Jack Kerouac, who finally drank himself to death on this day (October 21) in 1966, spent two months a decade earlier doing one of the most symbolism-stuffed job a  writer could possibly do: fire-watching alone in a small cabin on Desolation Peak in Northern Cascades National Park in Washingon State, about 250 km from Vancouver.

Kerouac had already written On The Road, but it wasn’t published until the following year, 1957. He was looking for some time alone and a place to dry out a little and maybe get some writing done, and what better spot could there be but a rickety wooden shack perched on the top of a mountain with nothing but a two-way radio for company?

As with anything Kerouacian, the cabin (which is still there, and still in use) is the site of a lot of pilgrimages by earnest young people in beards.

Travel writer Michael McCarthy visited the cabin this year, and aptly demonstrates the kind of thing that happens when you get a little tipsy off of good ol’ Jean-Louis K:

Kerouac’s fabled cabin measures a mere 14-by-14 feet, weather-beaten and forlorn in the howling winds. It would be no problem to visualize Jack’s ghost sitting on the front steps drinking a poor boy of cheap wine and chatting about eternity. On a clear day, you can see forever, deep into Canada and east towards mighty Mt. Baker, with Ross Lake far below looking like a puddle.

Really? “Chatting about eternity”?

By the way, the National Park Service classifies the hike to the top of the mountain as “strenuous,” but that’s the point, isn’t it?

[Desolation Peak image by Pete Hoffman]