This year, the Beardpocalypse will be halved.

In between two rocks, I paused my squirming for a second. I had thought I heard someone saying “Helloooooo”, but it had been hard to tell due to the scraping sounds and my muttered curses. For a good thirty seconds, I hung between the two massive rocks and listened, but all I could hear was the blood pounding in my head, and my forearms screaming at me to move or fall. Once I had edged through the gap, I shook out my shoulders, and checked my gear that had rasped between the boulders. After looking at everything quickly, I confirmed what I already knew: everything I carried was a garden variety inanimate item that could not talk. That meant that I had either heard a rock, shrub, or hidden animal talking to me, or that I was hearing things again. “Freakin’ Mt. Lawson”, I muttered, as I stomped up to a nearby outcropping and looked around, while I sipped some water and stroked my beard idly. It was as I had suspected – no one else was around as far as I could see. I stepped back onto the thin trail that led through leaves and branches and began to climb again, when I heard it again: “Hellloooooooooo?!?!”

I stopped. That I had heard clearly. Or at least I had thought I had heard it clearly. I paused, sipped some water for good measure, in case I was actually dehydrated and clomped back down toward the rocks I had just climbed through. Then, I heard the voice again, except this time, it asked something strange: “You there – are you a mountain lion?!?” The absurdity of the question prevented me from immediately answering. I had visions of Mountain Lions dressed up in hiking garb, like Little Red Riding Hood’s Grandmother, saying things like, “No dearie, I’m just another hiker, do you have any human jerky?” before pouncing, or better yet, responding in Mountain Lion: “Growl Growl Snarl Snaarl Growl Snarl”. (Translation: “No, my good fellow, clearly I’m a lion, and I can’t see why you’d insult my feline grace in such a matter. You humans, such cards!”). I wondered how someone could confuse me, homo sapiens, with a puma concolor. I even was tempted to make lion sounds. Instead, I played it safe – and said – somewhat lamely as I bent down to peer through the crack, “No…I’m a human”.

 Do mountain lions help people in need?

“Oh!” the voice came back, relieved, “I thought you might have been because all I could see was your hair and beard, so I…” I stopped listening and stood up abruptly and took a step back. So that was how it was: since I had a beard, clearly, I was a mountain lion. That was great. Just great. That was freakin’ fantastic. Day Eighteen of the Beardpocalypse had picked up right where Day Seventeen had left off. I tried to remember why I hadn’t shaved before I had come on the hike, and then I remembered. I hadn’t shaved because I was having a lazy Saturday. I sighed, and then stooped back down to proffer directions to the clearly lost – and confused hikers below me.

Once I had given the directions, I stomped through the brush in a very two-legged manner, panting and sweating the whole way towards the summit. As a matter of fact, I made extra noise not only to dissuade anyone else from thinking I was a lion, but to scare any potential lions from making a similar identification mistake. After searching around the summit block for several minutes (http://lastadventurer.com/last-adventurers-fieldnotes/2010/7/13/mt-lawson-july-3-2010-there-is-no-ladder.html), I decided to free hand the final bit, which was fine, except that mid-way up, my face began to itch. It started innocently enough in one spot, near my left ear, and then began to cascade down my jaw, burning as it went over to the right side. I tried ignoring it, but that made the sensation creep deeper into my skin. I gnashed my teeth, and wiggled my nose to no avail. What I needed to do was just give it a quick scratch with my hand, just a quick scratch, thirty seconds, and everything would be fine.

This was the worst idea ever. While the summit block wasn’t the most extreme thing I had climbed, it was still a vertical wall, and there was quite a drop that would certainly maim. I resisted the impulse with all of my attention, which made it itch more. “Great,” I thought, “my beard is trying to kill me”. Once I had started thinking about it, it was all I could focus on, other than the climbing. By the time I reached the top, my right eye was twitching from the stress like I was demonically possessed. As soon as it was safe, I scratched frantically at it with both hands, and ignored the climbing chalk that was probably streaking my face. At this point, style points didn’t matter, because after all, I had already been identified as a mountain lion. 

