Rumbling Bald

Last Friday around 4:30 in the afternoon me and my friend Ben jumped into his Toyota Corolla with a change of clothes some climbing gear and several bags of delicious beef jerky. Our destination: mountains. After two weeks of miserably hot weather I had decided if I had to spend one more day in Raleigh I was going to forsake clothing altogether in protest. Fortunately for all of us it didn’t have to come to that.

Ben drove recklessly and several times I feared for my life. At one point he blew through a stop light doing 70 in a 35 and a cop was sitting at the light. The cop must have been picking lint out of his belly button, we never saw him again. We did make good time though. We arrived in Black Mountain around 9:00 p.m. and as I breathed the mountain air I knew I was home. Actually I was at Kent McClure’s house, but whatever, I was no longer in Raleigh. Kent’s an old buddy of mine from college who I hadn’t seen in several years; he took us out to get pizza and introduced me to a local mountain brew that was fresh, hoppy and delicious. We went back to Kent’s house and gave each other IV’s to get a jump start on hydration for the coming day. (I also just like pumping fluids straight into the source; if you’ve ever had an IV you know what I’m talking about)

We stopped at the local grocery store the next day. Black Mountain is right next to Asheville, which as everyone knows is the home of hippies. As a sort of “tip-o-the-hat” to the hippies we bought hummus and pita bread; we also bought beef jerky. In case you haven’t noticed I love beef jerky. There are a lot of reasons why I love jerky, here’s just one of them; it’s the manliest food ever. Have you ever seen those stupid psychoanalytical questions “If you were a food what you be?” People actually sit down and think about these things.

“I think I would be a slice of pizza because I’m only achieving a ‘slice’ of the whole I should be.”

“I would be spaghetti because my life’s a mess.”

Alright just stop; if you are a real man the answer is beef jerky. If you’re a man and it’s not beef jerky you are failing. To prove my point I’m going to list some real men and the food associated with them; you may notice a trend.

1. Davy Crockett – Beef Jerky
2. John Muir – Beef Jerky
3. Lumberjacks – Beef Jerky
4. Doc Holliday – Beef Jerky
5. Nick Rowe – Beef Jerky
6. Brett Favre – Beef Jerky
7. Lance Armstrong – Beef Jerky
8. Chuck Norris – Beef Jerky (his jerky is so tough only he can eat it)

Also if you are a man and you don’t know all the names on this list you need to look them up (use wikepedia, it has the answers to everything. After I wrote that I looked up Nick Rowe just to see what it said; I added the part about the obstacle course being named after him).

Anyway where was I; oh yeah so after hitting up the grocery store we headed up to the mountain.

Bald Mountain is so named because its face resembles classic male pattern baldness. I made that up; I have no idea why it’s called bald mountain. At the base of bald mountain and enshrouded by thick forest is a massive boulder field known affectionately to climbers everywhere as Rumbling Bald. Tens of hundreds of solid granite boulders offer limitless possibilities to climbers of all levels. To get there you have to turn onto an unmarked red clay road off an old country road and then hike a little under a mile up unmarked trails. If you’ve never been there before finding it is a bit of a trip. The hike up to the bouldering area was invigorating. Maybe it was the thin mountain air, or maybe I’m just out of shape, but by the time we reached our destination I was breathing heavily. We bouldered for a solid two hours during which time I took no pictures; I don’t know why I didn’t take any pictures, I brought my camera for the express purpose of taking pictures. I deeply regret this.

Anyway so after a couple hours of rigorous climbing and with the temperature steadily rising Ben and I decided to go explore the mountain a bit and see what we could find. We soon found ourselves off the beaten path; off any path really. At some point we decided it would be a really good idea to try to scramble up the side of this mountain. The pitch of the mountain ranged from about 60 to 88 degrees with portions of loose earth dotted with small trees precipitously clinging to the mountainside broken up by areas of bare granite chimneys. As we climbed it dawned on me that if I fell I’d probably die, or at the least sustain very serious injuries with no chance of evacuation to civilization for, well, a long time. I smiled.

We were close to the top of the mountain when on my left I saw this peculiar rock formation that caught my attention. Two rather flat boulders were jutting out from the side of the mountain with a gap between them just big enough for someone to crawl through on all fours. I decided to explore further. I crawled through the gap and came out on an isolated rock ledge that sat about a hundred feet above the nearest soil. My vision was filled with an explosion of color as the majesty of the valley was laid out before me. It was almost spiritual in a sense; one can only appreciate the beauty of the valley from the top of the mountain. A rare glimpse into another world; the one in our own back yard we rarely take the time to appreciate.

On the other side of the valley in the distance I could see Chimney Rock. Chimney Rock is so named because it looks like a chimney shooting up from the side of the mountain; it’s probably about two or three hundred feet tall. It’s also a tourist attraction. For about twenty dollars you can drive your car up to the base of the chimney and stand in line for an elevator that will take you to the top. You’ll probably stand in line with at least one mullet and one unfortunate attempt to squeeze a 37 year old body into a 21 year olds bikini. At the top there is a nineteen year old home after his first year at college telling you not to lean over the railing which is bolted into the rock a good five feet from the edge. Next to you an old couple recounts the history of how they built this monstrous tourist attraction. You casually listen in on this conversation for a few moments when it dawns on you that you don’t care and you’ll never get that minute back. You smell smoke and turn around to discover the mullet has chosen to enjoy this view through some good ol’ North Carolina tobacco and it is at this point you realize you were duped into thinking this was some form of trek into the great outdoors because you never left civilization.

I sat down with my legs dangling over the edge of my cliff; my way of shaking my fist at those responsible for desecrating chimney rock. I’d like to think me and Ben were the only human beings ever to set foot on that rock. At the least we were members of a very select group of people who like me disdained the idea of chimney rock and who love beef jerky.

Earlier I said I thought it would be a good idea to scramble up the mountain; it was actually a great idea, although looking back we could have easily died if one of those trees had lost the battle with gravity or the loose soil given out beneath our feet. Of course my heart could spontaneously fibrillate and I could die sitting in my chair. Death comes to us all at some point, why worry about when that day might be. I once read this book called the Alchemist; in it these two guys are talking and one of them expresses anxiety about dying. The other guy asks why and then says, “today is as good a day to die as any other day.”