who had gone before, against the grain, against
kith and kin, against the West in search of the self and the West in
the East. The quest was on for a saner, more centered, fuller
spirituality than was being served up in church and synagogue. Much was
being reversed, refound, requestioned on the peaks high above the dense
and thick underground and underbrush of the busy and hectic, the
frantic and frenetic Valley far below, and the Beats (the best of them,
at least) pointed the way to a reversal that would and could take us to
the center and source again. The paths lost were being refound, the old
paths to the ancient wells, springs of life giving waters were being
brought forth. We followed, questions few and muted, the roshi like
lead of the Beats, Suzuki and the Japanese even further ahead, in this
quest and questioning of the Western ego, the imperial I, an identity
that was more mirage and illusion than substance and serious. We were
drawn to a somewhat romanticized and idealized East and Zen, but we
were willing, most willing.

My soul, dawn now well behind me, brunch and 2nd breakfast close
to me, yet still close and near enough to the red rim season, sat on
Sourdough as we approached, past and left behind on our left the cabin
and perch of Snyder and Whalen. I had tasted, was once filled and
digested much good from those who sat cross-legged, turned deep inside
and were transformed by doing so. The Beats, the Beatific and Beat down
ones had burned much dross away, but deeper yet was the Beatitudes. And
it all began decades ago on Sourdough and Desolation Peaks. I looked
back as we were now well past Sourdough and speeding ever closer to
Desolation Peak. The poets of the peaks did still hold me.

We continued our journey northwards, ever up turbulent Ross Lake,
the morning now a bright, expansive and expanding blue, the white high
up a longing lure. We had past Cougar Island, Roland Point, Tenmile
Island and we neared Cat Island. Ruby Peak and glacier thick Jack
Mountain were now well behind and Spratt Mountain, Mount Prophet and
Hozomeen were before us. I had climbed Mount Hozomeen in 1976, from
Manning Park, with an Outbound class, so memories congealed and were
thick as Kerouac and I had much to ponder about looming Hozomeen.
Finally, we rounded Cat Island, the East Bank Trail to our side.

The boatman told us, in a rather firm and not to be forgotten way, that
he would be back by 4:00 pm. And we had better be at the trailhead on
time or he would leave without us. Boatmen and ferrymen do ask their
due of us, at various places on the journey, so we all looked at one
another and agreed we would be by lake’s edge, at forest’s edge, on
time. None of us fancied the long walk up to Canada if we missed the
silver coloured speedboat and the captain with the firm voice and
firmer resolve. Was this captain of our speedboat the ancient mariner
of bygone lore? I was not convinced. He did not seem to be a sadder but
wiser man. He was too much about organization, orders and ordering
about. We stepped from boat to soil firm, rucksacks on back, walking
sticks firm in palms, eager to get on with the journey.

The five of us headed up the dust thick path, midmorning now with us,
through the dense and water hungry forest and foliage, grateful for the
cool and shade of the trees. The higher we climbed, back and forth,
forth and back, the wearier became limb and bone, sinew and vein. We
all wondered, each in their time, how much longer we would need to
plod, foot ahead of foot, knapsacks heavier each taken step. We asked
for the clearing, the opening that would offer hope in the midst of the
heat and muscle weary legs. Water was getting less and less; streams
had dried up by this time of the year. Water bottles were reaching the
empty level. We had been two hours on the dust dry trail, the trees
were smaller than down below, dwarf-like, blue patches appeared more
often ahead of us. The more bends we rounded the shorter, more stunted,
more scrub and survival like the trees in this upper region and clime.
And yes, the dark, shade rich forest was now left behind. The heat of
daystar was upon us, there was only a slight breeze, and human sweat
was strong.

Braden sped ahead, eager to reach the peak. We were too slow, too
plodding for him. Braden’s aunt had spent an evening with Kerouac many
a lunar cycle ago, he had done a painting that evening and she had kept
the relic as an enduring keepsake and heirloom of a few moments well
spent. Braden, a few years back, had visited, with Andrea, Kerouac’s
hometown and Thoreau’s Concord. The line and lineage was strong in him.
Braden had approached the Peak a few years earlier, from the north of
Ross, but he had been turned back. There was no turning him back this
time.