After thoroughly performing my ladder check, I began to head back down. Not surprisingly, on the decent, my beard didn’t itch one bit. I didn’t care. It had been hot. It had been itchy. And, apparently, it had made me look like a mountain lion, among other things. I had fulfilled my beard vow and then some, and if I didn’t like it, it was time to shave it off. As I reached the cave where I had been mistaken for another animal, I saw the same guy again off in the distance. After a long – and puzzling conversation, I found out that neither he, nor his girlfriend had made it over to the actual trail despite my directions. Correspondingly, I decided to wait for a moment or two to shout directions through the bushes so that they could actually make it to the trail and back down. It wasn’t the most helpful thing I had ever done, but since I hadn’t brought my chainsaw to cut a new trail, it was all that I could do.

Eventually, they crashed through the last foot or so of branches above me, and fell onto the trail, looking sore, bedraggled, and utterly cranky with each other. After finding out that they were indeed, fine, and not in any sort of imminent danger, I took pity on them, and led them down the “tricky” portion of the trail to where the road ended, whereupon the girl said to me, “Thank you so much, mystery bearded mountain man”. Since it was the best compliment I had received in a while with the beard, I blinked, laughed, and wished them luck as I headed back to my car.

The next day, as we jogged down a misty and cloudy beach, the Slovak listened to my tale of woe, and in response said, “So that’s why you still have the beard?” I waited thirty seconds to gather enough air to answer, since he was setting a bruising barefoot pace, and gasped out that I was shaving it off that day. “Dude.” He said, pausing to pant as well, “You. Should. Do something epic with that. Like Fu Manchu style for the party.” I laughed – briefly – since I didn’t have much air to spare. Later, when we were at our post-run food-fest, I looked at him and said, “Why not, I’ll do it”, which led him to stare at me with a confused look until I explained that I was finishing a conversation we had started about an hour before. Several hours later, I found myself with my trusty razor in hand, staring at my unfamiliar bearded face in the mirror, wondering how to approach carving it into something unusual. Since it was usually several quick strokes of removing everything, I wasn’t sure I had the finesse technique to dance around corners without drawing blood or sabotaging any styles that I might come up with. I spent a moment wondering whether my hairstylist had been serious about carving stars into my beard, but in the end decided that it was ridiculous to call and ask her to do so on the Fourth of July.

This year's hot style: the LA Half-Beard Prince look

After considering all of my options for a massive thirty seconds, I decided that I was going to shave half of my face, while leaving the other half intact. Such a project seemed to be within my feeble skill set, so I took a good look, and relaxed, knowing that if anything went wrong, I was at least going to be completely clean shaven. In a matter of minutes, I had reached my goal – and insofar as it could look good, it looked good. The lines were even and clean, and it was almost exactly half and half. At this point, I noticed that I was running late, so I dressed, and hopped into my car, and headed off to the grocery store to pick up the items that I had promised to bring. The store was packed with people grabbing their last minute Fourth of July meats and drinks, and everyone was too distracted to notice me for the most part. Sure, there were a few strange looks, but for the most part, people one saw one side of my face – the bearded side – or the non-bearded side, so I appeared completely normal. Placing random strangers aside, I had forgotten about the half-beard while I looked at my grocery list, answered texts, and thought about other things. So, when the checker asked me what was going on, I stupidly stared blankly at her for a second. A second or two later, I remembered – “OH, the BEARD!” I said inanely, “It’s for the party I’m going to”. Then, I proceeded to blather on for a number of minutes telling her some of my tribulations of the last three weeks, until I realized that I sounded either like an idiot or drunk. At this point, I was glad that I wasn’t buying any liquor, and hastily wrapped the story up, grabbed my bags, and headed out.

Once I was at the party, everyone found the half-beard amusing – except for one person. She kept staring at me: “Dude!” she kept saying, “Dude, you’re freaking me out! You need to shave that off!” to which I – and everyone else laughed at her in our silly Fourth of July party inebriated way. Aside from her atypical reaction, everyone else loved it – and kept saying things like, “You need to wear that to work!”, or “The beard’s growing in really….what the…..wait….” All in all, it was good times: such good times, that I along with many others, elected to spent the night, once the sweet sounds of Bulletproof by LaRoux had finally been turned off. In the morning, I opened my eyes, looked around, and shook my head at the shenanigans of the night before, and decided that I needed coffee. I headed down the street to the nearest coffeehouse and lined up with everyone else, too tired to notice any random stares.

