Out of Paradise - Ch. 4 - Rocky Mountain High

Majestic view of the Rocky Mountains towering over a turquoise lake, surrounded by lush pine forests, capturing the serene beauty of nature in Chapter 4 of "Out of Paradise."

Out of Paradise - Ch. 4 - Rocky Mountain High

My next couple of rides take me up I15 to St. George and into Zion National Park with a young couple from LA off on a camping holiday with their 3 young children. We introduce ourselves - There's Richard and Betty Gum - I go, "Whoa, my parents names are Richard and BettyAnne and our last name is Greening." They tell me they are both school teachers. I say, "Get out of town, my parents are both school teachers". They introduce me to their three children - There's Gary, the oldest, Greg, in the middle and Gail, the youngest. I go, "Shut the fuck up" (not verbatim, but something to that effect) "My older brother and sister's names are Gary and Gae and my name's Gregg." We all shake our heads in amazement.

We stop for gas in Springdale, at the entrance to the park. I run inside the country store next door and get the provisions necessary for a night out in the wild. Let's see, a can of pork and beans, perfect, I have a can opener - a pack of 6 Oscar Meyer hot dogs, perfect, 2 for dinner, 2 for breakfast and 2 for lunch on the road tomorrow - a small loaf of bread, the smallest jar of French's mustard there is, a pack of Fritos corn chips, a pack of Marlboroughs, a pack of Zigzags and a six pack of Bud, perfect. A born survivor. My Boy Scout days have not been spent in vain. Fully gassed and supplied we journey into some of the most magnificent rock formations known to man. Seriously, I reckon within the surrounding 100 mile radius of our current location is some of, if not the most spectacular landscape on the face of the Earth, if not beyond. Look around, there's Zion National Park straight ahead, The Grand Canyon a stone's throw to the south, Bryce Canyon to the east, Glen Canyon, Canyonlands, Arches and Monument Valley further to the east and the Rocky Mountains north of that. My God, the wonder of Mother Nature.

As we enter the park we're all craning our necks around to try to find the summits of these majestic limestone monoliths towering overhead. We're all gaping and gasping at the sheer awesomeness of their grandeur. There's West Temple, Sundial, Temple of Sacrifice, Sentinel and the Watchman. Richard pulls off at the first campsite we see and drives around the grounds looking for a suitable spot to set up camp for the night. We find a quiet area alongside the Virgin River with two vacant sites adjoining one another nestled beneath and between the imposing peaks rising all around us. I unload my pack, toss it up on the picnic table next door and help Richard unload his gear. When everything was set up and in place, I pop a Bud for me and one for Richard. Betty and the kids don't drink beer. Since I had been out on the road at the crack of dawn this morning, it's still early, not much after 12:00, and now have the rest of the day to chill, relax, drink beer, smoke pot and take in some of the most spectacular scenery this side of Mars. We finish our beer and I set of for a stroll along the Virgin River with my pack of Zigzags and what's left of the lid of grass I had procured back in California. Finding a secluded enough spot, I sit down, roll a joint and bask under the shadows of Zion. Ah, life doesn't get better than this.

Richard, Betty and the kids are planning to spend a couple of days or more here, so the next morning I thank them for the ride, bid them farewell and continue my trek to the Matterhorn. The rest of the drive through Zion is nothing less than awe inspiring. Had I not been on a mission of my own, I could easily have spent the next few days here myself, hiking and trekking and gasping and gaping at all the magnificence around me. Not far out of the east entrance of Zion along highway 89, I see a sign indicating the direction to Bryce Canyon on the right. Got to do it. Even though I'm on a mission to the Matterhorn, I can't be in this part of the world and ignore all the wonder and splendor it has to offer. Bryce Canyon it is - and another night out in the wild. I ask my chauffeur to drop me at the next convenient stop. My Oscar Meyer hot dogs and pork and beans are already fertilizing the bush around Zion, but I still have a few slices of bread and some French's mustard left. I pick up a packet of ham, another pack of Marlboroughs, and a six pack of Budweiser at a local market and detour off toward Bryce Canyon.

I get dropped off at the entrance of the first campsite we come upon, find a comfortable location to stay the night and spread my North Face sleeping bag out on the ground. I retrieve what's left of my loaf of bread and French's mustard out of my pack and spend another most excellent evening under a blanket of stars, chilling with a Bud and a joint and a ham sandwich, mesmerized by the sparking embers and dancing flames emanating from the fire imposed against the cathedral like domes and spires and pinnacles and pylons jutting up, etched and chiseled from the bosom of Mother Earth herself, another superlative achievement of the forces that be. Ah, life doesn't get better than this.

The next morning, at the break of dawn, I'm up, packed, properly caffeined and heading east down Interstate 70. I get a ride with a young college guy named Dave going to school at UC Denver. It's early November and as we cross into Colorado, round about the time we reach Glenwood Springs, the first white capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains appear on the horizons around us.

