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Aware of the Mountain: Mountaineering as Yoga

by Gil Parker; co-published with Ascent Enterprises

186 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #01-0367; ISBN 1-55212-965-9; US$19.00, C$21.95, EUR15.50, £11.00

Yoga is well-known as a series of postures and movements, but it is also a technique for increasing your awareness. This mountaineering story shows how yoga's subtle influence changed the author's personal philosophy and even the events of his life.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book Aware of the Mountain traces the author's climbing experience, with its difficulties and its inspiration, and indicates ways that mountaineering and yoga together can be used to better understand life. Yoga is shown to be a tool for increasing awareness of ego which is pivotal in changing personality. Otherwise, climbing can become an end in itself, unimportant to the development of relationships and personal philosophy. Mountain climbing, (as all of life), can be viewed as a process, as compared to purely goal orientation, allowing the climber to absorb more from the action and assessment, less from achieving the objective of a climb. A mountain trip is a compressed learning experience; in the crucible of fear and fatigue, self-concepts, personality, and emotions are all tested. Each climb is like a different life experience. The author's adventures are often influenced by the local cultures in Nepal, India, and Greece. And in the peaks of western Canada and the United States the climbers he admired or otherwise provided lessons for a searching mind.

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About the Author With thirty years experience in mountaineering, Gil Parker has had myriad adventures and many rope partners. He met leading-edge climbers and weekend alpinists while he was Vice-President of the Alpine Club of Canada, 1976-1980. What makes his assessment more unusual is his knowledge of yoga. While studying at the Yasodhara Ashram in south-east British Columbia (where he received his Teacher's Certificate) he was struck by the similarity of the personal challenges faced in climbing and in the yogic life, how one could provide analogies for the other. An engineer by training, he has become a successful writer, dealing with international travel, climbing, conservation and the social aspects of business and technology. As well as the Alpine Club of Canada, Gil Parker has held executive positions in the World Federalists of Canada, the Solar Energy Society and the Victoria School of Writing. The Rotary Club awarded him a Paul Harris Fellowship for introducing Rotary to eastern Russia. He is an Honorary Citizen of the City of Victoria. Visit Gil's website at www3.telus.net/ascent

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Sample Excerpts

From Follow the Guide

Poised at 2922 metres on the pass between Mounts Lefroy and Victoria, the hut had endured winter storms and the passage of summer climbers since 1922. With stone walls, small windows and wooden plank beds, it was a romantic first mountain hut for Dave and me. We drank endless cups of tea (with jam left by some previous climber) and cooked our curried beans. Don traded stories with another party who had come up from the Yoho valley on the other side of the pass. As we absorbed the discussion of routes and made new friends we started to appreciate the value of huts as meeting places.

Despite the fresh snow on the lower rocks we were up to the ridge on Victoria to greet the morning sun rising over Lefroy. Along the crest of the great glacier there were no real technical difficulties--only care and attention was needed to keep the rope stretched out between us, to stay close to the cornice, yet not walk on it. And we kept our crampons tight-strapped to our boots and clear of soft snow. Whenever they collected too much in the cleats, it was like standing on a pair of platform shoes with Teflon soles. Some years before, a Japanese party had slipped down that magnificent snowfield, over the cliff into the "mousetrap." Experts presumed that they had let the snow pack into their crampons, rendering them useless on the sun-softened surface of the glacier. The summit of Victoria, at 3465 metres, is the focus of the Sleeping Beauty Range. From so high, we could command a longer view than from Mount Louis. Lake Louise itself was an insignificant puddle and the Chateau Lake Louise, a dollhouse. In the valleys on either side of the range, man's incursions seemed barely visible. The ski development on Whitehorn Mountain, the roads into Lakes O'Hara and Louise, all were mere threads through the forests.

The climb itself was not so demanding as on Louis, or as it would be on our next climb. We descended from the summit, retracing our route to a notch in the ridge, then with Dave leading, we dropped through the gap westward and descended that glacier past Mount Huber toward Lake O'Hara. We paused at the toe of the snowfield above a steep rock cliff. As we snacked on sardines and crackers a light breeze blew from Huber and Victoria at our backs; a plume of blown snow drifted horizontally from our summit, its whole ridge now fused into a milky blue sky.

Don unclipped his carabiner from the rope. "Time to drop the rope," he said as he started to coil it for his pack.