The eagerness of the ascent made much sense. Andrea, not as quick and
nimble, nor long legged as Braden, was close on his heals. Angus and I
panted along much slower. We were the waning elders, yet committed to
touch the peak, sit the sights, sit on cabin steps, take pictures for
posterity. We knew we had plenty of time, and in the spirit of the best
of the Beats, we just wanted to be alert, attentive, awake to the
moment, to each step of the moment, to each signal of the terrain.
Nirvana was only there for those who could be present to the present,
presence meeting presence, fictions gone and the really real there
within and without. Enlightenment was not for those who panted for some
nostalgic past or some hoped for and idealized future. It was in the
Now. Live Now, Now in the present was the advice of the sage’s all.
Melody had slowed to a halt, her heart eager to go on, her legs not
quite as nimble and keen. Melody, journal in hand and heart, found a
place on the edge of the hillside, plucked lush and ripe berries in
full hand, devoured the juice (as did we all to wet dry throats), sat
to see what is inside, what needs to be seen so sight sees aright, to
be faithful and true with what needs to be seen and said. We felt not
right about leaving Melody behind, but she urged us to go ever on.

Braden and Andrea had been on the peak hump for sometime before Angus
and I found our final footing on the warm rock roof. The many
switchbacks taken and ever smaller clusters of trees opened up for us
the fullness of the Valley below and the snow and rock slabbed peaks
about and above us.

We padded about on Desolation Peak, noting landmarks mentioned in
books, the old and open toilet, now in bushes yet still operative. We
pondered just what the desolation might mean. Desolation Peak—an
interesting paradox to ponder. A fire had done its burning deeds in
previous decades, and the tale of what fires do lingered on. We sat on
the edge of the peak, looking north to Hozomeen, jutting up like an
imposing knife-edge, reading Chinese and Zen poetry and koans. It’s all
about a razor’s edge, the edge of a knife, this journey up to the peak
and down, is it not? But, more to the point, this being the point of
destination and journey’s end for us, we, each taking their turn, read
from “On the Road,” the final few pages of “The Dharma Bums,” and, of
course, “Desolation Angels.”

We took many a picture of Jack’s much famed and fabled cabin, of us on
the steps of Kerouac’s lookout nest. We gazed, silently, at Hozomeen,
Snowy Jack, Mount Baker, then down to icy and rich blue Ross Lake. Ross
was built in the 1950s to feed the ever-greater American hunger for
power and energy. We sat on the Peak, the ‘vita contemplativa’ ever our
guest and friend in this high region, the ‘vita activa’ banished, kept
at bay for a moment. It was still and quiet, the ‘quies’ of the
contemplative way working its way into us. A kind breeze drew the sweat
from us. The Alpine flowers, such short lives, were all about us,
heather of various and varied colours joined us for the moment. We
wandered about the cabin, looked in, peered about, pondered what it
would mean to live on Desolation Peak for many months. And again, the
koan-like Desolation Peak whispered much and many things to the inner
ear of the soul.

It was past noon, the bridegroom of the day was on his way home to the
west. I was long past the lunch hour of my life and knew it. I could go
back no more than daystar could. I could fondly retrieve and remember
the hike up the mountainside, but it would soon be time, the warning
from the boatman ever near us, to descend and end this phase of the
journey. We all lingered and loitered, not eager to end these moments
we knew had to end. And yet I knew I had not been in this place for
many a cycle of the moon. That was in the dawn season, and I was in the
early afternoon. The sun spoke as much, as did the shift of shadows on
Hozomeen.

The canopy was a thick blue as I read and listened to more of the
readings from Kerouac and tribe. I looked to the south, the west and
east, but, like some salmon turning home, it was to the north I was
drawn, to the north.

I sat on the sun warmed rock, the firm soil about us, snow above us,
looking past Hozomeen to the north, north up blue water Ross Lake,
north to Skagit Valley Provincial park. I looked, as best I could,
across the border, wondering what I was doing making a pilgrimage to
this shrine, this site, this place of sight for so many. There was much
in me that was part of all this many a fading decade ago.

