Mountain People?

Mountain People? The Seven Mountain Archetypes

The Rockies are currently undergoing the most rapid demographic shift since the chaotic mineral rushes of the 19th century. From Taos to Kalispell, towns throughout the cordillera are being gentrified at an alarming rate by thousands of people hoping to invest in a piece of heaven. As the fat wallets flood into the mountains, they’re followed by an army of servants and construction workers hoping for some trickle down action. Hot on the heels of these working stiffs come entrepreneurs who set up shop in new mini-malls and offer up beer, legal services, cheap phone cards, paycheck loans and anything else a stonemason or housekeeper might need. Meanwhile, as the Hummer elite and the Mexican laborers and big city contractors pour into these towns, existing residents wonder just who the hell these folks are and how long they’re going to stay.

With all of these former flatlanders clogging up the aisles at Safeway (even during the endangered off season), how can you tell the bona fide “mountain people” from mere mountain residents? It depends on whom you ask of course, and everybody’s explanation will be tailored so they themselves are included in the legitimate mountain bunch, hardly a recipe for objectivity. A definitive answer becomes even more elusive when one considers the fact that the Rockies have witnessed everything from Indian war parties and fur trappers’ rendezvous to open pit mines, jeep rallies, and naked hippies- wave after wave of new settlers and changing perceptions that make it difficult to define just what a true mountain person is.

With this in mind, however, I believe there are traits most of us associate with real mountain folk, and traits we tend to associate with everyone else. I’ve identified seven kinds of people commonly found in the mountains, some of who are “mountain people” and some who aren’t. Reality isn’t quite so black white, of course, but in the interest of barstool scholarship, let us examine seven archetypes of the higher elevations: The “Indian”, “Mountain Man”, “Gold Miner”, “Landshark”, “Ski Bum”, “Tourist” and “Local.”

1) “THE INDIAN” Ute, Blackfeet, Salish, etc. These tribes knew their corner of the mountains better than even the most bioregionally savvy of us can dream of. The dust of their forbears swirled in the mountain winds. Borders were delineated by rivers and ranges rather than abstract lines of longitude and latitude. Their ancestors were birthed from an alpine lake or dark canyon at the beginning of time. Stories connected them intimately to fellow mountain creatures like the elk, the wolf, the grizzly, even the chickadees and wood ticks. They had no concept of vacationing in the tropics when winter got too harsh, or leaving the mountains and heading back east for grad school. For them, life WAS the mountains: heat from the wood, food from the animals, medicine from the plants, and water from the rivers.

No matter how deeply felt our connection to the mountains is, we will never know them in such an intimate way. For better and for worse, our thoughts wander too far and wide (if not very deep) and our bodies are too pampered by creature comforts to connect with the mountains on the utilitarian and mythological levels of pre-Columbian natives. These Indians were the only true mountain people to ever roam the Rockies, and at the risk of getting my teeth kicked in by the living, breathing Indians who still inhabit my adopted mountain town (definitely “mountain people”), I believe that such purely mountain-centric cultures no longer exist. Like bears sifting through the dumpsters behind Pizza Hut, all of us, white, Indian or otherwise, have tasted the forbidden fruit of rationalism, have watched a bit too much teevee, have succumbed to the machinery of civilization, and there ain’t no going back.

But there are some who can imagine. Herbalists, bow hunters, poets, artists, survivalists, a handful of acid casualties, and anyone who can sit quietly in the woods for hours at a time might subvert the chatter of our contemporary brainwaves and glimpse, if just for a moment, the true nature of mountains. This would make them “mountain people”, at least by our watered down modern standards.

