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Outside Magazine July 2002

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The Hard Way
The Stone Mirage (Cont.)

I HAD TRIED HUNTING down the peripatetic Beckey, now in his late seventies and still living the road-tripping climbing bum's life. He supposedly lives in Seattle, but good luck finding him there. All I ever got was a letter from a friend of his named Lisa, who wrote to say she was leery of the legend: "I would say it was one of FB's stories. He takes great delight in starting rumors."

One day Todd Skinner, who had refused to give up the chase, phoned.

"Saddle up."

"Where we going?"

"Mexico."

He'd tracked down an ex-smoke jumper named Mark Motes, who claimed to have been on Beckey's fabled South of the Border sojourn in 1980.

Discrete, clear facts and amorphous old myths very rarely jibe. Over time, small tales become tall tales. Words become fungible.

"Motes says the peak is somewhere west of Durango near a pueblo called Peñon Blanco. It's all really vague. I'll bring the ropes and a rack."

"I'll get maps."

One week later we're switchbacking up into the Sierra Madre Occidental west of Durango in a rented jeep. The road is called El Espinazo del Diablo—the Devil's Backbone—and it runs along an arête, with arid, incised canyons thousands of feet deep dropping off to either side. Ominously, all the rock we're seeing is volcanic, most of it either rotten or overgrown with thornbushes.

For the entire day we have little idea where we are and no idea where we're going. Then, at twilight, we pass a startling sign that gives us our exact location: TROPICO DE CANCER, LATITUD NORTE 23º 27', LONGITUD OESTE 105º 50'.

After dark, we pull over in a village named Los Bancos and spread out our maps. Several old men gather round.

"Donde esta el blanco peñon?" Todd asks, forming a mountain with his hands.

"Sí, sí," says the oldest man, placing a thick, yellowed thumbnail on a distinct spot: Cerro el Peñon. The closed contours clearly indicate a mountain. Near the peak is a village called Palo Blanco.

"Hah!" Todd is delighted. "I knew it! Maybe the village was called Palo Blanco and the peak itself Peñon."

But something else doesn't quite fit. We have already passed this peak and surveyed its walls and all of them have been unquestionably volcanic, not gleaming granite.

We discuss the many possibilities for these inconsistencies while the caballeros look on. Todd reluctantly points out that discrete, clear facts and amorphous old myths rarely jibe. Over time, small tales become tall tales. Words become fungible. Blanco, palo, peñon. Granitic, volcanic.

We go back to the maps. Our key words begin to leap out everywhere. Los Blancos. Cerro Pelon. Cerro Blanco. Llano Blanco. Cerro el Pino.

"Ever go snipe hunting, Todd?"

"Peñon Blanco," Todd says again, enunciating for all he's worth.

The old man pipes up. "Peñon Blanco? No, no, señor escalador. No, ese no es el lugar."

The old man begins scouring the maps, his dark, battered fingers moving from river to mesa to ridge crest.

"Aqui."

This time his cracked thumbnail has stopped in the far corner of a map we only brought by chance. "That's over 150 miles in the opposite direction from the area we were told to search," Todd says incredulously.

"Exactly," I reply.

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