In the current generational trend of faux rugged pictures and practices it’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking that we are outdoor enthusiasts. The current trend sees guys wearing reproduction Swiss-army style backpacks and girls wearing moccasins at music festivals (Mike confirmed that moccasin sales have been up in the past few years). It’s a clear backlash against our provincial culture of iPhones and Instagram, and that’s understandable. Let’s be serious though, snapping a picture when no one’s around at the top of the neighborhood trail and posting it on the internet isn’t changing anything. While some of us may not be honest with our intentions in nature, there are still genuine mountain men out there who dedicate their lives learning to live off the land they love, capable of adapting to any given situation.
Meet Mountain Mike: a burly, rugged, serious yet jovial man from Idyllwild, California. Mountain Mike is a fixture in the idyllic mountain town, nestled in the San Jacinto mountains above Palm Springs. The town’s appearance has remained largely unchanged since the 1960’s, and so too have its residents’ attitudes. As a young child I spent months at my family’s cabin in Idyllwild, and in my months now spent there as an adult I am reassured knowing that with each return Idyllwild will be the same way it was when I left it. One of those familiarities in town is Mike and his shop, “Mountain Mike’s Custom Leather,” which has been open since 1998. Mike is very much a part of the town and he looks out for the other residents of the community like a shepherd: “You get all types of people coming up here in the summertime, and nobody better get no fuckin’ smart ideas.”
Mike went on to tell me about an incident in town involving some gang bangers that walked into his store: “I told them all, ‘You know what, I was already called about you guys and told that you were on your way. Because you’ve been casing out our girls and casing out our stores, and I’m just here to tell you that there are residents downtown right now by your car, and they’re going to blow your tires off. If you don’t go now you’re not going to have a car to go back to.’ They called me because they knew I wasn’t gonna mess around. I don’t have a problem with you coming up here with your old lady, and you have money you want to spend, take your lady to get a motel, have a nice meal, no problem. You want to act civil, we got no problem. You want to come up here acting like this in our town it ain’t gonna fly.”
The residents of Idyllwild take pride in the peaceful nature of their town. It’s the reason why the city doesn’t allow chain stores and the reason the residents don’t take kindly to shoplifting. “We have none of that stuff here. We don’t have gangbangers, we don’t have graffiti, and we’re not about to start.” Idyllwild is a place that stays how the residents want it, something which is rare in Southern California. Part of the reason for that is the unique artistic community that resides there, and the niche markets that they serve. Mountain Mike is very much a part of that scene with his custom leather work, hats, jewelry and shaving supplies.
I spent two hours in Mike’s shop getting to know him better, and then we went to dinner at the wonderful Arriba’s—one of Idyllwild’s two Mexican restaurants—where he showed me pictures of his part-Native American granddaughters holding trout they had caught on a recent fishing trip with him in Washington. It quickly became apparent that Mike is not only a master woodsman and leatherman, but a loving father and grandfather. He went on to tell me about hilarious wild times with his friend Wes Studi (Last of the Mohicans, Heat) and gave me tips on traveling in Alaska. One thing that’s always certain with Mike is that you’re going to walk away with a good story or two after talking to him, and this time was no exception.
Where were you born and raised, and how was it?
I was born in Albuquerque, and moved when I was two to East San Diego, where I was raised. Over there it was nice, it was out in the country and very laidback. I was in Cub Scouts and went through almost until I was an Eagle Scout. Not quite, about two merit badges short. But that was a good experience, it pretty much gave me the wherewithal to do what I wanted to do when I lived in the woods. My troop had old recon guys in it—both Marine and Army—and they taught us a lot of stuff that most Boy Scouts don’t get the chance to do. The way they trained us was like the military. So we had military men that basically took me under their wing, and as a Boy Scout, trained us that way.
We would hike without fires and cold camp, no flashlights even allowed to be brought. We hiked 30 miles sometimes without stopping. Hike in the night. They would plan our trips by moonlight only so that we were out on full moon. This is just some of the minimal stuff. And of course no fires so we ate cold. Sardines, rye crackers, cream cheese, cold cereal, granola bars, salami, cans of tuna, it was like that. Anything you could eat cold. These guys were old school.
Above: Pictures of Mike’s ancestors, and books which mention his relatives and ancestors.
I think you already answered this…but as a youth, were you raised in a way that led naturally to living alone in the woods or was it a path you chose yourself?
It was a path I chose myself, but Boy Scouts was probably instrumental in helping me make that choice, because it gave me a foundation I could use. And I studied books on fine details of survival, edible plants, trapping, deadfalls and snares. These were all books I read and applied myself on the weekends, when I could and whenever else I could, to apply these things from books. So then I just went out there and did it. Because there are things that aren’t in the books that you have to learn the hard way. The Boy Scouts gives you a lot of stuff but not all the finer points of survival.
How did you develop a talent for leatherwork?
It’s just innate I think. I was born with a desire to want to do it, and I just applied myself since I was very young. I’ve been playing with leather since I was probably eight years old.
What are some of the advantages of leather over synthetic?
Well, I would have to say besides the fact that it’s just something natural and not artificial, the one big discerning difference is that it moulds to your body where synthetics don’t. Holsters, belts, sheaths, clothing, and all the stuff that’s made out of leather, moulds to the shape of your body where synthetics do not. They also don’t stink; natural leather doesn’t. It absorbs your body. Synthetics get nasty after you’ve worn them a short amount of time, and leather just doesn’t do that.