2) “THE MOUNTAIN MAN.” As the name implies, this is the classic version of the American mountain experience: a buckskin clad man with a flowing beard, Hawken rifle in hand, traps and pelts dangling from a packhorse, and maybe a squaw wife somewhere up in the Crow country. Their deeds are the stuff of legend- John Colter’s naked run for his life from the Blackfeet, or Hugh Glass’s agonizing 200-mile crawl along the Missouri River for instance- and their wilderness skills were phenomenal. At a moment’s notice they might fashion a pair of snowshoes capable of crossing snowbound mountains, or build a canoe out of willow saplings and elk hides. Although they did possess the rudiments of civilization (a kettle, steel knives, a gun), daily life unfolded in the heart of some of the wildest country on earth, and they faced every hardship the high country had to offer. They felt the sting of blizzards, lost limbs to frostbite, lost scalps to the aforementioned Indians, and generally drank deep of the Rocky Mountains. It was the closest white folks ever came to experiencing the Indian/mountain union.

We may not think highly of the cruel nature of their work or the fact that they nearly drove the, uh, beaver to extinction, but there is no denying that they were mountain people, the very epitome of self-reliance. In these days of thermostat heat and grocery store meat, such self-sufficiency is extremely rare, even among mountain dwellers, but like the explorers and trappers of yore, a similar (if lesser) brand of self-reliance is a hallmark of modern day “mountain people.”

Take my cousin, for example, a man who grew up in one of the coldest mountain valleys in the country. He doesn’t wear buckskin, and he enjoys his cable television, but he’s got a “can-do”, hands-on attitude that sets him apart from the retired pencil pushers (who are incapable of even changing the oil in their cars) currently buying up his hometown. If it breaks, he fixes it. If it’s dull, he sharpens it. He can hunt, skin, and butcher an animal. Once, while tracking an elk over a ridge, he got caught in the dark, so he stopped, built a fire, shot and roasted a squirrel for dinner, and spent a peaceful night in the woods-no need for search and rescue. Over the years he’s been a truck driver, mechanic, welder, tow-truck operator, and Cat-skinner who helped blaze roads into some rugged old growth forest. My sensitive environmentalist friends might cringe at his red-state politics and affinity for Ted Nugent, but nobody could question the fact that he’s a sure fire “mountain person.”

Although most of us associate these traits with high country rednecks and ranchers, the microbrew crowd can manifest them as well. I’ve got a buddy in Montana, a guy who’s working on a PhD in microbiology, who heats his home entirely with firewood he cuts, bucks and splits himself, and who rides his bike to work year round, even when the thermometer is below zero. Despite his high fallutin’ future, he’s a “mountain person.” Closer to home, I know devout vegetarians who have never even held a rifle, yet they live far off the grid in homes they’ve built with their own hands. Despite their penchant for tofu, they’re “mountain people.”

Another hallmark of the original Mountain Men was the fact that they all came from somewhere else. This might appear to be a hindrance to becoming a mountain person, and often it is, but occasionally it reveals a connection to the mountains that transcends even the bonds of home and family. I was lucky enough to grow up surrounded by both my family and the Rocky Mountains. My wife wasn’t so fortunate. She was raised in southern Michigan, and in order to live in the mountains she had to leave her family behind.

The Mountain Men made a similar choice. Unlike the Indians, they had a concept of “home” outside the mountains, and they certainly got lonesome for the gentle green grass back on the family farm in Kentucky. But despite the isolation and numerous brushes with death, many of them elected to stay in the mountains forever. Drawn to the space and freedom of the high country, they turned their backs on kin and the easier life awaiting them back east. Those who choose alpine splendor over their own family, who choose a hard life in the mountains over a comfortable life in flatlands and cities, are “mountain people.”

3) “THE GOLD MINER” (includes loggers, freighters, “Gandy Dancers” etc.) The myth of the Gold Miner is similar to that of the Mountain Man: a lone wanderer panning the creeks for nuggets. Reality was much different, more along the lines of a frenzied mass of drunken ants turning the land inside out. The rush for gold utterly transformed the western mountains. Where once were Indians and a handful of Mountain Men, quite suddenly there were towns, railroads, and environmental devastation on an unimaginable scale. In short order, the Indians were killed or driven out, wildlife was scattered or hunted down to feed the hungry hordes, forests were hacked down for firewood, mine props, railroad ties and lumber, and thousands of miles of creeks were buried in placer sediments or poisoned by hard rock minerals, raw sewage and mercury.

