photo by Nicolas Smith
History
A history of the Mount Tamalpais circumambulation tradition must acknowledge that the mountain and its surrounding area is the traditional homeland of the Huimen group of Coast Miwok. In the Miwok language, Tamalpais means:
tamal = west or coast; pais = mountain or hill
The first circumambulation of Mt. Tamalpais took place on Friday, October 22, 1965 when Beat poets and practicing Buddhists Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and Philip Whalen “opened” the mountain. The three drew on a fusion of Buddhist, Hindu, and other spiritual traditions to walk clockwise around a hallowed object – called pradakshina in South Asia – which could be a person, a stupa, or a mountain. In their case, it was Mt. Tamalpais around the East Peak and in the process they identified ten stations of the mountain where they stopped to recite chants, dharanis (magic spells to avert disaster and spread well-being), mantras, and sutras (like the “Heart of the Perfection of the Great Wisdom Sutra” that begins and ends the hike).
Gary Snyder was born in San Francisco in 1930, but his family moved to a dairy farm outside Seattle when he was two years old. His first experience of Mt. Tam was in 1939 when his family sent him alone by train to visit his aunt in Richmond. She took him to the San Francisco World’s Fair on Treasure Island, but also drove him to Muir Woods, Muir Beach, and Mt. Tam. Gary was already an experienced mountaineer when he began attending Reed College in Portland in 1947 and it was there that he befriended fellow students Lew Welch and Philip Whalen. Gary next visited Mt. Tam in 1948 with his first lover who was living in San Francisco, when they took a Greyhound Bus to Pantoll and camped on the mountain for a few nights. In 1956 Gary moved into a cabin behind Locke McCorkle’s house in Homestead Valley, to the southeast of Mt. Tam’s East Peak, and he used the many accessible trailheads to explore the mountain. It was from here that he and Jack Kerouac took the two-day camping trip across Mt. Tam to Stinson Beach – and back – immortalized in the Dharma Bums. Gary spent the later part of the 1950s in Japan studying Zen Buddhism; it was where he learned of the yamabushi tradition of backcountry Shaman-Buddhist proto-mountaineers, dating back to the 8th century, that became another influence to the circumambulation ritual.
Philip Whalen on the East Peak of Mt. Tamalpais, 1968. Photo by Gary Snyder.
The first circumambulation inspired Gary to write the poem "The Circumambulation of Mt. Tamalpais" and Philip to write his poem “Opening the Mountain, Tamalpais: 22: x: 65.” But it wasn’t until February 10, 1967 that the first public circumambulation took place, led by Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg, who had announced the hike at the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park a month before. That massive countercultural event was inaugurated as Gary blew a conch shell while he and Allen circumambulated around the park’s Polo Fields. The next two years the circumambulation took place on Buddha’s birthday, April 8, and was led by Allen and Philip in 1968 and by Dr. Neville Warwick and his Mountain Yogis in 1969. Also in 1969, Gary returned to lead the first hike on an equinox on September 21. In 1970, Allen led the hike on Buddha’s birthday; on the same date in 1971 Bob Greensfelder, Matthew Davis, and Bill Kwong guided it. On the 1971 autumnal equinox, Gary led the hike again.
Our present tradition of completing the circumambulation on every equinox or solstice was begun in September 1974 and was guided by Matthew Davis. On October 22, 1975, Matthew led the tenth-anniversary walk along with Tom Killion, Robin Collier, and Stephen Post.
Matthew continued to lead the circumambulation until he reached the age of 78 in 2013. Before Matthew passed away in 2015, he passed the role of hike leader to Laura Pettibone, who had begun attending nearly every circumambulation in 1988. Laura was an avid hiker, naturalist, and lover of Mt. Tam who completed the circumambulation over 100 times. Before she passed away in August 2022, she anointed Gifford Hartman as her successor in guiding the ritual. He is the current circumambulation leader.
photo by Nicolas Smith