Peter Matthiessen’s “Snow Leopard,” a renowned book on spiritual exploration in the Buddhist monasteries of the Himalayas, has reached its 40th anniversary since publication. His son, Alex, retraced that trek.
Can one become an armchair Zen monk? It’s one of the questions posed by Peter Matthiessen’s great exploration, “Snow Leopard.” Among all the books I’ve read in my lifetime, especially in recent years, none has vividly captured Matthiessen’s acclaimed trekking journey, the “journey of the heart” to the ancient Tibetan plateau of Dolpo in the high Himalayas. Many believe this. Since its first edition in 1978, “Snow Leopard” has arguably inspired the paths of hippies and backpackers venturing beyond Kathmandu (continuing to top Amazon’s “Himalaya” charts). Though I’ve revisited the book several times, I have yet to visit the places he described. But returning to the beautifully new Folio Society edition commemorating the 40th anniversary of its initial publication, I find myself breathing deeper and feeling a clearer, more inviting view.
In autumn 1973, Matthiessen embarked on this journey at the invitation of the renowned wildlife biologist George Schaller (publishing for the first time photos of the people and places of that route). Schaller’s purpose was to study the breeding habits of the blue sheep, the bharal, in the Himalayas, aiming to prove Schaller’s hypothesis that they were ancestors of all sheep and goats. However, Matthiessen, the only writer to win the National Book Award for both fiction and non-fiction, was drawn to this expedition for other reasons.
One was the semi-mystical possibility of seeing the snow leopard, the natural predator of the bharal, an animal rarely seen by most Westerners. There was also the opportunity to live among the thick-skinned mountain people of Dolpo, living a “pure” Tibetan culture shielded from external influences (Matthiessen, born into the privileged wasp-like atmosphere of the East Coast, had spent half his life seeking remote indigenous peoples and landscapes untouched by human hands). But more than that, the journey to the Himalayas coincided with moments in his life seeking clarity of mind, and perhaps solace.
In the prologue, written from his travel notes, Matthiessen recounts that 20 months earlier, his second wife and mother of two of his four children, Deborah Love, had died suddenly at 44 from rapidly spreading cancer. Their marriage had been tumultuous, sometimes strained, yet in the days leading up to her diagnosis, they had agreed to divorce, remaining bound until the end (“I resented her kindness,” Matthiessen admits in the book, reflecting on their early trials, “and acted badly… but there was love, half understood, never fully over”).
In the 1960s, living with Amazon tribes in Brazil and taking their “spiritual medicine” Ayahuasca, Matthiessen introduced Love to LSD and other hallucinogens. She also taught him the basics of Zen Buddhism, which became a major focus of his life’s research over the next 40 years (eventually becoming a Zen monk and founding a Zen Buddhist monastery in Sagaponack, Long Island, New York). He tested the framework of his thoughts on the pages of “Snow Leopard,” walking through landscapes where even the Buddha had walked.
Matthiessen’s book has a timeless appeal. Its beautifully detailed and profoundly human descriptions allow one to read the treacherous, sometimes dangerous climb to the “Crystal Mountain,” a sacred site of Tibetan Buddhism, as if following the footsteps of medieval pilgrims. Yet his progress inevitably carries symbolic undertones. Matthiessen traveled from Varanasi, also known as the Valley of Death, to Kathmandu, where he recounted walking alongside the Ganges River, where “the smell of burning human flesh hung thick in the air at the ghats of the holy city of the Ganges River.” On the expedition’s first day out of town, Matthiessen encounters a wrapped corpse by the roadside. “I nod to death and pass by, aware of the sound of my own path.”
However, his journey focuses on the life itself, particularly the moment-by-moment effort to experience the real world on-site. His meticulous attention to detail in describing the world is the enduring joy of this book. The mechanical aspects of the journey, disputes with Sherpas, blizzards disrupting parties, and debates over luggage are each concentrated like haikus in their own sentences and passages. “The road continues into the oaks,” he writes. “I lean against warmth of straw and dung, basking on a sunlit stone. Glowing black-red beetles arrive, plump grasshoppers rubbing their legs like fire. Crows flap along the river’s edge pines, their wings filled with the hard silver light of the Himalayas.” With this immersive approach, Matthiessen painstakingly guides readers to Crystal Mountain. At 18,000 feet, he begins to lose part of his own senses in the thin air. “The earth is ringing. Everything moves, filled with power, filled with light.”
These brief revelations would not ring true without Matthiessen’s vibrant portrayal of how his mind strays just as vividly into small frustrations, bubbles, setbacks, and deeper anxieties away from the Eightfold Path of Buddhism. Beyond the complex sorrowful feelings for his deceased wife, his main distraction was guilt over leaving behind his children in New York, especially his son Alex, who was still grieving his mother’s death at the age of eight. On the day he parted with his son, Matthiessen tried to explain how long his quest would take in the morning before sending him to school. Alex tried to hold back tears, but shouted, “Too long!” – a admonition that haunted Matthiessen in the mountains and lingered in the hearts of his readers (why?). At the foot of Annapurna, he records a handwritten note from his son.
Dear Papa,
How are you? I’m okay. I’ve been very sad, crying, and not writing to you. But writing this now has cheered me up more. The cat and dog are fine, but it’s sad when they die. School’s okay. It would be nice if you could come back for Thanksgiving. Are your snow boots still okay? Are you having fun?
With love, Alex
P.S. Please keep my letter safe and make sure it reaches you. Lots of kisses. Bye-bye, a million times. Love, your son, Alex
This letter ended with a sparkling sun cartoon, but its emotions cast a shadow over the book. Matthiessen is troubled by the same common anxieties of all obsessive travelers who worry whether they are selfishly abandoning more important responsibilities while seeking private Nirvana. He didn’t come home for Thanksgiving.
