
Nabokov in Utah - drjohnson
https://theamericanscholar.org/net-gains/#.VYhuL6bwOt-
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thebear
So far, I have done two mountain climbs in the footsteps of literary figures:
Nabokov on Lone Peak in the Wasatch, and Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder on
Matterhorn Peak in the Sierra Nevada.

[http://thbecker.net/hiking/in_the_footsteps_of_jack_kerouac_...](http://thbecker.net/hiking/in_the_footsteps_of_jack_kerouac_on_matterhorn_peak/page_01.html)

Does anybody know of more climbs or hikes that offer this kind of perk?

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chm
I'm curious as to what inspired you to follow their trails? Their literature,
a particular work, what?

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thebear
About Jack Kerouac's and Gary Snyder's climb of Matterhorn Peak, I wrote this
in my trip account (see link in my original comment):

"No other book has shaped my youth—and much of my adulthood, for that
matter—as much as Jack Kerouac's 'The Dharma Bums.' [...] In particular, I
always remembered how Kerouac said that the performance of these three guys on
Matterhorn Peak, Morley who stayed down at the lake, Kerouac who gave up just
below the summit, and Gary Snyder who made it to the top, mirrored each man's
personal Karma. This made me think that perhaps I could find out about my own
Karma by trying the same thing. So really, this hike was all about Finding My
Own Personal Karma. Wow, that ought to be fun."

And although I'm being sort of facetious about the Karma thing here, I kind of
did find my own personal Karma there, as I explain on the last page of my trip
account.

In the case of Nabokov and Lone Peak, it was part coincidence that I was house
sitting in Sandy, UT at the time, with a perfect view of Lone Peak from the
hot tub in the back yard. So I had to climb the darn thing anyway; it left me
no choice. Then I met a girl at Sugar House Coffee in Salt Lake who knew much
more about Vladimir Nabokov and his stay in Utah than I ever will. It became
sort of an obsession for us to retrace Nabokov's steps, do what he did, see
what he saw, savor the feeling to sit on that breathtakingly lofty rock in the
sky where he sat.

So I guess the answer to your question is, I see an artist's work, be it a
writer, musician, painter, what have you, as an act of sharing with the rest
of us. By conversely sharing an experience like a mountain climb with them, be
in the same place as they once were, I mean literally, your butt being where
their butt was, perhaps we can intensify that feeling of sharing. That may be
an illusion, but it's a pretty darn good illusion, especially if you share it
with another person.

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chm
Thank you for replying. I shared the same feeling as you describe when I sat
on these steps [1] last summer!

[1]:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solvay_conference_1927.jp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solvay_conference_1927.jpg)

~~~
thebear
Nice!

