Memory of the Mt. Harkness Lookout

Crossing Paths with Edward Abbey

 

“Trudge” or “Trudging.”  It is the word that I didn’t get right in the fourth-grade spelling bee at Rosedale School.  What a stupid word, I thought, ranting to myself: Who’d ever use the word trudge?  I’ll never use the word trudge!  (Curiously, in ninth grade, I would hold similar concerns about the entire concept of “algebra.”)

         In August of 1966, I found myself trudging up the trail that led from Juniper Lake to the top of Mount Harkness in Lassen National Park.  We’d been camping at the lake for nearly a week, and this was the first day that it wasn’t raining.  Dad got us on the trail.  “The view at the top will be spectacular,” he said.

         Mom had somehow forgotten her fancy Vasque hiking boots at home, so with her feet swaddled in Keds and socks with plastic Wonder Bread bags slipped over the socks to serve as waterproofing.  She made it about a mile up the hill before she grumbled, “Enough!” and sat down on a rock in the sun.  Brother Beebo, as I recall, stayed with her while Dad and I soldiered on.

         The trail was rocky and muddy.  Rainwater and snowmelt often filled the path.  Frequently, after tiring of slipping and slogging through the muck, I’d try walking through the ankle-deep green grasses at the side of the trail where the footing was even worse.  The leather boots I wore I’d about grown out of, and they weren’t waterproof. I felt huge blisters forming on my cold, cold feet.  But Dad prodded me onward.  The meaning of that word from the fourth-grade spelling bee was becoming clearer and clearer with each step.

         At a fork in the trail, I paused and looked at Dad.  I remember peering down upon Juniper Lake and thinking, if not saying, “Okay, we’ve gotten to a nice view.  Can’t we turn back?”

         Dad pulled a trail guide from his pocket and, as he pointed up the trail, he read:  The last section of the trail switchbacks up a cinder cone… “Don’t you want to hike on a cinder cone?”  “No.”   Hikers can feel the grasshoppers dance at their feet…  “Don’t you want to feel the grasshoppers dancing at your feet?”  “No.”  Once on top of the slope, the trail continues to the fire lookout.  The fire lookout is staffed in the summer months and hikers are welcome to visit and learn about fire monitoring. “Don’t you want to learn about fires and stuff from the ranger?”

         That sounded interesting, and I was off.

         As a kid, I was not a big fan of switchbacks.  Wouldn’t it be easier to simply climb straight up the hill?  And on the north-facing glade on Mount Harkness, that’s what I did, short-cutting two or three of them.  The combination of the slope and the elevation squeezed the breath out of me pretty quickly.  Panting, I waited for Dad to catch up, taking in the view of Lassen Peak to the west, a promontory called the Cinder Cone to the east and a number of lakes that dotted vast reaches of forests. A pair of gray birds that squawked like blue jays zoomed in and out of the scrubby trees that grew nearby.  And there were flowers.  It was like springtime in August.

    

     

The fire lookout atop Mount Harkness appeared like a great rustic lodge constructed of reddish-black boulders and rough-hewn timbers.  The closer I got, the more magnificent it became.  Only two stories in height, the thing seemed to loom over the mountain’s top.  The lower level was made of those boulders, quite possibly gathered from this very mountaintop.  A steel door was centered on one face of this basement, and I don’t recall if there were any windows.  A wooden staircase climbed up one side leading to a catwalk that circled the outside of the structure.  From the ground, I could see that the entire top floor was framed in great windows, offering a view of, well, everything.  

         I stood at the base and looked up.

         A slender man with a thin beard appeared through a door to the upper level.  He looked at me, then glanced to see Dad several yards back.

         “Okay if he comes up?”  Dad must have nodded, because the next thing I heard was “Come on up, kid.”

         I climbed the stairs and circled the lookout on the catwalk.  Mount Lassen was close enough to touch.  Juniper Lake seemed directly below us and Lake Almanor, on the opposite side, almost as close.  This may have been the first time I understood the concept of ‘seeing forever’ that Robert Goulet sang about on the radio and Dad sang about in the bathtub.

         The inside of the lookout was dominated by a table placed in the middle of the tiny space.  Atop the table was a map with a weird looking sighting devise I learned that was used to pinpoint the location of a “smoke.”  The interior was rustic and spare.  Under the windows was a wire-spring bed, a tiny refrigerator, and cooktop, some primitive cabinets and shelves filled with canned goods and books.  Mostly books, and a flute – which seemed out of place – just like the one Helen Sweet played in beginning band back in Seventh Grade.  All the woodwork was painted a pale green, about the same color as the Park Service trucks and Jeeps I might have seen earlier.

         “Candy, kid?”  The ranger dug into a drawer and pulled out a butterscotch round.  “Is that your mama you left down on the trail down there?”  He pointed.

         “Uh huh.”  Not only could he see everything from up here, but he also noticed everything.

         “Was that you I saw short-cuttin’ up the switchbacks?”

         I gulped.  He noticed everything. “Uh huh.”

         “Well. I’d like you not to do that on your way back down.  It causes erosion because wears out the vegetation that protects the mountain side.  If the mountainside goes, so does my house here.”  He made a circle with his hand as he said this.  “So please just trudge on down the trail like a good scout on your way back to camp, when the time comes.  Understand?”

         “Uh huh.”

         The ranger’s hair was long and messy and his beard untrimmed.  He wore heavy green trousers and a khaki shirt.  He had a badge pinned to his chest which meant he was the authority.  A shine or a twinkle in his eye told me I wasn’t in much trouble for having left the trail, but I knew I wouldn’t do it again.

         “You have any questions?”

         My mind raced.  How do you get groceries?  Ever see a fire?  Ever see a bear? Do you stay here all year?  Does it get cold up here?  Does anyone ever come to visit?  What do you do in your spare time?  What do you do when you do see a fire?

         “When you have to pee, what do you do?” 

         The ranger laughed.  Dad, by now, was standing in the door.  I’m sure he was embarrassed.  Come to think of it, I probably was, too.

         “Well, kid,” the ranger said.  I’ve got real limited facilities up this way.  Down over to that stand of pines they built an outhouse.  A privy.  But I don’t use that when I have to…” he looked at Dad. “…urinate.  Out around this way,” he pointed, “there’s some rocks I use most of the time.  Sun shines on it and evaporates most everything.  Wind blows any stink away.  And then, you want to know what’s funny?”

         I nodded.

         “Around dusk the deer come up this way and lick the salt off the cinders…”

 

 

The late Edward Abbey was one of the west’s great environmental voices of the middle part of the 20^th century.  His novel The Monkey Wrench Gang became a classic of the movement.  Other works are clearly based on his experiences in various back-country domains, including Black Sun which centers on the despair of a solitary lookout stationed on the rim of the Grand Canyon.

         Having read almost all his work, the last book of his that I picked up was his journal called Confessions of a Barbarian.  On page 203, it reads:

 

September 13, 1966 – Mount Harkness: The deer – bony scrawny starving things, like giant mice, stare at me in motionless fascination when I play my flute for them – not amused or amazed, or puzzled or frightened, but simply… fascinated: silent wonder.  They gather around the lookout and in the crater below in herds, as many as fifteen or sixteen at a time, counting fawns.

         Giant vermin, they’ll nibble anything for a taste of salt – they even lick up my urine from the cinders…

 

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