"But without it, which way do we get down?" Dave asked, incredulous.

"Straight down this rock to the Wiwaxy Saddle, over there on the left."

"You're kidding," I couldn't believe him. "That's easily as steep as parts of the route on Louis!"

"Believe me," said Don. "Just follow the trail of little stone men. We'll be down the cliff in twenty minutes."

And we were. It was not at all like Mount Louis, but rather a series of staircases winding left and then right. There was no lack of security there. Don had established his right to be our guide. He knew the routes, his technique always favoured safe climbing without instilling fear at every step. It is reasonable to expect these qualities in an alpine guide.

In yoga, I had heard the guide described in three forms: the mystical guide, the guru, and finally, self-knowledge or the "guru within." The first is a spiritual presence, sometimes seen in a physical form while under deep meditation or in the stress of a crisis, often near death. Once, at the ashram, I had felt it. My own spirit seemed to leave my body and, attached by a vague lifeline, floated above me in the room. I seemed to be in control of the separation, not wanting to end it. Others in the room started to move about, finishing their meditation. Finally, I came back, slowly emerging into full consciousness. I was left with a feeling of confidence and peace, an understanding that there were levels of existence yet to experience.

Native people describe this spirit as an animal form, and it gives them guidance for major decisions in life, or leads their spirit from one level to another after death. In yoga instruction, the appearance of such guides is considered a "gift" from another level of consciousness to be received with gratitude. We were told it was not an adventure to be sought after. In fact, we had many exercises to help us define our purpose, our ideal in life. These, and workshops wherein we worked on correcting our personality problems, were intended to prepare us for such unexpected occurrences to give us awareness and openness to such new ideas and phenomena. In practical terms, such a "guide" usually might be inspirational but not instructional in the sense of solving life's questions.

Secondly, the guru I took to be the closest metaphor of the climbing guide. A yoga aspirant must be extremely selective in the choice of a guide. Once chosen, the guru is to be obeyed in all cases. The guru-aspirant relationship lasts much longer (often a lifetime) and is often a non-commercial transaction. Nevertheless, there are many similarities to the climbing guide. Once we employed Don, it is very unlikely that we would disagree with his route or some detail of achieving the objective. There may be doubts, but confidence is built by his/her reputation, or from alpine routes climbed together, in the same way as your guru might help you to understand lessons of life. In both cases, you surrender some part of your free will to reach some new plateau, physical or psychic.

The real teacher will allow the student to discover and thus to validate his or her own understanding. I found this aspect of yoga especially trying. If there was a lesson I needed to learn, whether it be the meaning of a dream, the experiences I might meet during meditation, or simply something that I needed to learn about my behaviour or attitude, I wanted someone to tell me. But the ashram followed the Buddhist way of offering only minimum guidance, frustrating as it was to me. It would be a poor alpine guide that would let the new climber discover the best knot for connecting to the rope, simply by trial and error! On the other hand, the teaching of the spiritual aspects of mountaineering must allow for self-discovery.

In yoga, the final phase of learning is one in which a practising yogi (or yogini) becomes independent of other earthly guides and listens only to his own counsel. This self-knowledge is sometimes called the "guru within"; it can supplement or eventually replace the teacher.

The mystical guide, or spiritual presence can occur unexpectedly or during some epiphany in one's life. On the other hand, the "guru within" is developed over years of study, contemplation, and increasing awareness. The student (or by this time, the practising yogi) is getting direction, inspiration or intuition from some source, from spiritual beliefs or from experience. If you believe in a separate, all-knowing presence, you could say that the inspiration or direction comes from God. For me, I accept the idea of a higher being, but still a part of me, one that I have to learn to access. Naturally, these definitions of stages are rather arbitrary. In fact, the lines between the three arbitrary definitions blur. And this is also true in the mountains. Neither Dave nor I had felt cheated by Don leading on the first two of our mountains. Indeed, we were delighted with his knowledge of the Rockies, his experience, his attitude. It seemed that everyone from Banff to Jasper knew Don and we were often included in the events of his social life. So we were content to ignore unimportant matters. Punctuality was not a big deal; we were on holidays. Down at the Lodge at Lake O'Hara his reputation got us in for tea and civilized snacks despite our rugged clothes and several days growth of stubble. In favour of Lodge ambience, we almost missed the bus back to our van at Lake Louise!