When half my order had been completed, and was sitting in cups in front of me, the barista looked at me and said, “I dig it. I’ve been trying to get my boyfriend to grow one of those for a long time, but for some reason he won’t.” I stared at her, and I for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about for about a half minute. Then, like a hammer smashing into my head, I got it. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, the half beard! Right...” At this point, the look she gave me was half scathing, and half condescending. I picked up my coffee carrier, mumbled my thanks, and elected not to tell her any rambling stories. Back at the ranch, once everyone had had their coffee, and watched their fill of “Mega Octopus Versus Mega Mega Shark”, they wanted breakfast, which was also something I wanted. Finally, after an hour of staggering around, lazing around, and doing nothing, the group was ready to leave. When I got back to my car, I noticed the fuel light was on for the tenth time, and decided that I’d better do something about that, so on the way to breakfast, I stopped for gas.

While gallons of refined dead dinosaurs were being pumped into my car, I zoned out, because I was tired, hung-over, and tired. I snapped out of it when someone approached me from the pump opposite mine. “Hey man”, he said, “Can I get my picture with you?” This was the last sentence I expected to hear mid-morning on a cloudy July Fifth, and, since I was tired, my brain locked up again. Eventually, I got the wheels turning again, and said, “What? Why? I’m not famous or anything.” He looked at me, laughed, and replied, “Famous?!? Who said you were famous? I just dig the beard, man! That’s epic! So – how about that picture?” Once I had stopped laughing at myself, I posed with him for a picture, and then burned rubber from that gas station, because the whole incident had kind of creeped me out. After breakfast, a couple of other incidents happened, including one where I had a random run in with a friend of mine who had shaved his head into a Mohawk (That incident can be best summarized in this exchange; “What happened to your face!/What happened to your hair!”), but eventually, I made it home, and shaved off the rest of my beard before taking a nap. Several days later, I had some time to reflect on the beardpocalypse, and the half-beardpocalypse, and I decided that I had learned quite a bit.

In particular, I learned that if you grow a whole beard, people may think you are a mountain lion, which is better than being told that you don’t fit in with a beard. Being told you are a mountain lion is also better than dealing with skeptical clerks who won’t sell you liquor because you don’t have a beard in your ID. Also, having a beard may annoy your boss, which is both a good and a bad thing. However, overall, having a beard is bad, because hot girls mistake you for the brother you don’t have, and when rock climbing, your beard may try to kill you. Also, there are lots of beard racists in this world. The most important lesson that I learned overall though was that having a half-beard is pure awesome. People want your picture. People want to talk to you, and girls will fall asleep in your lap. There is no downside whatsoever. So, if you are considering a beard – or other facial hair, I, the LA am here to tell you: the half-beard is the way to go. Really. And if it doesn’t work out for you, you didn’t hear it here, and you won’t be able to find me, because I am now clean shaven, so I blend in like a chameleon. And for all of you with beards out there, I say, keep fighting the good, hot, itchy fight, because I cannot. With that, those were my experiences from Beardpocalypse 2010.

Project Grizzly a/k/a Beardpocalypse 2010

It was another mundane Wednesday morning at Starbucks. At least, that was what I thought as I waited patiently in the same line filled with the mostly same people, waiting to get my coffee before heading to work. That was when I felt the tap on my shoulder from the middle-aged woman behind me. I turned around, and groggily asked what I could do for her. “Oh” she said hesitating for a moment, “I thought I could help you, since you looked lost.” I wanted to laugh at her; and tell her that it was impossible to be lost at any Starbucks on Planet Earth, as each one always had a straight line that went from front door to coffee, but that seemed rude, so I said nothing. While I searched for my early morning words, she helpfully told me that I looked like I was from out of town. This comment puzzled me even further. Despite my confusion, I managed to get out that I was not lost, and that I was not from out of town. This caused her to narrow her eyes at me, and look at me searchingly with a “I-know-you’re-lying-gaze”. She then told me that she knew my car had out of state plates, because she had seen it. I denied this assertion, since it was patently false, and also, somewhat creepy. She then commented on my appearance, and noted that I was potentially paler than the average Southern Californian.

Looking "bad" on Day Seven.

