I was saddened, though hardly surprised, when authorities in California confirmed that the remains found last weekend by a couple of hikers on Mount Baldy were those of the actor Julian Sands.
He had set off on a solo hike on January 13, in severe weather conditions and hadn’t returned.
Media reports seem to say Sands was both a walker and a climber, and although of course you can be both, I think people are generally one or the other. Some of the paths on Mount Baldy look pretty terrifying to me but it does look like
Conflating the climbing/walking dichotomy still further, Sands once said in an interview, ‘Climbing mountains, a lot of time people who don't climb mountains assume is about this great heroic sprint for the summit. And somehow this great ego-driven ambition. But actually it's the reverse. It's about supplication and sacrifice and humility, when you go to these mountains. It's not so much a celebration of oneself but the eradication of one's self consciousness. And so on these walks you lose yourself, you become a vessel of energy in harmony hopefully with your environment.’
I suppose in the end we all become one with the environment, Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, With rocks, and stones, and trees.
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