A Brief History of the Shaka le Moose

Vedauwoo, Wyoming

The "shaka" -- the Hawaiian hand gesture for "hang loose" or "positive vibes" or "right on" or " take it easy" or "aloha," which itself means "love" or "affection" or "peace" or "compassion" or "mercy" or "greetings" -- has become, like its meanings, near universal. It is no longer just surfers on the pro circuit who flash the shaka.

President Obama waves the shaka. Jock bros on fraternity row throw the shaka. Duck-butt hair cut "let me talk to the manager" suburban moms named Karen who drive from yoga class to the closest wine bar even have the shaka printed on the bumper stickers of their Land Rovers. The shaka is ubiquitous and perhaps it is its universality that allows for its vast and sundry use and application. Indeed, it would seem, the shaka has become all things to all people.

The shaka comes to us from Hamana Kalili (1882-1958), a legendary fisherman from O'ahu, Hawai'i who lost the middle three digits of his right hand in an industrial accident, working at a sugar plant circa 1917. Later, Hamana worked security at that same plant and local children looking to murk some of that sweet sweet sugar cane would mimic his deformity by waving their pinky and thumb to alert that the coast was clear. And thus, according to the oral history, the local tradition of waving the shaka was born.

Hamana Kalili was also a Mormon. And it makes sense that, given the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint's central tenet of open revelation,  that the shaka would go on to take new life and new forms around the world. Hawai'i Magazine readily describes "7 ways to throw a shaka." This youtube user illustrates 13 different shakas. But the definitive source of all things shaka is Thomas Campbell's  2005 surf film Sprout, which explains the many types of shakas:

 Sprout (2005)

In Sprout we have our first known example of the Shaka le Moose in the wild. In this variation of the shaka, the practitioner raises a double fisted shaka to their head, resembling the palmate antlers of the male moose. The film claims that the shaka le moose is reserved for Canucks who come to visit the Hawaiian islands. But while moose are closely associated with our friends in the Great White North, these largest members of the deer family also inhabit the boreal and temperate broadleaf forests of the United States from the Utahlorado Rockies to New England as well. So while Mormonism was exported to the Hawaiian islands, the shaka was imported to the mainland where the Shaka le Moose was set free to populate the mountains and spread the shaka spirit in the high country.

Sometime around 2010, I discovered the Sprout clip on youtube and was introduced to the "shaka le moose." During my tenure as a mountain guide in Salida, Colorado (2013-2015) the shaka le moose became my go-to summit selfie pose. The first such instance occurred at the summit of Mt. Guyot in July of 2013. Mt. Guyot was the "white whale" amongst our guiding outfit. It lacked clear trails to high camp and featured a long, exposed ridge traverse that was prone to bad weather in the summer months. Ours was the first group to summit in years and I celebrated the good vibes with some hang loose moose.

Mt. Antero, Colorado

Wetterhorn Peak, Mt. Guyot, Mt. Shavano, Colorado

From there the shaka le moose and I went up and down the Rockies from New Mexico to Wyoming, across the Great Plains to the Southern Appalachians and then internationally to its apropos motherland: Banff National Park, Canada. But the shaka le moose is in decline.

Based on very reliable and highly scientific instagram data using the #shakalemoose, #shakalamoose, and #shakamoose hashtags, the shaka le moose is vulnerable to extinction in the wild. Posts tagged some variation of shaka le moose peaked in 2015 and though it saw a modest resurgence in 2018, the general trend is down. This threatened status begs the question, where has all the mountain shaka gone? Like the moose population in temperate climates declining due to human-induced climate change, the conservation of this species of positive vibes and good tidings depends on mountain people like you and me. Become part of the conservation effort by getting out there, doing rad things, and throwing those good vibe antlers up. 

Heart Mountain, AB, Canada

Viva la Shaka les Moose!

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Making Miseries

wet, tired, smelly, and spent in Lake City, Colorado

"We're epic-ing so hard right now," I gleefully yelled while crouched over a stove tucked under a truck's tailgate in a desperate attempt to cook in the midst of a massive freezing downpour at the base of Wetterhorn's long approach trail. At the same time, Robin and Logan were pitching a tent and Vance was taking a poop in the cold, late night, driving rain. All equally miserable. All equally stoked.

Epic-ing is a climberism for when everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. And without going into too much detail, it had. To "epic" is to suffer and endure and while we may not end up in Alpinist, we were definitely epic-ing for the everyman. Or, as Logan said while huddled under a boulder in the middle of another rain storm on another mountain, we were "making miseries."

Difficult moments shape us.

As a climber, I live for those moments. Snot in my mustache. Wind in my backpack straps. Kick stepping through snow patches. Scree sliding off exposed ridges. Running it out over your last piece of pro.

As guides, getting to tree line or rapping to flat ground when a storm is or is about to pummel your valley is a lot harder with twenty inexperienced people than it is with just your party.

We often ask clients after super hard days, "how do you find joy in pain?" Week after week, the most common response is in the people around us.

Shared experiences bring people together. Shared struggles bring people together forever in deep and meaningful ways.

Very few people can climb a mountain by themselves. And those people usually eventually die in the mountains. Similarly very few people can make it through life alone.

Real community exists in the journey.

What does it look like to have joy in pain? To be content in every situation? It's not a perfect analogy by any means but I think it looks a lot like an exposed final pitch and turning to your partner behind you and admitting, "man, this sucks."

Real community creates the space for lament.

And maybe you summit. Maybe you don't.

Real community turns lament into laughter.

