On Oct. 27, Mike Buehler, noting a chill in the air, turned to his wife, Allison, and asked: “When’s Mountain Man getting back from New Mexico? Isn’t it about time?”
Now, almost a month later, it’s a question that still haunts the friends of Chris “Mountain Man” Oswalt.
“It still feels like he’s supposed to come home,” said Kallie Pollard, a member of Oswalt’s eclectic circle of friends.
At roughly the same time the Buehlers were speculating on Oswalt’s return to his home in Lowndes County, John Nettles, a member of the Taos, New Mexico Search and Rescue team, discovered Oswalt’s body in a section of the Rio Grande River called Taos Box, a set of Class IV rapids respected by even the most experienced river guides in New Mexico. The section was so remote that it took a full week for the rescue team to recover his body. Oswalt was two months short of his 63rd birthday when he died.
For Oswalt, the ill-fated kayak trip closed the circle on a life that can only be described as enigmatic.
“People say it all the time: There’s only one ‘so-and-so,'” said Alan Hall, who spent most of the past 10 years roaming the woods hunting and fishing with Oswalt. “Well, Mountain Man lived a life a lot of people can’t even dream of living.”
“He had his own way of looking at the world,” said Sophia Kibe, who first met Oswalt when she was a teenager hanging out with her parents at the Miss/Ala Hunting Club in Ethelsville, where Oswalt was a fixture. “He wasn’t stuck in the mundane of everyday life. He was about fun and adventure and learning. He worked just enough to eat out once a week, pay his bills and put gas in his truck. That was all he needed. He lived off the land, off the grid and that made him happy.”
Putting Oswalt in a box was like nailing jello to a wall: He was a walking, breathing, smiling contradiction.
He never went to college, but Allison Buehler, the director of the Homestead Education Center, said he was one of the most knowledgeable people she ever met.
“He didn’t like school,” Allison said. “At the memorial service, his teacher said Chris just went around reading books all the time, but didn’t like class work. He wanted to learn on his own.”
A self-reliant life
Oswalt became an expert on living off the land, growing his own foods and constantly experimenting with new ways of organic gardening. He was a skilled craftsman, something he relied on when work was a necessity.
He was also happiest in nature — most of it anyway.
“He couldn’t stand mosquitoes,” Kibe said. “When he walked out of his trailer and got the first mosquito bite, he was gone out west, New Mexico or Colorado. He’d always come back when the weather got cool and the mosquitoes went away.”
Oswalt never married and remained something of a solitary figure, but he was hardly a loner.
“You would be amazed at the friends he had,” Hall said. “All kinds of people, people that had nothing in common with each other except for being friends with Chris. Outdoors people, businessmen, lawyers, young and old. He just had a way with people. He was very intelligent and loved sharing what he knew.”
For Pollard, 25, and Kibe, 34, Oswalt was something of a father figure, but much more.
“Chris had known me, through my family, since I was just little,” Pollard said. “But I really started knowing him when I was about 20. We needed some work done on our house and Chris was great at construction. I started helping him with that, and we just clicked. I spent the next five years working with him. He taught me anything and everything.”
He entered Pollard’s life when she was struggling through an unhappy relationship, providing quiet, unwavering support.
“It was weird,” she said. “He’d tell me that he would wake in the middle of the night and know something was wrong with me. He’d say, ‘OK. What’s wrong?’ He knew somehow. It was like he could feel my feelings.”
For Kibe, Oswalt’s passion for healthy food sent him down a path of discovery.
“He was into so many things and he wanted to teach what he learned,” Kibe said. “Whether it was learning to kayak or gardening, it just triggered something in me. I can’t say I would have found it on my own. That’s what Chris did.”
Oswalt’s approach to life was simple. When he passed away, he left little of material value, but a treasure of simple wisdom.
“He changed my life tremendously,” Pollard said. “He taught me that your life doesn’t have to be about what you have or what other people think about you. You don’t have to stay between the lines. There’s so much more out there.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 32 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 32 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
READER FAVORITES
Related Photos
Chris "Mountain Man" Oswalt escaped the heat (and mosquitoes) of his home in rural Lowndes County for summer-long camping trips to New Mexico and Colorado. His body was discovered Oct. 27 on a dangerous section of the Rio Grande in Taos, New Mexico, leaving behind a large circle friends who admired him for free spirit, generosity and intelligence. Photo by: Courtesy photo
