It’s snowing. Hard. It’s 35 degrees in the daytime, and less than 15 at night. It’s hardly good biking weather. Check it out:
So I haven’t been biking. I’ve been staying at Devil’s Tower Lodge in Wyoming. The owner, Frank Sanders, has been extremely nice to me, and even lets me stay in a room than normally costs $175-$225/night for free, with a caveat: I have to work.
So I’ve been oiling the woodwork in the house, including dressers, the piano, tables, you name it. And I’ve been cooking. I’ve made a pork roast with raisin-molasses compote, an apple-banana pie, mashed potatoes, stuffed peppers, and plenty of other things for the workers and the guests.
Here’s a picture of Frank, hostess Rebekah Kelley (who brought me to the lodge, and me:
I’ve been learning about Frank, a very compelling man. The son of a highly ranked military official, it almost seems comical that he turned out to be as he is – a wiry, ponytailed man who lives to climb a mountain and entertain guests with his stories.
I don’t think there’s anyone who can love a mountain the way that Frank loves Devil’s Tower. When he regales guests with stories of his spiritual connection to it, he becomes a six-year-old who can’t find the words to express his excitement. “Every time I climb on that rock, I find the most amazing peace,” he says. “It’s like …” Here, his jaw drops open and he shakes his hands in awe in front of his body, expecting his expressions to convey a reverence that he can’t vocalize. (And he’ll stay that way until you say, “Wow,” or an equally reflective comment to show you understand the tower’s power.)
He hold many records on the mountain. He was the first to ascend more than 60 of the tower’s 200 climbed cracks, and he hold the record for speed – climbing the 1,267-foot mountain in 13 minutes. Most people can only walk that distance in 13 minutes.
In fact, he even has a special Wyoming license plate with his own message superimposed over the mountain:
But there’s a big quandary in his love of the mountain. Frank has started a nonprofit corporation, Devil’s Tower – Sacred to Many People, which helps the Porcupine Clinic on the nearby Pine Ridge American Indian Reservation. Every few months, Sanders drives to the clinic and delivers a vanload of medical supplies, including diapers, bandages, and gas to run the their dialysis van.
To raise money for this, Sanders attempted to climb Devil’s Tower every day from for a year from July 2007 to July 2008. He almost succeeded, except for five days in late 2007, when he pulled his shoulder and couldn’t climb. (He’s not climbing now, as he tore a ligament and is awaiting surgery.) His year-long quest raised about $10,000.
But while his honorable quest fulfills an incredible need – American Indian Reservations are often rife with a level of poverty you wouldn’t expect in a nation as rich as the United States – there’s almost a belligerent jab included in it aimed at religious American Indians who don’t want climbers on their sacred mountain.
One of the posters for his organization reads like a movie poster, with the tower in the center and what look like movie credits at the bottom. But instead, it’s an encouragement to support the organization with the words “HELP NATIVE AMERICANS” repeated many times throughout.
I don’t think I’m reading too much into it when I say Frank’s organization doesn’t just fulfill the purpose of helping American Indians in need and showing that climbers are a positive influence. It also outrightly implies that American Indians who are spending their time fighting climbers on the mountain are focusing on the wrong issue, ignoring life and death issues in favor of a place to leave prayer bundles.
Besides, Frank says, the mountain wasn’t always sacred. He says he’s studied American Indian religious history, and the mountain was originally seen as a tomb for trapped souls – an unhappy resting place at best.
To this end, it’s almost as though he makes a special point to climbing in June, the month of a voluntary lull instituted by the Park Service so that Native Americans can pilgrimage and pray in peace. Frank says he sees that as silly, a bandage on a “gaping wound.” “I can be especially respectful during that month, but I’m certainly not going to stop.”
As his website says, “He has come to believe that it will do more good for the average person living on the Reservation to have a medical clinic that has basic supplies and a doctor or nurse, schools that have desks, paper and books, housing for everyone, than it is for the Tower to remain unclimbed in the month of June.”
Besides, not climbing in June costs those who host and supply climbers a huge amount of livelihood.
Frank may be right, this ban may just be an ineffective bandage. But does ignoring it and fighting it actually help his purpose? Frank is a spiritual person – he gives thanks every day for his continued sobriety and loves to join hands in prayer before a meal. But he is not religious, and doesn’t embrace any doctrine.
Because of that, it seems like he can’t understand why some have such an uncompromising view of how bad climbing is for the site. He sees it in practical terms, and he definitely has a point. But religion isn’t always practical or logical. If you believe that a divine spirit is attached to a place, how can you compromise? Can you diminish your view of God?
It seems like there is no real solution, and even though I have no real connection to the tower, it hurts me personally. I can’t wrap my head – or my heart – around it.
Anyhow, here are some more photos. First, there’s Rebekah and Matthew, the two young workers-in-residence who love to bake cookies:
Here’s a bureau that I oiled covered in American Indian dreamcatchers and t-shirts that he sells for his cause:
And then there’s one last view of the tower, covered in snow and hidden by fog in the very wee hours of the cold morning:
