Fat Man
Walking
By
Hamilton D. Moore
Chapter 1 The Question And The Revelation
What does a morbidly obese, divorced father of two do
for his fiftieth birthday?
Drag the kids to a national park, Washington DC, Club
Med, leave the kids for romance?
Beaten to submission by alcoholism in my late 30’s,
I’d turned to God for help, and been rescued. As a
part of the process, God told me to climb the 20 or so
peaks I see from my home. My son, then 10, was less
than enthusiastic about the revelation; in fact, he
was adamantly opposed.
Unnamed Peak South of Railroad Pass
My son refused to do the first peak, a two thousand
foot elevation gain separating the El Dorado valley
from the Vegas Valley. I left at 4am; he slept. I
met my hiking partner and up we went. My estimate of
4 hours proved wrong by 3; I returned late and beat.
But we had made it to the top. We learned, by
watching, cars disappear at 4 miles, something I
thought would be useful for navigation. We also
learned climbing ridges was easier than climbing shale
slopes. I left some business cards in the can at the
top promising a free will to any who called. I still
wait.
In October, my son and I went to Supai, Arizona, a
place I’d been with my Dad when I was my son’s age.
This is one of the most beautiful destinations in the
world. We drove to the Peach Springs Hotel, operated
by the Hualapi Indians. The mutiny began, a barrage
of irrefutable arguments relating to how no children
should be forced into such tortuous activity etc.
Nonetheless, we left that outpost of civilization
around 4am, we were moving down the hilltop
switchbacks an hour later. We hiked for 40 minutes
and read for 20, a routine we’d developed on a 17-mile
hike we took together when he was 4. All went well
till we got deep into the canyon near the first water
when a fit of rage overtook, the perceived
senselessness of it all overwhelmed my son and
manifest in a pitiful wail, echoing majestically off
the wall. Even the petroglyphs I’d missed when his
age didn’t assuage him. We persevered to the river
where another plague of immobility attached. Finally,
we reached Supai and enjoyed two six packs of diet
coke and some food prepared in the cafeteria.
The homes were decorated with Halloween symbols but
the fields had gone to weeds. The tribe imported
electricity to their paradise and is now, apparently,
solely dependant on tourist dollars. A resort is built
and used by folks who must walk 200 yards from the
helipad to spend the night in what is billed as
luxurious comfort. The guardians, stone figures which
dominate the cliff geology of this beautiful canyon,
are depicted on a mural in the cafeteria which
explains their significance to this small tribe of 500
or so people who live where no road and only biweekly
helicopter service goes. While in the cafeteria, we
talked briefly with the tribal judge, who we’d seen
ride in on horseback. She told us about 500 cases are
filed in the court there each year, about one for
every man woman and child. She was of a different
tribe, a custom she told us is common and protects
against the appearance of impropriety, as any local
judge would certainly be intimately acquainted with
all the local litigants.
We preceded the additional two miles, past a waterfall
or two, to the falls and campground. This large falls
forms a huge pool at the bottom. When I had been
there 35 years earlier, the large pool had been
followed by hundreds of cascading pools formed
naturally by the travertine in the water. A flood had
eliminated most of the pools but enough for a photo op
had been rebuilt by a contractor which helicoptered in
heavy equipment it needed.
On the way, we met a tribesman who was the pastor of
the 25 member Christian Church which struggles to
survive the disdain of tribe in general. He was a
wealth of information about the electrification of the
community, the prejudice and hatred his flock endures
and the corruption of the tribal council.
Soon after our arrival, shortly before dusk, my sun
began complaining of a grievous injury to an extremely
important part of his anatomy. After some trepidation
and reluctance, he allowed me to examine the member
whereupon I noticed a dime-sized area of discoloration
about a quarter on an inch from its end. Applying some
antibacterial ointment to the injury, which looked
like it might have been abrasive in origin, I thought
the matter was closed. However, one facet of our
discussions in town had escaped me but been well
remembered by my son. That facet was the departure of
a helicopter from Supai the next day at 2pm. I awoke
to the moans, whimpers, and subdued screams of manhood
severely injured, importuning the necessity of
emergency medical treatment. A decision was made, the
two miles walked, the heliocopter mounted and all the
joy of seeing the beauty of God’s creation thwarted.