We discussed our next climb. We were working our way north, with Mount Robson as a possible dream objective at the end. "We'll meet at the Columbia Icefields parking lot tomorrow at ten in the morning." Don stated. "If you want to try Robson, best you do the Skyladder on Andromeda first. The top 400 metres of Robson is the same, but Andromeda is in a friendlier environment."

The Skyladder was impressive only to climbers. Of the thousands of Icefield tourists driving by on the highway or riding the glacier in snowmobile buses, few would ask about that little ice slope above the glacier on the left. Dwarfed by Mount Athabaska, the Snow Dome and Andromeda itself, it wouldn't rank a mention in a tourist brochure.

We had only to walk an hour beyond the snowmobile terminus. Some of these lower ice slopes were covered with moraine gravel frozen into the surface, making walking difficult without crampons. Finally, we put them on; it was the lesser evil. As we crossed on the level glacier, the crampons balled-up with sticky soft snow. The face above appeared vertical. If the snow up there was soft like this, it would never stay on such a slope, and neither would we. The ice slope started from the bergschrund, where the moving glacier (below) separated from the fixed ice frozen to the slope. It was a continuous ramp right up to the round-off near the summit. We arranged our ropes and checked our gear at the foot of the slope. Don found a snow bridge on the right and we moved into an inclined world.

Most climbers, beginners and even experienced alpinists, overrate the steepness of their special routes. This one was very intimidating to Dave and me, whose biggest snow climb to that time had been the Roman Wall on Mount Baker, about 35 degrees to the horizontal. The Skyladder was a full 50 degrees.

For the next three hours I exerted a greater concentration than ever before. All of my senses were focused on the climbing, on deliberate movement in balance. We set bomb-proof anchors where the snow was deep and firm, digging in an iceaxe across the slope in a narrow trench. As belayer, I would dig-in below, with my harness clipped to a sling around the iceaxe handle. The belayer always faces downslope in such conditions, to where the tension would come in the event of a fall. Then, Dave climbed the slope above. When the rope was nearly all out, I called, "Two metres!" Dave then prepared a similar belay, dug in and hollered for us to climb.

Don tied himself into the middle. Each of us led the full fifty metres, from last position right through to the lead. Then the other would repeat the same procedure. Don coached from the middle, but there was very little said during the entire climb. We were getting our chance!

The snow was about 10 cm deep to start, firm and well frozen to the hard ice beneath, wonderful for crampon climbing. As we climbed higher the snow petered out, leaving bare ice; only our front four crampon points were in contact. There, on the exposed ice, we used tubular ice-screws, wound down into the ice about the length of my hand. But on a slope so steep it would be extremely difficult to stop a fall, with obvious consequences for our whole rope. So, we climbed very carefully, moving one at a time. The muscles in my calves screamed at the constant stretching. The Skyladder was becoming an endless succession of ice hockey rinks, strung together end-to-end and tilted at 50 degrees.

Spindrift wafted across the ice, kicked up in our faces, but the sun held the sky, promising no change in conditions for the remainder of the climb. I was entirely on the front points of the crampons, keeping my heels as low as possible to increase the contact. I used an iceaxe held over the head with one mitt and an ice-screw in the other. One hand or one foot moved at a time--three points in contact at all times. Think, balance, move. Think, balance, move! It was pure meditation.

"Three metres to go!" Dave called from somewhere outside my world. I climbed five steps more. Then, starting an ice-screw into the surface I wound it around, spiralling it downward into the rock-hard slope of polished ice. I unclipped another screw from my belt, fed it through the loop of the anchor to get more leverage, worked it down till the cored ice squeezed out the top of the hollow tube. That would hold a lot, maybe even a fall. Clipping-in with sling and carabiner to my harness, I turned to face down that awful ramp, squatted down so that the sling was tight, then jammed all points of each crampon into the slope. "On belay!"

Don unclipped from his stance and came up, climbing easily. "O.K. Dave, you climb through again and set the next anchor. You'll need a screw; there is no snow left from here on up." Dave dug out his axe which had been the belay and prepared to climb. Just as he started up a huge black bird ghosted beneath him, far down the slope. We were climbing above the ravens.

Station upon station, rope-length upon rope-length, we continued. Only when the slope started to lay back, at the moment that we could see over the round-out to the summit beyond, did fatigue set in. And, of course, there had been the focus of fear. But it was more like an intense carefulness. I had thought of nothing but the climbing for the whole route.

