Urban Mountain Legends and Modern Myths

by Dr. Muse

Double wrap your car my friend, this is serious stuff!!!

In the Bugaboo Mountains of British Columbia there’s an urban mountain legend that climbers here know all about.  It’s the legend of the car eating porcupines.  Porcupines so big and ferocious they’ll eat your car tires, brake lines, and the trim right off your windows.  These porcupines are huge, way bigger than your house cats (not yours Eric, Butters is still biggest pigeon toed walking tabby that I’ve ever seen.  Butters, you walk like a grizzly bear; be proud) and they love eating rubber.  At least that is the way the legend goes. 
So when you pull up to the Bugaboo’s parking lot and see every car in the lot double wrapped in chicken wire, think to your self, huge car eating porcupines.  They’re here man!!  No joke about it, this is serious stuff.  Just talk to anyone around here and they get all serious on ya real quick. “This is a big deal man.”  I was told.  Apparently they'll eat the tires right off your rims, peel the trim off your windows, and then they go for your brake lines.  These porcupines are like mechanics from the urban mountain hood and they can find brake lines on any make or model your driving.  That’s impressive.
Now parking in the mountains is a normal thing any where else, but not here my friend.  When you park your car here, fence that thing off, and line up as many rocks and logs as you need to hold that chicken wire in place.

These porcupines are crazy, and they love rubber, cause car tires have salt on them, so do the brake lines, and the window trim. Right?  

Climbers themselves are a bit crazy too.  Sometimes all that crack they’ve been climbing gets mixed in with their tobacco, and then you never know what they’re going to do.

To the Native Americans, the Porcupine is the symbol for innocence.  To Bugaboo climbers this is a dangerous car eating monster that will destroy you car and leave you stranded in the mountains.

The scene at the parking lot might look strange the first time you see it.

The Story of Grrock and Karn

If you haven't heard of the story of Grrock and Karn, the mystical sisters that exist high in the mountains. Then listen closely my friends, because this is a tale you won't want to forget. Grrock and Karn are close friends with the mountain climbers and will often show themselves to help you find your way home.  Most mountain climbers have seen them quite a few times, but nobody really seems to know who they are, how they got there, and how they perform their magic.  Especially Grrock.  She is one of those forgotten forest guardians.  The memory of her has long sense been heard by the ears of humans.  But people are always saying that they’ve seen Karn.  There’s Karn here, and there she is again over there. Little do they realize how much work it is for her to be in so many places at once.  But now that modern science has proven the existence of multiple dimensions (I'm not joking about this, look it up), and that an object can exist in more than one place at the same time!!!!  Maybe it will become easier for us to realize what Karn is doing and how she is doing it.

There's Karn in two places at once. Photographic proof of a parallel universe.

It’s a special task to take care of lost climber.  We come in droves.  Our numbers increasing everyday, and we are not getting any better at finding our way home.  Even with things like GPS, and radios we still get lost.  That’s where Karn comes to the rescue.  She always seems to be in just the right place, unless your totally lost.  Then you might be better off to look for Grrock.  But who is she, and where will she lead you?  She’s a little smaller than Karn and a little harder to see, and it’s not exactly your home that she will lead you to.  It’s her home.  That labyrinth deep in the forrest.  Where ever thing is alive; the rocks, the wind, the glaciers, and the mountains.  Where the wood sprites are looking after the trees, the gnomes are hanging out with caterpillars smoking on top of the mushroom. It’s a magical place that most of us have not been in for a long time, but it’s out there.  And all you have to do is find Grrock and let her know that your lost and want to go home with her. She is easy to identify and looks a little different that her sister Karn.  Usually she's in a small room, framed in with what looks like bars on a window.  The reason that she is in there, and that there is a frame around her is because she letting you know that there is a barrier that you have to cross to enter her realm.  A barrier that exist, but only in you mind.

To enter the forrest simply walk in, to enter Grrock's realm simply open your mind.