Because when you get back to your car or to the bar or the local pizza joint, you laugh about the loose block that fell right past your face and embellish how miserable you felt on the descent and rejoice about how ungodly tired you still are.

It isn't the summit or the view from the anchors I talk about most when I get back down. It's the struggle and pain and the absolute joy of the journey that makes for great stories and laughs and memories.

Making miseries.

That day, after climbing three peaks on two mountains and hiking for hours back in the rain and the hail, I sat in a gravel parking lot in Lake City, Colorado, watching Barrett struggle to learn how to change his first tire, my shins aching, my eyes struggling to stay awake, and foul stenches erupting from every pore of my body and I thought, man, I'm having the time of my life. 

**addendum updated 8.18.13:
"the essence of the sport lies, not in ascending a peak, but in struggling with and overcoming difficulties. The happy climber, like the aged Ulysses, is one who has 'Drunk delight of battle with his peers,' and this delight is only attainable by assaulting cliffs which tax to their utmost limits the powers of the mountaineers engaged." -- Alfred Mummery, 1895 quoted in Pilgrims of the Vertical by Joseph E. Taylor III

The Struggle Bus

A year ago, I took a break from climbing with my friend Kyle to hike Colorado's easiest 14er, Mt. Sherman. I'm a speedy hiker for a guy with short legs, and I ended up waiting for him at the summit for an hour and forty-five minutes. We were both pretty pissed at each other. I was mad that he took so long and had all the food. Kyle was peeved that I sprinted up the mountain without ever looking back to check on him. 

As a first year guide taking groups from the flatlands of these United States up Colorado's loftiest peaks, you learn quickly that you cannot tuck your hands under your pack, keep your head down, and blast your way up the mountain. In fact, as a first year guide, you often find yourself at the back of line, hiking last, making sure that that one fifteen-year-old who doesn't want to be there doesn’t mosey off the trail and try to find his way back to Texas. Or that the seventy-year-old grandfather who blindly agreed to come on trail with his grandkids doesn't keel over and die. But for the most part, the back of the line is just average people who justifiably struggle carrying a 40 lb. backpack up the side of a mountain.

We have a name for the back of the line: The Struggle Bus. 

The Struggle Bus is comprised mostly of chaperone adults who had no idea what they were getting into and teenagers who fall on either extreme of the weight spectrum. They hike slower, take longer, and necessitate more water and/or inhaler breaks. Thus, the healthier, stronger, or for whatever reason faster kids at the front get to break and rest while they wait for the back of the line to catch up. And then, they take off as soon as we do. The reality of the Struggle Bus is that you can't really catch a break. 

Personally, hiking slow hurts. As a group, it sucks to baby step your way up a huge hill and to finally see your group, only to have them saddle their water bottles, stand up, and take off. It's disheartening. 

Which is why I try my best to turn the Struggle Bus into the Party Bus. 

Some struggling hikers need conversation to help them find a rhythm. Some need to hear a story. Others need Disney or 90s gangster rap sing-a-longs. Still others just need you to shut the hell up and hike in silence with them. Perhaps the hardest thing for me about being a guide is determining which form of encouragement a person needs. 

Because the only thing worse than no encouragement is patronizing encouragement. 

I've come to really love the Party Bus. Some of my most difficult, painful moments have come from hiking in the back with people who really don't want my encouragement. They don't want me to be there, and neither do I. But all of my favorite moments have happened at the back of the line. If the "last shall be first" is any truism at all, it is experienced here. 

I think of Amanda from Texas who spent one year training for this very trip. Losing weight, getting in better shape, becoming a healthier mom for her kids, wife to her husband, and teacher to her students.

Amanda wrestled the whole way up Mt. Antero, placing one foot in front of the other from low camp to high camp to summit, and I was fortunate enough to be there almost every step of the way.

She never stopped. Never complained. Never said she couldn’t do it. I’ve never hiked slower. But there was so much joy in those steps. We talked about her one-year-old twins and her job teaching high school students. We sang silly Sunday school songs, and then we hummed them when we were out of breath. And we shared silence when we needed silence.

The kids chose Amanda to summit first, and watching her hike through a tunnel of arms, trekking poles, and ice axes to that peak with tears in her eyes has been my favorite moment of the summer. Rarely ever have I been so proud.

I’ve learned a lot taking it slow, hiking in the back, hanging out with the Party Bus. A few weeks after our Antero summit, a wise youth minister on Mt. Arkansas gave words to my experience:

“It’s easy to shout encouragement from afar. It’s another thing to walk alongside someone and speak words of hope amidst the struggle.”

And again, what’s true on the mountain I think is true in life as well.

5 Things Overheard on Mt. Arkansas

#dirtbagguideswag

My sister runs a little bookstore where she overhears a plethora of conversations and interesting tidbits. Occasionally, she'll write them down and post them anonymously on her blog. I have blatantly stolen her format to bring to you five memorable quotations from a week on Mt. Arkansas with a group from the flatlands of Texas. 

The week itself was perhaps my most challenging yet, but perhaps my most rewarding and memorable. Some quotes are profound. Some are challenging. Some are hilarious. And some were downright annoying. These were the most memorable. 

On teenage boys running towards real life bears 

"STOP! Are you on crack cocaine?!" 

On encouragement

"It's easy to shout encouragement from a distance, it's another thing to walk alongside someone and speak words of hope."

On ungratefulness

Camper: "What kind of pancake is this?"

Guide: "It's a mountain pancake. Made on a mountain."

On summits 

"I didn't think the summit would be this emotional."

(spoken by a teary eyed eighth grader)

On struggle and journey 

"The mountain doesn't show you who you are, but who you want to be."