Like the Mountain Men, who initially came to the mountains to harvest a fortune in pelts, Gold Miners were hoping to cash in on the minerals. Later, after the easy pickings were gone, they continued to come for jobs in company owned mines and smelters. Either way, they came not for the mountains themselves, but for the wealth or at least the wages contained within them, and virtually all of them moved on when the diggings played out. Over the next few decades, this pattern repeated itself in the form of logging and railroading booms that drew people into the mountains only to scatter them to the winds once the old growth was gone or the road built.

These days, the spirit of the “Gold Miner” lives on as an army of contractors, housekeepers, cooks and laborers who’ve come to take part in the recreation and real estate booms unfolding throughout the Rocky Mountains. Some of them originally came for reasons other than simple employment (see #5, “Ski Bum”), but an increasing number are here simply because this is where the jobs are. A handful, lulled by worthless details like spring pasque flowers or alpenglow on the peaks, will stay forever, but like the original Gold Miners, most will leave when the development slows or stops. If you stay when the boom is over, you’re probably a real “mountain person.”

4) THE LANDSHARK. At a glance, real estate agents and developers seem to fit the “Gold Miner” profile. After all, they’ve come to cash in on the boom, and their greed rivals that of any cigar chomping, strike-busting mining tycoon, but the easy, hands-off nature of their work makes them unworthy of Gold Miner status. We may cringe at the environmental destruction wrought by miners and loggers, but at least they experienced all aspects of the actual mountains: bitter cold, pneumonia, mud, explosions and cave-ins in the mines, broken bones and lost fingers at the mill, and the simple fact that they spent many a long and dreary winter in canvas tents or drafty claptrap cabins. (If you’ve wintered in a tent, car, drafty cabin or rickety mobile home, you’re probably a “mountain person.”)

Compared to this, the typical Landshark spends little time outdoors (golf course notwithstanding), and hasn’t earned a work-related blister in his life. His workweek is spent in a heated office, ass firmly planted in padded swivel chair, with occasional forays in his S.U.V. to guide clients (see #6, Tourist) through soon-to-be subdivisions, ass firmly planted in a heated seat. The Landshark often lives in the mountains, and will always claim to love them (“it was so beautiful I almost didn’t put that road in”), but his chosen vocation prevents him from connecting to them in any meaningful way. He shuffles property like papers on his desk, buying and selling acreage until he begins to see primordial mountains as nothing more than abstract parcels of land that should be changed into something better: a house, a shopping center, or a ski area. Due to the fact that they cannot dissociate mountains from money, Landsharks will never be “mountain people”.

5) “THE SKI BUM”, which includes snowboarders, mountain bikers, rafters and kayakers, backpackers, climbers and other dirtbags. Unlike the Gold Miners, who flock to the mountains for economic gain, Ski Bums come for recreation and economic procrastination; the powder, the whitewater, and/or the trail are far more important than a steady paycheck. Like the Gold Miner, however, most Ski Bums are simply passing through en route to greener pastures. They live the mountain lifestyle for a year or two but eventually succumb to various social pressures and get real jobs elsewhere, which prevents them from putting down roots and living an actual life in the mountains. Such transients are Tourists (see #6), not “mountain people.”

Despite the stereotype of the brain dead Ski Bum (anybody remember Squirrel from “Hot Dog”?), many Bums are quite intelligent, if not downright overeducated. While the legend of the dishwasher with the PhD may or may not be true, mountain towns have more than their fair share of folks bearing college degrees, particularly in thriving career fields like comparative literature and philosophy. They could be making good money elsewhere, but have taken a voluntary vow of poverty instead, exchanging material wealth for an abundance of mountain splendor. If you take a pay cut to live in the high country, you’re probably a “mountain person.”

The classic Ski Bum who stays in his adopted mountain town for the rest of his life for skiing, skiing and skiing, is surely a “mountain person.” A powerful mythology surrounds this lifestyle, but such commitment is actually quite rare, and bums who stick around long enough to feel the effects of an aging body and lack of income often evolve into neo-Gold Miners in the form of carpenters and the like. Other Bums, faced with the same aging related dilemmas, will tap into their underutilized college diplomas and serve the community as teachers, social workers, or journalists. While such full time employment mitigates their legitimacy as Ski Bums proper, their newfound work ethic and trusted role in the community makes them “mountain people”.

