The Sights and Sounds of Kamiak Butte

The Sights and Sounds of Kamiak Butte

By Bob West

April – November 1995 (date?)

While growing up in Palouse, I spent many happy hours on Kamiak Butte. Myself and a friend or two would hike, or if we were lucky, hitch a ride out to the foot of the butte and then spend the entire day hiking and exploring there. If I couldn’t find a buddy to go with me, I would often times go alone.

One summer some older boys told me that Chief Kamiak had died while he was camped out on the butte, and his body was buried under a pile of rocks, standing upright in a hollow tree or under a fallen tree. Since the boys who told us this were much older and wiser (probably about 14) my buddies and I did not question their wisdom and spent many hours searching for the chief’s body. It wasn’t until years later that I learned his real name was Chief Kamiaken, not Chief Kamiak, and that he is buried at Rock Lake, near St.John, Washington.

On one of my solo trips up on the mountain, I heard an unusual sound – the sound of women’s laughter. What could women possibly be doing on my mountain? I was playing mountain man at that time and was appropriately dressed. I had designed myself a coonskin cap, using a fur collar taken from a coat I had found in a garbage can, and an old felt hat of my dad’s.

Upon hearing this laughter I did what any good mountaineer would do. I quickly dropped to the ground on my belly, grabbed a couple handfuls of dust, and powdered my face with it. While still on my belly, I slithered from bush to bush, tree to tree, rock to rock, until I reached a large pile of boulders, where the sound seemed to be coming from.

I peeked carefully around one of the boulders. Was I ever shocked to see four young ladies without any clothes on! Yes, they were plumb-naked!

Now you readers must realize this was many years before the countless “girly” magazines we see on the market today. Our “Playboy” magazine in those days was National Geographic. Several times a year they published articles complete with photographs of natives in the jungles of Africa, South America, or the Outback of Australia. Some of us boys tried to sneak a peek at these without my dad catching us. It was, after all, pretty daring stuff at that time. Many of these photos showed the natives a la naturelle. We overlooked the fact that some of the women looked as if they had ping pong paddles inserted in their upper lips, and the rest of their anatomy had, for the most part, lost all elasticity. But since this was sort of forbidden literature, we felt we should take a second look.

Anyway, as shocked as I was at seeing the nude bodies, I was even more astounded to see these women were smoking! Yes, all of them were smoking cigarettes! Nice ladies in those days simply did NOT smoke. The only other lady I had ever seen smoking was an old woman about 80 years old.

One of the young ladies spotted me and let out a scream that would have awakened Chief Kamiaken if he had indeed been buried there. Looking back I guess most anyone would scream in terror if they saw this strange being with bulging eyes, a face streaked with dust and sweat, and wearing a peculiar head covering.

Perhaps she thought she had sighted the Son of Sasquatch. Not wanting to get captured and tortured by these mountain nymphs I jumped to my feet and raced down the trail as fast as I could. What a story I had to tell my buddies!