On the top we unroped. Classic peaks of the Rockies were all around: Snow Dome, Athabaska, even Mount Columbia to the west. Below us the ant-like snowmobiles ferried their tourists out onto the glacier for the thrill--of what? Of standing on real, ancient, glacial ice.

The descent was anticlimactic despite a whipped cream cornice we crossed beneath, despite a long snow chute we plunge-stepped down. My sinuses were active, Dave had a migraine, sure signs of a stress-filled day. Fortunately, during the climb, nothing had bothered us.

Next morning we drove to Jasper. Don got reports from more of his friends. No one had done Mount Robson yet that year; it was definitely out-of-condition with too much snow and another weather system moving in.

We had done three peaks in four days, but we still had time before our holiday deadline. Don told us about the route on Mount Edith Cavell. We could do it on our own, easily. We hoped that we could traverse it from east to west as our last climb of the series. Perhaps now, we were ready for the "guru within" to take charge and to lead us on this mountain. We had built confidence on two very demanding routes - Louis and the Skyladder. Would we have the discipline to make decisions that the mountain and weather would dictate? We felt ready.

But, as we drove up to the lake below Edith Cavell's north face, the rain started. In the morning, more rain followed hard on our heels up the east shoulder. When it turned to snow on the steep rocks of the ridge at the start of the hard climbing we called it week. Our Rockies adventure, like the weather, was slowly unravelling.

From Self-Discovery

"He who sees the inaction that is in action, and the action that is in inaction, is wise indeed."     Bhagavad Gita

"Climbing is a living metaphor for unifying one's existence."     G.B.Schaller

Weather dictates everything you do in the mountains. Deterioration of the weather often signals the end of a climbing adventure. If you are lucky you will be able to head home or to a warm mountain hut. There are subtle changes, too, and even a warming trend can be a harbinger of trouble. In winter you expect miserable days, so when the sun finally breaks through, it is difficult to restrain yourself.

During the '75 Alpine Club ski camp on Kootenay Glacier the snow came with wind on the higher slopes, forming a consolidated slab over the soft underlay. The next morning had dawned so incredibly clear and bright that when we stepped from the cabin into the fresh fluff that had settled gently in the valley it was easy to ignore any avalanche hazard. Contouring west from the cabin towards the day's objective of Mount Geigerich, Bob and I with two others climbed steadily along the south rim of the valley.

We were using an ordinary type of downhill ski, except that our harness allowed the boot to pivot at the toe while climbing. We used "skins" strapped under our skis for traction. The original ones had been made from sealskin; ours were synthetic, with the fibres pointing toward the tails of the skis. They would slide ahead, but not backwards. When we would reach our high point, the skins went into the packs; the boot heels clamped down and we would be ready to schuss. In these mountains every run was virgin, waist-deep powder, effortless skiing streaming a rooster tail behind!

On the way to Geigerich, a steep gully blocked our route. It was a thousand metres down to the valley bottom, or two hundred metres up to an uncertain ridge by-passing the gully. Neither option was very attractive. The obstacle was really a gentle concave slope, so I thought the snow crust would be mainly in compression. However, at the top of the gully there was a worrisome bulge. Nowadays, we would dig a snow pit to check the strength of the lower layers in the drift.

We decided to take a chance. As lead skier, I removed the pole loops from my wrists and unhooked my ski safety straps. Taking a deep breath, I slanted my skis downward, shooting for a point about thirty metres across.

Halfway across all hell broke loose. The whole slope suddenly was moving. Immediately submerged in sliding, twisting chunks, there was no way to ski out of it. I tried to swim, flailing about, trying to knock off my skis. I couldn't tell up from down. Both legs felt twisted and stretched, as if they were in a washing machine. Chunk after chunk broke off the bulge at the top, feeding the river of churning snow. The whole mass slid toward the lower cliff edge. I was drowning, despite my desperate backstroke.

Suddenly, it stopped. I was only a few metres short of an awful ride to the bottom of Griffin Creek valley.

I could still feel all my appendages; my face was clear so I could breathe. "That was a chance I should not have taken," now I knew!

At least the slope was stabilized. Bob led the others down through the strewn blocks to where I had freed my arms. A bit of shovelling uncovered my skis and the residual twisting from nature's "mixmaster" was relieved. The only thing missing was a ski pole. Nothing was broken; I had been extremely lucky!

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Catalogue Information

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