Apparently, in the air, a miraculous cure was had
because no more complaints were heard. To confirm my
suspicions my diagnosis of malingering was
appropriate, a trip to the emergency room was made.
Flattop 1
Our next trip was to a mountain we called flat top.
We allotted a whole day, from 6am on, for this 3000
foot climb. Although the peak is less than 10 air
miles from the house, it took about 3 hours to get
there; we went before light across desert roads we’d
never traveled. I’d learned to read topo maps in Boy
Scouts. Later I took up sailing and was taught
piloting and celestial navigation by the US Navy. I
took up flying and learned some more. Our navigation,
in the dark, to the unfamiliar parking destination was
flawless.
The peaks I’m climbing have no trails; most have
little evidence of humans ever having been there.
This peak was no different. We worked 2 miles up a
gully to a top of a small plateau taking pictures of
the flowers and scat along the way. We saw evidence
of coyote, old, and mountain sheep, steaming.
Finally, about a mile away, we saw the herd of
mountain sheep edging their way over a ridge. We’d
planned this as a day hike and, by noon, we’d made
half of our elevation gain. The original route,
selected carefully after studying the range from 10
miles away though binoculars and looking for hours at
the topo maps, had rapidly been abandoned as being too
punctuated by cliffs, and an alternate selected.
Across the plateau we found ourselves crossing large
fingers of basketball sized boulders in a large
valley, most of which were loose.
We hiked in heavy, La Sportiva Makilus, and were
thankful for the support. We wore light long sleeve
shirts for protection from the desert sun which, even
in November, evoked substantial perspiration. We
carried a gallon of water apiece, 24 pounds, and
carried jackets for the cool of the evening on our
return. We had c cell flash lights, a compass, food
for the day and light climbing gear. All this, for
three people, probably totaled 60 pounds.
Half the day gone and we’d just made the 4 miles to
the base of the mountain. Suffice it to say the
picture I’d formed of how the terrain would look and
how long it would take to traverse was seriously
flawed. At least one of the two routes I’d thought
would allow access to the top had panned out. I was
reminded of the passage in Fletcher’s The Man Who
Walked Through Time to the effect that a 40 foot
cliff can be impassable and not even apparent from the
map because the contours are 40 feet intervals. What
had looked like a broad wash was really a steep gully
strewn with boulders and sides which steepened as we
climbed.
We decided to scout the route we’d finally selected to
see if there was hope. To the North, we were faced
with 500 foot cliffs and to the South some rugged
cliffs we could not surmount. But, in front of us
appeared a narrow, steep, boulder strewn ravine which
disappeared behind the cliff to the North. We entered
the ravine and shortly noticed a cave on our right.
We clamored up; inside we found dripping water and
some man made bins to catch it. The abundance of
mountain sheep scat indicated they watered here
regularly and the pelvic and vertebral bones of a
small one indicated the cats or coyote kept an eye on
the place. We determined the ravine was passable, and
the path from there to the top looked doable. We had
lunch in the cave, enjoying the view of the valley
below, the spectacular 500 foot cliffs across our
narrow gully, and speculating whether the dripping
water once quenched the thirst of Native Americans.
Looking down from our perspective, we discerned a
different route out and began. Against the base of
the cliff we noted a large collection of coyote scat,
indicating where the coyote protected his back and
surveyed the landscape for his dinner. We dropped
down into a ravine where cat claws grabbed and scraped
us, traversed the boulder fields and found ourselves
in the polka dot rocks. This was a large area of solid
rounded rock the color of Bits O’Honey, with pink and
black rock embedded in it flush with the surface as if
it had been done by a mason. A friend of mine who
knows such things claimed the rock volcanic; I suppose
it must have been. From there, we had an easy walk
down a firm gravel wash to the road which we reached
at dusk. My son and hiking partner waited until I
returned with the truck. We drove out for three hours
and went, stinky and happy, to the movies.
©
Hamilton D. Moore 2000
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