“The Barking Man” is a photograph, maybe, that I took on the summit of the Aiguille du Midi in 1980. It shows a man, a French man, “barking” at the statue of the Virgin Mary that adorns the summit. His back is to Mt. Blanc. He is very literally, “sounding his barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.” When I organized the photographic slides from that trip,” The Barking Man” did not make the cut into the “show” carousel. I’m not sure why exactly; I may have felt it unbecoming of the seriousness with which I took the whole enterprise back then; it may have been that I felt compelled to keep the moment private rather than make it “public,” as if dozens of people would see the slides, when in fact, perhaps a half-dozen would.
As years passed, I realized that particular climb was one of the very best I had ever done.
It went like this: we left Chamonix in the last tram up to the top of Aiguille du Midi at 12,605 feet. There, we guerilla-bivouacked just outside the tunnel that went from the labyrinthine, mostly-tourist-safe structure to access the actual mountain. When the sunrise hit the mountain top we descended down to the glacier and hiked over to ridge we had to gain. We had to overcome a bergschrund, ascend a steep snow slope to a ridgeline, and then drop down the other side of the ridge to the Col de la Fourche hut, a bare bones structure with no amenities, designed to sleep about eight. We were the first ones there, early afternoon. A pack sat stashed in one corner. We had a long time to gaze across the glacier at our objective, the Brenva Spur on Mt. Blanc. Too long, in fact, as the longer we looked at the thing, the more intimidating it became. Climbers began to trickle in. Late in the afternoon a helicopter appeared overhead and dropped down out of view to our right. When it rose again into the air a human body was attached to a long line and dangled in the air as the helicopter whacked out of view. We came to believe that the dead climber had left his pack in the corner and we allowed it some space, despite that the hut would soon become overcrowded.
Sleep in an eight-person hut packed with twice as many bodies is a pretty thought. The climbers begin stirring to depart at midnight. Besides, we were too scared to sleep. Somehow John, my climbing partner has misplaced his glasses and while we hunt for them, pairs of alpinists left the hut, until finally it was just him and me. The glasses are not found. Nonetheless, we rappelled off the railing on the hut’s porch and soon we were on the glacier looking up at the starlit Brenva Spur, which has only grown more ominous, somehow, in the dark.
Now the climb is officially abandoned–is a decision that’s obvious even a decision?–and we turned our attention to the problem of getting back to the Aiguille du Midi. The prospect of retracing our steps, starting with the rappel route is unappealing, if not impossible. Despite our headlamps and a map we decide to sit tight until we can see, a few more hours of darkness to endure. While we sat shivering in the dark an astonishingly white light began illuminate the sky from behind the shadow of the ridge. We could not imagine its source. The second coming? In retrospect, obviously it was a full moon rising. But at the time it wasn’t obvious, we simply did not know the moon could cast so much light.
Moonlight aside we waited for the sun. Yes, it appeared we could access the ridge that led to the Tour Ronde. Once on the ridge could we follow it to the summit? We wouldn‘t know until we were on it? Was this a climbing route? Who knew? Up we went.
It was a wild remote place with no evidence of human passage. We were like the car on a dark road whose passengers could see only as far as the headlights illumined. Up we went rope-length by rope-length. I mantled over a lip and found two perfectly formed crystals, as if in a shallow dish, waiting for me since time immemorial. Soon we were on the summit, an incredible spot centrally located in the Mt Blanc range with spectacular views in every direction. And it was here we met the Barking Man.
The descent was well-travelled and soon we were trudging back up the trail to the Aiguille du Midi, bone tired and feeling like failures. Until, waiting for the tram back down to Chamonix, we explained to a pair of Brits what we had done. “You did what?” and “Brilliant.”
Years later, the memory took on the brilliance it deserved and I began to think about the Barking Man. But I couldn’t find the photograph.
Now it’s forty-one years later and I am downsizing. Books must be reduced in number. I shed skis like bad pennies, cutting the quiver in half. Clothes, goodbye. I decided to take my photographic slides out of their carousels and put them in boxes. I know, I know, I should have digitized them, but I don’t have time for that just now. I did get a bit ruthless after a while and if I couldn’t recognize the mountain and it wasn’t particularly beautiful I flung it into the trash. Unfortunately, this concept came to me late in the process.
I did not find the photograph of The Barking Man. I did, however, find every other photograph I had considered missing over the years: my wife reading a book next to her beloved dog, Yida, at Tamarack Lodge near Mammoth Mountain; the shot of Denny Cliff wandering through the towering seracs of the Carbon Glacier on the north side of Mt Rainier; the summit photo of me on Mt. Stuart wearing my white Peter Storm sweater and cotton knickers–a print of which had hung in my aunt’s house all these years and disappeared from the estate sale after she passed away.
My friend John is writing his “climbing memoir” and asked me for some details. I remembered that about twenty years ago I had typed my journal from that summer in Chamonix. Good thing, too, as I have no idea where the original is. I read through it before I sent him a copy. I find this description: “John & I sit on the summit, where a jolly French photographer snaps our photograph and barks at the statue of the Virgin Mary.” The photograph the barking man took of us exists (dull and generic). But I couldn’t find “The Barking Man.”
His image is burned into my mind, but maybe the photograph doesn’t exist at all, maybe it was always nothing more than memory and language. Yawp! Yawp!
