Why Climb Mount Driskill?

George Herbert Mallory, a British mountaineer from the early 1920’s, when asked why he wanted to climb Everest responded that he was doing it “because it’s there.” Mallory was probably wryly praising the adventurous nature of the human spirit rather than making a cryptic statement about life, but he did die on the peak a few years later. So, there is that fly writhing in the risk-taker’s ointment.

Having seen Everest and its mistress peaks from a plane flying into Lhasa, Tibet, I can assure you that the parallels between the most storied of mountains and Louisiana’s highest point are simply that they happen to be higher than anywhere else around. There is no adventure in summiting the generously named Mount Driskill. However, its 534 feet of altitude, which is incidentally the third lowest peak in any state, does still beg the question, why would you climb it? Well, you climb it because it’s there.

Without wearing the comparison too thin, it seems that Driskill is a place worth climbing not because it is a physical challenge or a test of human courage, but because it is an existential exercise. And if you take the unimproved path across the false summit to the peak, summiting Driskill is also a very pleasant walk in the woods. In short, you will not require crampons or bottled oxygen, but for us flat landers with an interest in the spectacle of the world around us, it is just something worth doing, even if one could probably make the ascent in a robust, motorized wheelchair.

But the pleasant walk up Driskill is what we have available to us. And shouldn’t that be enough? Why climb Driskill? Why drive to the end of Louisiana Highway 1 in Grand Isle and look out into the great Gulf and know that the brown waters of the Mississippi that contain the wash of half a continent are pouring into all the oceans of the world? Some questions require a wry answer and some undertakings require an appreciation of life’s oddity that borders on the absurd. Such is the stuff of adventures both great and small.

But, enough existential fat chewing.

As the old saw goes, “half the fun is getting there” and the drive from south Louisiana to Arcadia, just below Interstate 20 takes you through the Kisatchie National Forest and allows you to see our green state transform from rice and sugar cane fields into corn, soy bean and cotton land.

The town of Arcadia itself has a charming front street that sits on the headwaters of a bayou, and one can even take a brief detour to see where Bonnie and Clyde were sent to their final reward at the hands of a group of heavily armed Texans with no apparent regard for the cost of ammunition.

My climbing companion and I, who is incidentally not a Sherpa by ethnicity or vocation, began our agreeable walk through the Louisiana uplands at the parking lot of the Mount Zion Church where the trailhead is well marked. We had been driving though squalls all day after an evening of trying to determine if a bottle of Old Charter got better as you got closer to the bottom (it does not). So, even a modest bit of exercise seemed marginally dubious.

We set off down the wide and well-tended main path that sloped and turned through pines and hardwoods, brambles and Dogwoods that were just coming into bloom. The sign at the beginning of the ascent had informed us that the peak was one-eighth of a mile away or what amounts to a walk around a large city block. However, you soon arrive at a rusty gate where another sign informs you that an unimproved trail will take you to the top of Driskill but does so through a more natural and unmolested environment. And we chose the path less traveled.

Or so it seemed. Many feet had trodden this path and large strokes of blue paint on the rough tree bark clearly directed the hiker towards their destination. We reached the false summit as the rain began to fall and we began to question the wisdom of hiking in jeans and t-shirts. Further on through a forest floor that was surprisingly clear of underbrush we saw our goal, a modest structure assembled by a troop of local Boy Scouts to mark the highest point in the broad, alluvial state of Louisiana.

The rain came and went and mist somewhat obscured our view of the surrounding countryside, but there is no denying that just reaching the top of Driskill did provide more than a little bit of satisfaction. It might have been satisfaction more akin to winning a plush toy at a carnival ring toss than the one that comes with pushing yourself to limits of your endurance, but not all triumphs require agony and danger.

On our return to the Mount Zion parking lot we took the improved trail, not out of exhaustion or because we were wet and muddy, but because it seemed more like completing some ritual circuit, not wholly unlike walking around the Dalai Lama’s ancestral seat, Potala Palace, fifty times to cleanse yourself of sins, but with a great deal less bowing and solemnity and a lot more red mud and muttering.

George Mallory died pursing his obsession with Everest, his body forever lost in its glaciated heights. One may not need to die to follow their interests (or obsessions) by poking their inquisitive noses into every corner of this strange state. In fact, one need only get rained on and be able to walk an eighth of a mile with or without a mild hangover. The one requirement for doing something like climbing to the top of Mount Driskill is that you have a genuine curiosity about all of wide and occasionally hilly creation. If you are motivated by the quixotic or if you just like a gentle walk in nature, then summiting Mount Driskill is an experience worth having. The mountaineers of the day may not bend their ear when they hear of your exploits, but it assuredly makes for an interesting conversation starter and if we can’t all get to Everest then that will have to do.

Frank McMains is a writer and photographer who enjoys summiting existential heights, the back roads of Louisiana and the occasional glass of fine bourbon.

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Information on Arcadia, including lodging options that range from The Dove House Bed and Breakfast to the Bonnie and Clyde RV Park, is at arcadialouisiana.org.