Last week, I spoke on the phone with Alex Matthiessen, his father’s “Sun.” He is now 53 years old, working as an environmental consultant and campaigner in New York, previously serving as CEO of Riverkeeper, protecting and improving the Hudson River, and safeguarding drinking water for 9 million New Yorkers. He wrote the foreword to the new edition of “Snow Leopard,” reflecting on his relationship with his father.
“In the years since ‘Snow Leopard’ was published, I’ve been criticized by many friends and a few strangers for leaving my father for three months shortly after my mother’s death. I’m grateful for that solidarity, and I don’t fully agree with those emotions, but it was a confusing time for me when he wasn’t around. However, it was also part of the most turbulent and enjoyable times of my life. In the early 70s…”
In discussing the book, he mentions having read it three times now. First as a high schooler, “It’s quite dense for young readers – a lot of technical explanations of Zen Buddhism, enjoyable but of limited value to me,” he said. In his twenties, picking it up again while traveling the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, “The entire book became more vivid, but the Zen part had less impact than descriptions of people, cultures, and places.”
He had read his father’s words three times, nearly two years ago. At that time, he was invited to trace the journey to Crystal Mountain with George Schaller, his father’s original companion. Reflecting on this recent journey, he said, “It was precisely because my father passed away, disappeared, that I felt a stronger sense of mission, so to speak, to delve deeper into his thoughts through that book. Not just what that experience meant to him, but who he was in life.”
Alex had some hesitation in joining the recent journey. He explained, “I felt a bit out of place since I wasn’t directly involved in the original travels.” However, this invitation came at a crucial point in his life. Needless to say, he had been through very difficult years since his father’s death. The trip presented itself as another chance to reconnect amidst the stresses affecting his mourning.
Alex, like his father, took notes daily during the journey, intending to someday share the experience with his young son. Though he doesn’t consider himself a writer by suggestion of others, Alex is now contemplating turning these field notes into a book. George Schaller, his trekking companion at 83 years old, ventured out on the trek with remarkable vigor. “George had many insights about the experiences he shared with my father on the mountain,” Matthiessen explained. “But as you might guess, he’s a reserved man. Not one to talk about emotions.”
Several aspects of the trek had clearly changed. When Mr. Matthiessen made his journey, it felt exceedingly remote. He shaved his long hair at the outset and began walking barefoot like the Sherpas. As a reader, one can feel him “shivering all night in damp cotton and wool clothes at minus 20 degrees.”
Alex remarks on how modern equipment has made the journey 40 years later much easier. The region is no longer as isolated from the world, with companies now offering “Crystal Mountain Tours,” chasing the original “Snow Leopard Route” to Dolpo. “I was expecting a true adventure trip like he described,” Matthiessen said. “It was needed, but ultimately, it wasn’t quite as physically demanding.”
Spiritually, mentally, it was perhaps even more demanding. Talking with Alex, after a few years, I learned how special the book was to some people. It helped them understand or cope with death. “My friend, the writer Sonali Deraniyagala, lost her entire family in the 2003 tsunami in Sri Lanka, and she said the book was the only thing that truly comforted her. ‘Oddly enough, it really eased the physical pain,’ she said. Does Alex feel the same way about this book primarily encompassing grief?”
“I don’t think it’s quite accurate,” he answered. “But I trust the judgment when others, like my friend, say they felt similarly. It’s a very insightful comment on loss. I don’t think my father himself was deeply wounded – I believe he approached it with a Buddhist acceptance. But I found a really honest, unflinching stance towards the complexity of that relationship.”
He read the book through as he journeyed along. Did his father, in his youth, feel lonely amidst those exact landscapes? What emotions did that thought bring to him?
“In the book, my presence was vividly portrayed. Though not appearing frequently, its impact was striking,” he stated. “During the journey, in moments when he spoke of me and my mother, I deeply felt how much he missed me. On one particularly beautiful day, as I sat above Foxund Lake, knowing he once gazed upon the same scenery, I was enveloped in a mix of joy and sadness. It was a moment that reminded me of our wonderful bond, forged in true strength and deep friendship.”
Throughout his life, Alex had received “breath-catching” questions repeatedly. “What was it like having Peter Matthiessen as your father?” The answer was simple, perhaps painfully evident. “It was a privilege, literally. But as his wife and children would attest, it was also demanding,” he said. Interested in Zen, Alex strives to make time for meditation but doesn’t approach it with the strictness of his father. “In any journey, I seek to understand that the journey itself is the destination. Early in ‘The Snow Leopard,’ Peter Matthiessen writes these words: ‘I wish to see the snow leopard, but it does not matter if I do not.’ I shared the same sentiment. While I didn’t find the destination of my quest, I encountered other magnificent wildlife: wolves, migratory birds heading towards India, and plenty of blue sheep.”
Matthiessen’s original journey, like several worthy pursuits along the yellow brick road, ended in almost an anticlimax. The doors of the Crystal Monastery, focal point of his spiritual ambition, were closed when he finally crossed the snows. The wise Lama he awaited for months turned out to be a “disabled monk treating yak butter and goat skin with brain,” passing them downstream in the valley. “Zen does not abide mysteries,” Matthiessen remarked. Enlightenment isn’t just atop a mountain. His book dramatically illustrates that it’s more likely to be intuited amidst actions like “trudging, panting, climbing, slipping, gasping.” Yet, the real magic of Matthiessen’s initial journey and his book lies in the fact that even from an armchair, one can travel every step of that path with him.
