A fire had passed over in Far off, the glint of a lake. Instead, we left the trail and headed downslope for the promise of water below. There are things to be learned, and stories to be found only when you leave the trail. Many of the earlier trails on Tamalpais are growing back in, and some have disappeared.
Much of the mountain, of the world itself, can never be seen without leaving the path. Our foraging ancestors worldwide only used trails to get to other places, but in between, the whole terrain, was where they looked for edible roots, fiber plants, funghi, dye plants, berries, nuts, wild pome or wild stone fruits, leafy leaves, glues, basket-weaving materials, arrow shafts, bow wood, construction poles, workable bark, medicinal barks and herbs, soap, poison, recreational plants, decorations, rock outcroppings of useful minerals, and then all the nests and dens of animals and birds which you can map into your mind and go back to when needed.
And much else. But we always need trails. And this is how you go to the top of any mountain, or around any mountain, or on any long road—to get to a good camp by dark, and lay this body down for a rest. Or make love to go to sleep I hope. Or meditate and study to become enlightened. So what? May we all find the Bay Mountain that gives us a crystal moment of being and a breath of the sky, and only asks us to hold the whole world dear.
A master printmaker, Killion grew upon the mountain, and Snyder first hiked there in and has made atradition of circumambulating the mountain. The text and images hereare from a new collection, Tamalpais Walking, forthcoming in May from Heyday Books www.
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