Backcountry Explorer

Embedded into the backcountry areas of Zion National Park, the Sierra Nevada, Death Valley National Park, and the Mojave Desert, Courtney Purcell's ramblings have also taken him all across the country and the world. From hiking, climbing and peakbagging in the Rockies, the Andes, the high volcanoes of Washington and Mexico, into the depths explored in spelunking, and the canyoneering of the Colorado Plateau, here you'll find trip reports, route beta and "stuff" relevant to the world of...

Visiting the Ghost of Jack Kerouac on Desolation Peak

Where: North Cascades, Washington
When: August 2001
Partners: Rob Marshall
Mileage/Gain 9/4,800
Topo: Desolation Peak

CP in the Park Service hut atop Desolation Peak
Nestled deep in North Cascades National Park above Ross Lake is Desolation Peak. A beautiful 6,000+ peak with a delightful name. In a region of cool names like Fury, Starvation, Challenger, Freezeout, you get the idea. For the cool name and other reasons, I wanted to climb her.

In summer 2001, my buddy Rob Marshall and I hired a water taxi to take us 8 miles up Ross Lake and drop us on the forested shore of Desolation Peak. From there, it was 4,800 vertical feet to the summit. Fortunately, a trail existed for the ranger who worked up there in the summit hut looking for forest fires all summer.

Making good time up the mountain, despite a number of downed trees and feet that were already sore from 8 straight days playing in the mountains, we soon found ourselves on the summit. There, the views north to Hozomeen Mountain and south to Jack Mountain blew my mind! This was my introduction to the North Cascades, and I was immediately in love.

...those moments when time stands still. The catalysts are as varied as the individuals who pursue this path: a meteor shower; a night sky so star-filled that it snatches your breath; another rise of the sun over distant mountains vast and untouchable; dodging a rock careening crazily down a gully; a desperate icy struggle through whiteout and ground blizzard down to the safety of camp after an unsuccessful summit attempt; standing atop a mountain with a friend, the whole world at your feet, a blinding sun blazing out of a flawless sky, taking the time to watch that sun dip below the horizon even though camp is still many miles and many thousands of feet distant; stumbling over boulders and through brush in the darkness; watching the starlight and the storm wrest for possession of the night sky, seated on a narrow ledge beside your rope-mate with only the clothes on your back for shelter, shivering the night away, knowing that, sometime in a distant place you cannot now touch, the world will once again grow bright, the sun will rise, and you will look out on the infant day with new eyes.

-Bruce Binder

One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.

-Edward Abbey