Rarely, due to cocaine, undiagnosed head trauma, or trust-fund related guilt, a Ski Bum will become a Landshark, usually a budding real estate agent. Due to an overwhelming feeling of shame, he’ll try to cloak the evil nature of his new career with sound byte phrases like “time to grow up” or “not getting any younger”, but deep down he knows he’s serving mammon over mountains, and that no amount of expensive gear or “Free Tibet” stickers on his new Subaru Outback can save his soul. The Bum turned Landshark has forsaken any chance at ever being a “mountain person”.

6) “THE TOURIST”. Although the word conjures up images of bloated Winnebagos carrying bloated people carrying miniature poodles, Tourists have been visiting the Rocky Mountains for nearly two centuries: Lewis and Clark, “Lord” Gore, George Catlin, John James Audubon, Walt Whitman etc. Indeed, in this land of booms, busts and waves of change, the presence of Tourists has been one of the only constants, and in many places they’ve even outlasted the Indians. But while tourism has become an intrinsic part of life in the mountains, and tourist dollars keep many mountain residents fed and sheltered, Tourists themselves are simply passing through, and are not “mountain people”.

Tourists find the mountains beautiful, and often daydream about pulling up stakes and moving to the high country, but for whatever reason, they choose not to stick around. They visit for a few days each year, purchase a chainsaw carved bear or two, and return home- afraid of what might happen if they quit their stable job in Dallas or St. Louis. So they buckle down and plan the next vacation, dreaming, perhaps, of that pie in the sky second home in Colorado.

Obviously, many wealthy Tourists do indeed invest in a vacation home, and countless others retire to the mountains to live their long delayed dream. These folk desperately want to be “mountain people”, and often mistake themselves for Locals or Mountain Men. They drive big, powerful pickups that never haul firewood or hay. They live on a “ranch” with no cattle or sheep. They purchase artwork depicting the very wildlife their new lifestyle has displaced. They claim to be “getting away from it all”, but demand more shopping, better roads, or a bigger airport. There is an inherent disconnect from the mountains themselves, usually rooted in that fateful moment long ago when these folks chose to spend their lives accumulating wealth rather than settling for a humble mountain life. This money-centric attitude reveals itself quite clearly in the fact that they have no problem bulldozing chunks of the mountains (which they claim to love) in order to make room for their monstrous home. Despite the trappings of mountain life, these full time Tourists will never be “mountain people”.

7) “THE LOCAL”. While the Local hasn’t been around as long as the Indian, he was born here, or in the nearest town with a hospital, and more often than not, his ancestors were Gold Miners or Ski Bums. Like my cousin the Mountain Man, many Locals are obviously “mountain people”, while others make you wonder. I know Locals who’ve lived in a mountain town their entire lives, yet haven’t gone camping since their high school graduation kegger back in ’85. They spend their days plowing snow or installing drywall, and at night they drink at the bar or sit at home watching teevee. They don’t hunt, they don’t hike, they don’t ski, they don’t fish-indeed, they aren’t really interested in much beyond making a living, something they could do in sunny Florida or inexpensive Oklahoma.

To a recently arrived Ski Bum or a Tourist, such passivity in the shadow of splendid mountains makes no sense, and they assume that Locals take their surroundings for granted. This is often true, but even the couch potato Local has a connection to the mountains rivaling that of the most ardent backcountry explorer. The Local may never climb any of the majestic peaks visible from his hometown, but each of those craggy, avalanche-lined faces is indelibly burned onto his brain, and he knows their moods and personalities as well as anyone. Along with the fact that his parents, Grandparents or even Great-Grandparents are buried in the local cemetery, this deep, almost unconscious attachment to the mountains keeps him here year after year, all year long. He’ll curse the long winters, swear at the icy roads, bitch about the high cost of living and the changes for the worse, but he’ll never leave, not for very long anyway. After all, the mountains are his home, and he’s a “mountain person” whether he likes it or not.