King of the Dirtbags (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine November 2001

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King of the Dirtbags (Cont.)

ON OUR SECOND DAY in the Winds, Yvon told us that "the most important thing I ever taught my kids was how to eat roadkill."

He explained: "We hit a sage grouse on the road one day when they were young, so we stopped and picked it up. I taught them how to skin it, then I taught them how to cook it, and we ate it. Then I taught them how to tie flies with the feathers. Then we went fishing with the flies and I taught them how to catch fish."

This was Yvon the survivalist talking now, another distinct character among the dozen or so of his multiple personalities. Designer, climber, writer, kayaker, environmental activist, lover of rivers and fish, philosopher, surfer, businessman, ascetic, aesthete—at the age of 62, he morphs from one role to the next effortlessly.

Here is Yvon the pessimist: "I knew Man was doomed when I realized that his strongest inclination was toward ever-increasing homogeneity—which goes completely against Nature. Nature moves toward ever-increasing diversity. Diversity is Nature's strength. Nature loves diversity."

And you don't get diversity without adversity, according to the Chouinard theory of the universe. We'd talked about this extensively in Yosemite.

"Adversity is what causes organisms to change and adapt," he'd said. "Adversity is the catalyst for evolution. Take away adversity and evolution stops. And what do you have then? Devolution: America."

Late that afternoon, we camped at the northern end of Upper Jean Lake, the south face of Mount Arrowhead looming above us. Yvon cooked the first of five straight dinners of his bowel-busting, carrots-and-onions tsampa. When Kent happened to mention the profusion of pine needles and dirt in the entrée, Yvon replied, "They're good for you!"

And then the lesson: "You know, I absolutely forbade my children from washing their hands before they ate. Weakens their immune system. You have to learn how to handle germs. I drink from every stream I fish for the same reason."

I asked him if he'd ever had giardia.

"Oh, God," he cackled. "So bad the farts would clear out a bus. But that's not the point. The point is, I'm trying to adapt myself to the environment. Not the other way around."

Later that evening I reconned our approach to the base of Arrowhead while Yvon gave George and Kent more fly-casting lessons. Studying the south face with my monocular, then swinging the lens down onto Yvon beside the lake, it occurred to me that he was far more focused on showing his Hawaiian pals how to cast than on climbing a new route.

"Yvon's a big-time sharer of knowledge," says John McMahon. "At this point in his life, I think he's more interested in teaching than doing."

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