At this point, the line had moved two inches, and I was annoyed. Not awake. Annoyed. I categorically told her that I was not lost, that I came to this Starbucks once, if not twice a week, that I lived in the area, that I worked in the area, and I just wanted my coffee, and a side order of enlightenment. I wanted to know why she was badgering me out of all the customers in the line. After I had finished my exhausted – but firm list of residency qualifications, her gaze had shifted from “I-know-you’re-lying” to flat out awkward. It was only then that she cleared her throat and said somewhat defiantly, “Well, it’s your beard. Most men around here would know not to grow something like that, because, well, it just doesn’t look good.” At that moment, 8:41 a.m. on a Wednesday, I had no words to speak whatsoever. Then, they came. I wanted quip to her, “Ah, I get it. You’re a beard racist.” I wanted to let loose a diatribe about how her wrinkles were showing, or snidely remark that she should be embarrassed to go out in public dressed in last season’s trendy clothes, or just be flat out mean. Instead, I took a deep breath, and took the high road. “Thank you for letting me know”, I forced out through my clenched unsmiling smile, and stepped forward to order my coffee. At the end of the transaction, the barista gave me a wink and said, “Nice beard”. That was Day Eight of Project Grizzly, and my beard wasn’t even that long. 

I couldn’t tell you, exactly how Project Grizzly a/k/a. “the Beardpocalypse” had come about. Perhaps it was because I had subconscious, burning beard envy, because the One OG had been sporting a quality “Gordon’s Fisherman” beard for a while; or that Lumonox had rambled about with a good “Charlie Whitehurst” with his flowing locks to accompany him afterwards. Maybe it was because I wanted to live up to my radio name of “Grizzly”; or maybe it was to win a bet with my group of Whitney climbers; or maybe it was to draw attention away from the effects of global warming on the deforested areas of my scalp. Or maybe, just maybe, it was for the ladies, because one night, at the local, one of them had said to me, “I’ve never seen you with a beard; have you ever had a beard?”. The answer to that question was a firm yes, but I didn’t have pictures of it, because the last time I had had a beard was when I had come out of the wilderness after nearly three weeks, looking, and smelling like Sasquatch, and the last thing I wanted was photographic proof of that stench.  Based on all, some, or none of those reasons, I set out to grow a beard. Also, I didn’t really want to have a reason, because having a reason implies that I didn’t really have anything going on except being focused on my facial hair, which is a total lie. I had some things going on over those weeks. Really. I swear.

Can you believe it? Five o'clock shadow at three o'clock!

On the first day, I resolved that I would take a picture every day in total obsessive compulsive style, because that would prove that I totally had a lot of other things going on, and that I was not narcissistic whatsoever, because other people would totally want to look at documentary style proof of this project because it was that interesting. Other than shaving that morning, nothing of note happened. Slightly around 3 p.m., my five o’clock shadow appeared, which was not noteworthy at all. By Days Two and Three, the beard had grown out to my normal, comfortable everyday adventure sandpaper stubble length. No one batted an eye or made any comments about this, as they had seen it before. On Day Four, atop Mt. Rodgers, Cash caught me taking a picture of myself and asked what the bloody hell I was doing. When I explained, he roundly mocked me, and told me that he could grow a longer beard than me by the end of the trip, and that we could measure our beards together at the end. This made me slightly uncomfortable, so I sidled away from him, and told him that we would not be measuring anything together whatsoever, and made a mental note to lock my tent that night when I slept.

On Day Five, the beard was itchy. I wanted to shave. Fortunately, while mountaineering, that was not an option. As the sun was setting on Day Six, and I was lurching around the parking lot at the Whitney Portal after summiting, looking for Chef Jaime, I ran into some total strangers, who told me that I was the first mountaineer they had seen with a champion beard, to which I thanked them, and then sat down and wheezed in exhaustion, which probably took away some of my manly points. On Day Eight – well, you know what happened on Day Eight. After that, I went to work, where nearly everyone was enthused to see my beard. The one person who was not so enthused to see my beard: my boss. After pithily looking at me when I came in, and noting “you have a beard” with mild regret, he came in my office on two separate times to note that “you have a beard”, and on the second time he said, “So, how long do you think that’ll last?”. It was at this point that I knew that the Beardpocalypse in full effect and it was good.