In all your years as a mountain man, what’s one of the craziest stories you could tell me?
It would probably have to be barely living through an error in choice of trails. On the Yuba River I went on a trail that I hadn’t done for the winter, and I had to go around a blind cliff trail which was above the river. The river was in full spring flood and I had about a 100 lb. pack on. As I was going around this one turn where there was trail the year before, was no more. So I had no choice but to backtrack. At this point I was with a 100 lb. pack and my hands started to get the shakes. I couldn’t make it back with the pack so I had to drop my pack into the river.
Dropping a pack, getting it off your shoulders and not going in for a drink yourself, when using only one hand, was probably the most near-to-death experience. It was kinda like a car accident, it happened just like that. It’s something that you have to plan and calculate with every move or you’re gonna die. I was able to do it, thank God, but then I had to go down and retrieve the pack out of flooded ice water.
Getting that pack out of there, which was 100 lbs. dry and was now 250 lbs. soaking wet, was a trick in itself. It took only an hour to retrieve the pack—I knew where my nylon rope would be, on the outside just in case of an emergency. I had to hold a rock, dive down into the ice water, retrieve the nylon, drop the rock, come back up to the surface gasping for air, grab another rock, go back down with the rope, tie it to the pack, drop the rock, come back up, and then retrieve the 250 lb. pack by pulling the rope. In the water it was a little buoyant, but once it came out of the water it was very heavy. I was able to take the pack up, unpack it, and let everything dry out for three days. Everything had to be dried—oatmeal, rice, salt, had to be dried out immediately before they got molded. Of course my bedding was wet, so to sleep I had to bury myself in a hole lined with dry leaves.
You are very much a fixture here in Idyllwild, but does it ever bug you how much regulation the state of California imposes on small businesses and basic rights?
Absolutely. California is ridiculously regulated and they fee us to death. They’re driving business out of this state to become a retirement state. A tourist state. They’ve pushed out farming and replaced the farms with overpriced homes where the retirees come and spend their money. So they’ve regulated us as far as having businesses, deliberately, so that you can’t afford to be doing business here unless you’re extremely wealthy or retired. Or you tend to have what I have, which is a tourist-based business.
The farms are going by the wayside. Just look what’s happening to the central valley—the water alone. And now they’re finally putting moratoriums on water. We now have a moratorium on water meter in this town, as we speak. No more new water meters are being issued because there’s no water. It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got, there’s no water. So what they’re asking people to do in Los Angeles and all throughout is to get rid of their lawns and put in indigenous plants…which is the smartest thing I’ve ever heard of. I can’t believe what I see in the desert: 135 golf courses. It’s changing the environment from a healthy, dry environment to a humid, smoggy environment which is detrimental to your health.
You strike me as a person that is a fan of muzzleloaders, breechloaders, and single-action revolvers. Am I right or completely wrong?
You’re right. I prefer muzzleloaders and revolvers to breechloaders, but they’re all the same sort of deal. A Sharps was a breechloader, but it was a paper cartridge gun. Muzzleloaders of course go back, being a ramrod loading from the muzzle back to the breech. Revolvers of course were originally black powders, loaded from the front, and then of course we ended up with cartridge receivers.
I have one of the old “conversions” (Mike proceeds to pull out his Colt Army “conversion” revolver to show me). This is where they actually made a cartridge receiver from what once was a black powder. One of the first conversions was done in 1851. The Army didn’t have enough money to make the whole gun, so they went into the field and took an Army (the Army is dedicated so because it is all steel. The Navy has brass) and rebuilt it from the original black powder gun to a cartridge-receiving gun. They didn’t have enough money for a shell ejector until the 1860’s. Nine years went by and they were still ejecting their shells with a stick! It was tied with a string off your trigger guard and you ejected your cartridge. But it was still faster than having to reload with powder and a ball.
I remember when you had some wolf hybrids. How was that?
That was intense. 18 years of hybrid wolves. I had one female first, and then her daughter, and then that daughter’s son. We raised five packs…five litters, found good homes and placed every one of them. It didn’t matter the money, it was the home. So some of them I kept up to six months before I was able to find a proper home for them, because I didn’t just sell them for the money. I wanted them to have good, long lasting homes, which I did finally accomplish.
But it was an intense time because they needed a special amount of attention, exercise and diet. It’s not a dog. Four legs and a tail is where the similarity ends. They’re different—more like a cat. You have to establish who is going to be the boss every day so that you don’t end up with a problem. Because the problem would come in when you let them be the alpha. You have to maintain who the alpha is, otherwise you’re gonna have problems. That’s what I learned about wolves. And they need a lot of exercise, a lot of running. Otherwise they get spun. They need a super high amount of exercise, and a diet to sustain that, or you get problems.
You are a man that has lived life on his own terms and made it happen. What advice would you give to someone looking to do the same?
Be sure you know what you’re doing, and then pursue whatever it is that you think that you want to do with all of your blood, sweat and tears. That’s the only way I’ve made it work. It’s a life of blood, sweat and tears, that is for certain. You have to really apply yourself and take everything that happens—good, better and different—and learn from it. And don’t forget it, because each and every one of those things is a lesson. All those little lessons are things you need to remember so that you don’t have to do them again; because if you don’t remember them then you will have to do them again. If you learn them well then every good thing, every mistake, every adversity, is a given lesson.
Check out Mountain Mike’s pilot episode of his upcoming show, The Western Leatherman, in which he shows you how to make a pistol holster:
Visit Mike at mountainmikecustomleather.com
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