Kerouac wrote this right after On the Road, and it’s the calmer and better book. Ray Smith is Kerouac and Japhy Ryder is Gary Snyder, who was then a young poet in Berkeley translating Han Shan and heading for a Zen monastery in Japan. They meet and Japhy hauls him up the Matterhorn in the Sierra, which is where the book comes alive — two guys with cheap gear scrambling in the dark, Japhy running down a scree field whooping while Ray sits down and refuses to move. Ray comes home wanting the whole program: Buddhism, poverty, a rucksack, no job. There’s a lot of wine and then a summer alone in a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the North Cascades, where the silence is harder than he expected. If you’re trying to decide which Kerouac to read first, make it this one.