Not much happened over the next week – after all, I wasn’t sitting at the mirror staring at myself watching the beard grow. But, as the days went by, I noticed that the beard was wreaking subtle changes on my persona. I found myself sitting in my office, stroking my beard thoughtfully as I talked to clients, which made me feel completely absurd. My response to this was to concentrate on keeping my hands on my desk, which made me lose my train of thought at times regarding what I was supposed to be talking about. But at least I wasn’t stroking my beard. There also was all the beard maintenance time, which was a serious pain. I had thought growing a beard would be easier on my appearance, since I could just roll with it. This was not the case, as the beard required trimming to prevent the dreaded appearance of “neck beard” or “high face” beard which would make me look like a Yeti. After a while I just wanted to shave the whole thing off rather than fool around like some ridiculous manscaper, but I dug deep and exercised some mental toughness, and ultimately perservered.

Then, on Day Thirteen things became interesting again. While jogging at my usual spot at the beach, one of the girls who ran at the same time flagged me down as I passed her car. I tried to act suave, and spontaneously stop sweating and gasping for air, but failed at all three. After the pleasantries about the weather, running, and the day were out of the way, she asked me where my brother was – my brother who was younger, who ran at the same time usually, and wore almost the same clothes and looked almost exactly like me, except that he was clean shaven. I then spent the next ten minutes trying to convince her that I didn’t have a brother, and that there was a 99% chance that she was talking about clean shaven me. Just when I was about to get exasperated about her not being able to differentiate clean shaven me from bearded me, I realized that the last girl I had met while running had thought there were sixty-three states, not fifty. With that in mind, I told her my brother would be back sometime, and that I’d pass along the message to him for when he returned. As I jogged off, I made a mental note to run in a different area when I did shave.

On Day Fifteen, I looked at my old 3G iPhone, and saw that for some inexplicable reason, the OS Four Update had taken out five days of beard pictures. For a split second, I was really bothered by this, because that had totally ruined my documentary. I was mad. I was going to e-mail Steve Jobs, and complain vigorously about this blatant and harsh injustice. Then, I took a deep breath, and realized that the beard had made me go something-something crazy. I didn’t need that many days of beard pictures; indeed, the idea of taking daily pictures seemed totally out of control ridiculous. Even scarier, I realized that that kind of e-mail was probably exactly the type of e-mail Jobs would respond to. I could hear it now: “Dear LA. Have you tried syncing your phone, you bearded maniac? Also, do note that iTunes, the iPhone, and Apple do not discriminate against beards, because I have a beard. I also like to say beard. Don’t you? Beard, beard, beard! Also, do not go Unabomber on our company. Steve Jobs”. I almost shaved right then and there, even though I was at work, and even though I would have had to use plastic forks, hand soap, and used coffee grounds to complete the mission.

Hello moto, beards that are in this picture may or may not have been in other pictures!

Then, on Day Sixteen, I went back to my local to meet my friends. The girl who bartended took one look at me, and said, “You look like an idiot”, which was how small talk sometimes went with her, so even though I had a beard, I thought that not much had changed. On Day Seventeen, I was picking up champaign for my friend’s birthday at the grocery story, when I was asked for identification from the checker. I handed over my driver’s license. He looked at the license. He looked at me. He looked at my beard. He looked back at the license. Then, he looked back at me and said, “You don’t have a beard in this picture”. I commended him on his powers of observation, and tried to laugh it off, and asked for my license back. He held on to it, and kept staring at me, and repeating, “You don’t have a beard in this picture”. At a certain point,  I wanted to rage on him and say, “Look here, you don’t have to be goddam Sherlock Holmes to realize that people can grow beards that do not retroactively travel through time and appear in their photos on their driver’s licenses”, but again, I took the high road, and said something lame like, “Yeah, well, I have a beard now”, which, after five more minutes of staring, seemed to do the trick, because he let me complete my purchase. I should have called him a beard racist too. While driving back from the party, I realized that I was ready to be done with the beard. All that I had promised was that I would grow a beard. I hadn’t promised to maintain, cherish, love it, and keep it for the rest of my days. I was going to shave it off first thing on Day Eighteen. At least that was what I thought, but that’s the thing about the Beardpocalypse – it doesn’t end that easily.