Category Archives: Mountains

Hiking The El Toro Trail in El Yunque

The problem with a rainforest is that, well, it rains. And when you are hiking the El Toro trail in the El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico, you are reminded of that quasi-tautological fact quite often. You are also reminded of the remarkable effect that moisture has on damp earth as it renders its consistency a texture most appropriately described as “muddy.”

But I’m getting ahead of myself. And I’m being reductive.

The El Toro trail constitutes an alternative to El Yunque’s more accessible, busier trails; it gets you to the top of the highest point in El Yunque, and delivers its payoff in the form of stunning views (when they are not being obscured by thick clouds and rain). But even the partial mix of sun and cloud make for some stunning interplays of light and the lush, freshly-washed foliage of the upper reaches. The trail is especially worth doing in the company of someone that knows the local flora and fauna; alternatively, one should sufficiently educate oneself so as to be able to have an engaged response to the tremendous biodiversity–four different forest systems–that can be experienced on the trail. (The linked post above describes the hike from the “other side;” we hiked up from the southern section of Route 191 to the Trade Winds Trail; other guides can be found here and here; in general, the El Toro trail, because not as frequently used, is not as well-maintained as the other, more mainstream ones.) Our guide was Robin Phillips, who also provided us with lodging (a simple cabin, with no electricity, but wonderful contact with the forest at night). Robin has led an interesting life; he knows the forest well; and he is kind and generous to a fault. An ideal companion for an El Yunque hike.

We began at 8 in the morning, parking our car a kilometer or so away from the trailhead. The initial parts of the trail–to the first river crossing–are relatively straightforward. The second section of the trail is easily the muddiest; the third is the steepest. Razor grass is a constant accompaniment; I made the mistake of not wearing a long-sleeved shirt; my wife made the mistake on wearing pants that did not cover her legs adequately. We both came back with many scratches and scrapes; I’d have to say I got off lightly compared to her. Toward the end of the ascent, the rain got worse, making our non-poncho covered sections progressively wetter. When we did get to the top of the trail, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the point of intersection with the Trade Winds Trail was the conclusion at the summit as opposed to being the starting point of another segment. This was a a bit of relief; the muddy, wet slogging was wearing thin by then. We were treated to a few minutes of mixed cloud and sun at the top before the rain closed in again, and forced us back down the hill after our quickly-devoured lunch. Descent was obviously quicker even if muddier thanks to the rain in the intervening time, and we found ourselves heading back for showers and a Christmas Day dinner with Robin’s wonderful family by 530PM.

Hiking in a rainforest means fewer soaring vistas of the kind experienced on high-altitude hikes; the foliage is in your face; the light is dappled and often weak; the muddy, slippery trails require a different sort of attention. Its most gratifying reward is the chance to experience a diverse set of ecosystems in close proximity to each other, intertwined in dazzlingly complex ways. The muddiness and lack of maintenance of the El Toro trail is well worth dealing with when these bargains are kept in mind.

Getting Rid of “Mastery” Over Mountains

A couple of days ago, in response to my post on the language of mountaineering, my friend Karl Steel said (on a Facebook page somewhere, far, far away):

Great piece, but haven’t you shifted the language of battle from climber vs. mountain to climber vs. self? what if we lose the battle or mastery language altogether

Karl is right, of course. And indeed, “losing” the language of “battle” and “mastery” is what I had in mind when I said:

There is something hopelessly naive in this request for reconfiguration of the language. After all, to use the language of “overcoming”, “conquest”, and “assault” works because it props up so many other tropes and fictions: that the summit was possible without any partnership (human or technological) is perhaps the most vivid and urgent of these.

So, to reiterate: I think the language of “mastery” and “battle” persists at heart because mountaineering is fundamentally conceived of as a solo endeavor. Now, even group expeditions can be described in the same language; indeed, perhaps even more so, because more militarized language can kick in: see for instance, the use of “logistics”, “campaign”, “supply routes” and so on. But still, I think, the fundamental act is conceived of as a man, alone, getting on top of the mountain, and it is to address that seemingly individual feat that I think the really heavy-duty arsenal of “overcoming” is deployed.

Interestingly, before commencing my discussion of whether mountaineering language could be reconceived as “self-mastery” I had noted a thought, which I perhaps should have developed further:

But this makes me think of the impoverishment of the language we employ for indicating human accomplishment: perennially pitted “against” something, as having been achieved in opposition to forces ranged against it. Perhaps we are stuck with that language.

I still think that reconfiguring that language requires, more than anything else, reconceiving human accomplishment as not solitary adventures but collective action, a reconception that is required elsewhere in getting rid of the pernicious fallacy of “the author” (a madness that now finds its legal teeth in our modern debates over “intellectual property”). But much, much, more on that later.

Of Mountains, “Assault” and “Conquest”

A common reaction of mine when watching mountaineering documentaries is distaste at the accompanying linguistic package: the language of “assault” and “conquer”, directed against and at the mountain. Though many mountaineers have self-consciously forsworn such language (Ed Viesturs makes a point of noting such language in his books even though at times he slips back into it himself), it remains a hard-to-displace trope. After a weekend spent watching several mountaineering documentaries (80 Meters Below the Summit (recounting a Slovakian attempt to climb Kanchenjunga) Cho Oyu: West of Everest, and a World of Adventure Sports documentary on K2), I almost came to see some of its use as unavoidable; the mountaineer sees himself as pitted against an “adversary” or an “opponent” for better or worse, and once the summit is reached, it is hard not to view that task as having resulted from “overcome” or surmounted a “challenge” that has been “mastered”.

But this makes me think of the impoverishment of the language we employ for indicating human accomplishment: perennially pitted “against” something, as having been achieved in opposition to forces ranged against it. Perhaps we are stuck with that language. But mountaineering and the climbing of mountains can be reconceived, as some mountaineers have, as a matter of self-mastery instead (so the “mastering” and the “overcoming” remains but to assuage my clearly old-fashioned sensibility that baulks at conceiving of the mountain as an opponent, we change the “opponent” to an old and familiar friend: oneself).

Reinhold Messner, for instance, makes a great deal of the notion that a mountain helps him, rather than combats him in, fighting a very particular ‘inner battle’; the mountain is not the opponent any more; rather the mountain is the facilitative device by which the mountaineer gets to fight a unique personal battle. The mountain is not the other; it is that which makes the self-mastery possible. It becomes an aid, a partner, a co-author of a particular story told about oneself. Without the mountain, there is no personal story of self-overcoming. It would be silly in this perspective of thinking of having conquered the mountain. Rather, by climbing the mountain the mountaineer conquers something else in himself: fear most likely, but perhaps something else as well.

There is something hopelessly naive in this request for reconfiguration of the language. After all, to use the language of “overcoming”, “conquest”, and “assault” works because it props up so many other tropes and fictions: that the summit was possible without any partnership (human or technological) is perhaps the most vivid and urgent of these. Even Messner, who sought to return mountaineering to the domain of authentic man-versus mountain contests did not disdain every technological trapping that reduced the natural edge of the mountain; if oxygen reduces the height of the mountain, so does warm clothing. And neither did he disdain help in getting to the mountain and in various acts of support (minimal admittedly, but still).

So, in the end, what we really need to reconfigure is the notion of the human achiever and striver as a lonely actor, a desperate fiction at the best of times, but rendered even more transparently false when one considers the truly co-operative nature of adventure and exploration.