Breaking Through the Clouds is a
compilation of essays by Richard Fleck, a scholar, writer and
wanderer of the West’s high mountains. Fleck deftly weaves in
the history and human background of each peak, quoting John Wesley
Powell on the first ascent of Longs Peak in what is now Rocky
Mountain National Park. Far from Colorado, he shares excerpts from
Japanese novelists as he hikes along the misty flank of Mount Fuji
— which, we learn, translates to “Origin Mountain.”
As Fleck works his way uphill, he observes both weather and flora,
and his descriptions are accurate and vivid. Each mountain reveals
itself to him through its boulder fields and forested slopes, its
birdsong and animal movement: “… I began to ‘think like
a mountain,’ to use Aldo Leopold’s words.”
Along the trail, Fleck ruminates on place names that are often
lyrical or reveal something of the thoughts of the namers: Never
Summer Mountains, Katahdin, the Rawah Range, Mummy Mountain,
Tabeguache, Halla San, Medicine Bow, Quandary, Sangre de Cristo,
Monadnock, Sandia. There is mystery and poetry in this catalog of
rock.
On many of the hikes, Fleck’s family
accompanies him. He also hikes with a core group of mountain
friends, one of whom — “a true companion along many a trail”
— dies in a fall a week after one of their climbs. There are
many trails here and many companions, and that too is a gift
offered by the mountains — the opportunity to share the miles
in conversation or in comfortable silence.
Fleck closes
with Sioux elder Black Elk’s prayer atop Harney Peak in South
Dakota: “Teach me to walk the soft earth as a relative to all that
live. Sweeten my heart and fill me with light.” Fleck has taken
that gentle request and learned well.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Friends in high places.
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