needle-spray California nutmeg, several manzanita species, and
all the aromatic drouth-adapted (xeric—I like that word) bushes
of the northern slope.
The northside walk starts in earnest: contouring around to
the north and northeast side of the mountain, with long views
out over the Marin Water District lakes and reservoirs, meadows, chaparral, and forest. The trail is narrow and sometimes
brushy going in and out of the canyons: a long hike way in, back
out again—another canyon—until it finally surfaces up on
Inspiration Point. Inspiration Point looks out on miles of hills
and brushland, plus Kentfield, San Anselmo, and the golf
course. Then next it’s a scratchy scramble up the ridgeline. The
final section here is on a shrubby little narrow straight-up trail
which does however get you to the level path that girds the final
summit of the mountain, paved and set with a few benches.
How many times I wonder has all this been swept by fire.
We stop at the snack bar in the small parking lot for chilled
drinks. Then to the summit, a short steep further trail. Robin KJ
tries to blow the conch but too much giggling so she can’t. Carole
and I are getting the Americano version of the Hannya Shingyo,
the “Heart of the Perfection of Great Wisdom Sutra,” really
down—and also chanting the long dharani as a duet now. Those
folks who know them join in on the summit chants and bring out
extra conches for the blowing. We’ve spiralled around from the
valley bottom through the life-zones—meadow and oak trees, fir
and redwood clumps by the humid oceanic side, and on to the
slopes that face the continent with its dry heat and thunderclouds, and come to the summit. The whole view of the cities of
the Bay. Magic mountain, magic cities, swept by sun and fog.
Below us three vultures cruising.
Fifty-four people in this group we finally count. One wayfarer
leaves, met by friends in the parking lot. Most of us go down the
Fern Ravine trail, a steep route, now that the previous rocky
Hogback trail has been closed to stop the erosion. Gather at
Mountain Home parking lot, and again that long delicious descent
of Panoramic trail, Ocean View trail, through fir and redwood gradually ever downward to the soft duff floor of Muir Woods. We
weave our way through the end-of-day tourists, Germany and
Japan, on the long walkways—they may never see such trees again.
You could stretch out and sleep in some of their hollows.
And one final circle of chanting again at the bed of Redwood
Creek, eleven hours to do this long day’s hike. I saw some strict
and thoughtful old big trees this time I’d never noticed before—
and some mossy twisty Douglas firs of great size; the always lovely
complexly standing live oak; and a big set of blow-downs shortly
after the first long meadow. Every day is a new day and a different
world or as Master K’ung said, “Every day is a good day.” This was
a somewhat warm day, with a hazy outlook over the Bay.
October 22, 1965
“Caminante no hay camino / se hace camino al andar.”
Walker, there is no path / you make the path as you walk.
—Antonio Machado
The first “formal” circumambulation of Mount Tamalpais
was a long and pleasant one-day walk. With Allen Ginsberg and
Philip Whalen, just us three, all of us in good condition then.
As I confessed later, Allen, Philip, and I basically made that ceremony, that ritual, that whole walk, up; based on some Japanese
yamabushi background, a lot of mantra singing in India, and a
long experience of the crisscross of the Tamalpais trails.
I don’t recall exactly when I became aware of walking in the
world, it was certainly formalized for me with the first day of first
grade. Close to a mile walk down a straight road past raggedy
woods, little farms, and a sizeable truck garden run by a
Japanese-American family, the Matsumotos. They plowed with a
horse. Their son was just my age and we played together.
Every day with a lunch pail, stout leather shoes, and corduroy
pants I made the walk, cut across one of the Matsumoto fields
by an established path, jumped a creek, went past an older
unused wooden school building, and crossed the paved road to
the new school, all brick. 1936.
Going home from school I figured out an alternative route
that was mostly by trail through healthy second-growth woods.
It went by some pretty big stumps. The small-size tastier wild
blackberries grew around them. I could walk the trail all the way
to our back cow pasture, go through a narrow gate past the barn
and up to the house.
What with uncles who worked in the woods or at sea, and
my father’s handy way with tools and cows, it seemed natural
enough to get out in the forest and to begin to plan to explore
the mountains soon as I could, the Cascades so clear to the
east, with snow summits. Mount Rainier, always looming
there. Our small dairy farm was north of Seattle, on land
reclaimed from the logging era, between Puget Sound and
Lake Washington, always with plenty of rain. Dogwood,
salmonberries, salal, China pheasants, cowpies, loose friendly
dogs, cows and goats in the fenced meadows. Woods beyond
the fences.
If you look, you’ll find a way. A path, a trail, an old road. I got
around the hill and wooded parts on foot and on the roads by a
bike. That’s not about childhood, it’s about discovering mobility,
independence, choice, and places to hang out in the underbrush. It’s about getting there on your own two legs.