Dave's an avid skier himself, and as we pass the exits for Aspen and Snowmass and Vail and Breckenridge, we're deep into the topic of plunging down powder coated bowls and off piste trails, through rugged snow laden forests and caroming off moguls and down the vertical faces of the surrounding slopes. He's recounting experiences he's encountered in the local terrain and I'm telling him about Heavenly Valley and Squaw Valley and Incline Village and Mt. Lassen... The latter being the location of my very first outing on a pair of skis when I was about 9 years old...

Having spent the morning mastering the technique of snowplowing on the lower beginning slopes, I bravely decide I am ready for the more challenging intermediate slopes on the back side of Mt. Lassen's face. Now, the only conveyance up and over to the back side of the face is this rickety poma lift that ascends directly up the middle of the face itself. The lower portion of the slope is gradual enough as I struggle to keep the small disk of the poma seat held firmly between my legs, while an overhead cable pulls us up and over the bumpy terrain straight into the mountain's teeth. About three quarters of the way up, the lift makes an abrupt vertical assent, just enough to jar the small disk of a seat out from between my legs, leaving me, thump, face first in the snow - skis, legs and arms spread eagle - stranded and helpless in the middle of the seeming vertical, mogul infested escarpment that is the face of Mt. Lassen. I manage to roll myself over, face up, plant my butt firmly on the edge of a steep mogul, legs outstretched with the tails of my skis dug vertically, deeply, into the snow below me to inhibit my slipping and sliding all the way to the bottom of the minuscule valley below.

While sitting there totally frozen, not from the cold, but rather petrified by the sheer horror that the slightest movement I might make will send me plummeting off the edge of the world, a mist of disturbed snow blows across my face. I look around hoping to see the ski patrol guy coming up from behind with his rescue basket strapped to his waist to take me down the mountain intact and undamaged. Not. Another kid, round about the same age, comes slipping and sliding his way down the precipice and shouts out, "You fall off the lift, too?"

With an embarrassed and terror stricken nod, I vigilantly unseat myself from the safe hold I had etched in the cliff and slip and slide my way off the edge of the world, over a mogul and closer to his location, smack in the middle of Mt. Lassen's vertical face. We exchange pleasantries and "What the fuck we do now?" expressions and nervously, precariously, slip and slide our way down the mountain face, eventually reaching the minuscule valley below intact and undamaged.

"Ah, that's nothing," Dave says and we start trading horror ski stories like two war veterans showing off their battle scars.

Dave tells me his folks are out of town for the weekend and invites me to stay the night at his place in Denver - And, you know me, never being one to deny a free bed, graciously take him up on his offer. We pull into the entrance of Dave's parents' place, an expansive home in the Denver suburbs, unload our gear, go inside and Dave asks if I smoke?

"Does a naked woman have hairy crack up when flying upside down?" I counter, rhetorically. He chuckles, invites me to make myself comfortable on the lounge sofa and goes upstairs. He comes back down a couple of minutes later with a foot long, glass blown bong and a shoebox full of sinsemilla buds.

"Oh, yeah," I say as he fills the bowl to the brim with the sticky herb extracted from his shoebox and lights the fuse. The lingering swirl of quicksilver haze drawn from the ignited weed and siphoned through the bowl of gurgling water quickly vanishes as the air valve is released and the haze is absorbed into Dave's wellbeing. He packs another pinch of sticky herb into the bowl and passes it to me. I light the top of the grassy knoll till a bright flame leaps from its matrix and the fumes defuse through the bowl of gurgling water overpowering my senses and launching my faculties into a paralyzing THC induced rush.

"Whoa!" I exhale. "Fuck yeah." Dave gets up, goes over to the stereo, pulls a Pink Floyd LP out of its jacket, mounts it on the turntable, lowers the stylus, cranks the volume, goes to the fridge and brings back 2 Coors. Damn, life doesn't get better than this.

We spend the rest of the evening doing exactly that, listening to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and Moody Blues, smoking sinsemilla buds and drinking Coors, pausing long enough to scavenge something to eat out of Dave's folks' refrigerator. It's getting late, I've been up since dawn, Dave's got to go to school tomorrow and shows me to their spare bedroom.

The next morning, we have a coffee, Dave's got his text books in a small knapsack over his shoulder, slides a couple of sinsemilla buds wrapped in yesterday's Denver Post across the kitchen table to me and drops me at the on ramp to I70 on his way to school.

As Denver fades in the rear-view mirror, so do the snow capped mountains, leaving a vast, limitless, checkerboard flatland, stretching to the horizons in a 360 degree arch around me. Nothing fades into nothing again as the miles and minutes and hours pass tediously by. Mid afternoon an 18 wheel Kenworth pulls up, hauling a Southern Pacific freight container to St. Louis. The driver, in a red and black checkered Elmer Fudd lumberjack hunting cap, reaches over to the passenger door and opens it.