I still have my correspondence with Ginsberg and the small booklet he
sent me on his read and interpretation of Blake, Blake being the patron
saint of so many Beats. I have my letters with Frye and Raine, also, on
how to read the ever-elusive Blake. This is all in my archives, all
part of my journey there and back again. It would be but a lie to deny
how Blake, Godwin, the English Low Romantics and the Anglo-American
anarchists formed and shaped my soul at one time, at one intersecting
point in the path.

It was now midafternoon, midafternoon and the dawn and early morning
were well behind me, well behind me. It was in the dawn of my days,
when my soul was green that I was here, was here, but now it is
midafternoon and the dawning season and morning are behind me, are
behind me. I am not sure I would go back if it was possible, even if an
offer came my way. The boy that once was is no more, and yet, yes, the
‘child is the father of the man’.

I listened to, in a bemused sort of way, “Desolation Angels” being
read. I realized that much of Kerouac’s desolation was of his own
making. His angels suffered not for truly being beatific, for
incarnating the Beatitudes but for giving themselves to the shadows,
the dark places and erratic impulses within. The peaks of
contemplation, so rich with potential and possible insight, can be
forgotten when the return to the Valley is made. Yet it is not the
Valley that is the problem. Did Kerouac really hear what needed to be
heard or was he still too thin, too shallow, too much the lightweight,
lighthearted voyeur and tourist of the deeper things? And yet, near the
end of his told tale, he saw the vanity of it all. “The Vanity of
Dulouaz” stripped down all the egoism and pretensions, all the folly
and foolishness, all the known yet unspoken worries of the beat down
ones, of those who lived in desolation.

I sat on Desolation Peak thinking about the many ways the fires within
can make us desolate, can dissolve and purify the ego, can rebirth us,
can make us new. And then there are the undisciplined fires of our
passions, desires, thirsts and longings that can burn us to cinder,
drive us mad, enslave and entomb us.

I sat on Desolation Peak looking at the inscape, the landscape, looking
northward, ever to the True North. I thought about peaks, angels and
how each have their subtle and not so subtle counterfeits. I thought of
the Beats, the many tragedies and derailed possibilities, the
desolations that would never be purified by the eternal fire. I looked
up the Skagit Valley and realized there was something quite amiss with
those who only knew protest, who made a fetish of being on the road,
whose shibboleths took the unwary to places of destruction. There was
more than one way to being colonized by a deeper imperial power, a
power that enslaved and broke what was bred in the bones. The deeper
resistance and No never held firm, I fear, I so sadly fear.

It was time to visit another place, another clime, to hear from those
who were the counter culture, the beats of a bygone day, to hear what
it might be like to be, once upon a time, on the road, and once upon
another time, off the road. Carolyn Cassady, being in the thick and
heat of the fire, had seen through all the charming and enticing
illusions of being on the road many a year ago. She saw the boys club
for what it was, the juvenile patriarchy in all its clarity, the
irresponsible Peter Pans for who they really were. Off the Road blows
the whistle on the game, ends the game, calls it an endgame. Off the
Road still holds the heart and head, the questions and questioning that
longs to go deeper, to long deeper, to thirst and hunger for something
that nourishes and sustains. Her arms reached out to the further shore,
to a place of rest and life, to the place that offers more than the ego
can bear stand.

And so, as daystar began his final descent for the day, and afternoon
was waning and departing, we turned from the peaks, we began our
descent. Many a bramble and underbrush had been cleared away. I turned
to another place and clime, a clearing in the deep woods, in the
forest, a clearing from which new sights could, might be seen, might be
sensed and savoured. The fellowship, like pilgrims on their way to
Canterbury, on the Canterbury trail had dined, wined, told bawdy tales
aplenty. The fellowship of the ring was nearing their ever-fateful end,
an end that spelled but a new beginning, Canterbury, for this pilgrim,
the new end and beginning.

We were now back in the forest, sheltered from the late afternoon sun,
worried that we might miss our boatman. I thought of the ancient
mariner, the ‘sadder but wiser man’, and it was to he and his creator
and friends I sought to speak.

rsd