Ray Smith travels up the California coast toward San Francisco by hopping a freight train. He camps out on the beach and explains his philosophy, which is based in Buddhism: Ray is a modern-day bhikku (Buddhist monk), traveling around North America like a wandering pilgrim on the path of dharma (the order of the universe). He fully embraces this lifestyle when he meets Japhy, an outdoorsman, poet, tea aficionado, and Zen Buddhist who grew up in the Oregon woods and now lives near San Francisco. At a poetry reading, Ray listens in wonder as Japhy speaks brilliantly about American Indian mythology, the American middle class, and Buddhist monks.
Across the Bay in Berkeley, Ray moves in with his friend Alvah Goldbrook in a modest one-room shack. Japhy lives in a similar shack nearby and spends his days hiking alone in the mountains, meditating, and reading Chinese and Japanese poetry. Japhy shows Ray “Cold Mountain,” a poem he’s translating by the reclusive Chinese ascetic Han Shan, who believed that a life of solitary contemplation in nature is vastly superior to an ordinary, social life in the city. Ray and Japhy try to have it both ways: they throw wild parties with friends like Alvah, Warren Coughlin, and Japhy’s girlfriend Princess, who calls herself a Bodhisattva and has sex with everyone.
To give Ray a taste of Mother Nature’s inspiring beauty, Japhy takes him out east to climb Mount Matterhorn, near the Nevada border. They go with Henry Morley, who brings way too much stuff, rants nonsensically for hours on end, and yodels at random. A few miles into the hike, Henry declares that he needs to fix his car’s engine and turns around, leaving Ray and Japhy to chat about Buddhism and the beauty of unspoiled nature as they make their way up the trail. They climb a challenging section full of boulders, then pass through a beautiful mountain meadow before setting up camp under a huge rock. They exchange prayers, eat dinner, and meditate on the fundamental nothingness of all existence. Japhy gives Ray a string of prayer beads and inspires him to live as a “Dharma Bum,” backpacking around the U.S. while pursuing enlightenment.
Once Henry catches up in the morning, the men continue climbing. They swim in a mountain lake, run up loose scree rocks, and marvel at the spectacular views. Just before the summit, however, Ray starts to feel sick and panics—but he sees Japhy run downhill and follows him, realizing that “you can’t fall off a mountain.” They make it back down to camp for dinner, and then they continue downhill under the full moon. When they reach Henry’s car, they’re exhausted and hungry—but to Ray’s amusement, Japhy is initially afraid to go into a nice restaurant in his cheap clothes.
The guys return to Berkeley, where they continue to alternate between meditating and partying. But in December, Ray decides to take off for himself and try to make it to his mother’s home in North Carolina for Christmas. Japhy helps him buy a backpack and camping gear, and then Ray spends a fateful night in San Francisco with his friend Cody and his girlfriend Rosie, who has a nervous breakdown and commits suicide. Ray is shaken, but he decides to continue with his trip. He catches a train down to Los Angeles and then a bus east to Riverside, where he camps out in a riverbed and prays for Rosie. He then hitchhikes to the border town of Calexico, visits the Mexican side, and then catches a ride all the way to Ohio with a truck driver named Beaudry. From here, Ray catches buses from Ohio to snowy North Carolina, where his family is waiting for him.
In North Carolina, Ray passes a serene Christmas with his family and then starts meditating in the woods and writing poetry full-time. He goes through a brief depression before having an epiphany: everything in the universe survives change and suffering, because it’s all made from the same fundamental nothingness. His family doesn’t really understand his long speeches about Buddhism, but he knows that he’s on track to enlightenment. He starts having amazing dreams about Buddhas and even has a miraculous vision of the medicine that ends up curing his mother’s cough.
But soon enough, it’s time for Ray to return to California. For one, he wants to see Japhy, who’s leaving soon to study Zen Buddhism in Japan. And Japhy has also helped Ray line up a summer job as a fire lookout in the Washington Cascades. So, Ray hitchhikes his way down to Atlanta and takes buses to El Paso, where he camps out in the stunningly beautiful desert and visits Ciudad Juárez across the border. He then hitchhikes up to New Mexico and then to Los Angeles, where he jumps on the train to San Francisco.
Ray moves in with Japhy in his new shack, which is up on a hill behind their friends Sean and Christine Monahan’s house, north of San Francisco. After their joyous reunion, Japhy tells Ray about the Cascades but refuses to let Ray tell him about his epiphanies in North Carolina. Confused, Ray realizes that Japhy seems harrowed and depressed. But it doesn’t last long: by morning, Japhy is his old energetic self again, and he spends the next day teaching Ray to chop firewood and telling wild stories about Buddhist monks. The parties resume too: in addition to all the Buddhists, poets, and bums from the previous year, Ray meets several new people, like Japhy’s new love interests Polly and Psyche and the eccentric former physicist Bud Diefendorf. But even at these parties, Ray spends most of his time in nature, watching animals and meditating. He has no luck with women, but he has more and more holy visions. This might have something to do with his heavy drinking, which causes a brief argument with Japhy.
Before Japhy ships out to Japan, Sean Monahan throws him a big going-away party. Everyone Ray knows is in attendance, and even Japhy’s father comes and dances like a maniac. But the party goes on for three days, and Ray and Japhy get tired of it, so they decide to get away by hiking up to the beach. During their hike, they debate whether Buddhists can believe in God, compose poetry, and talk about their plans for the summer. At night, Ray dreams that Japhy is a Chinese hobo showing up at a dirty market. They spend the morning on the beach and then retrace their steps back to Sean’s house, where Ray lays on the ground, exhausted, while Japhy cooks. And then it’s time to say goodbye: Japhy sets off for Japan on his cargo ship the next morning.
A month later, it’s time for Ray to start his fire lookout job, so he hitchhikes up to Seattle and over into the mountains to the Ranger Station. He meets all the forest service men who used to work with Japhy and spends his training week meditating by the beautiful Skagit River. After training, the mule-driver Happy and the assistant ranger Wally help him up the long and treacherous path to his post at Desolation Peak. Up on the mountaintop, it’s freezing cold, it’s too foggy to see anything, and the shack where Ray is supposed to spend the summer is old and filthy. But Happy and Wally leave, Ray cleans the shack, and then the fog starts to clear. Ray is astonished at the endless landscape of rugged mountains, valleys, and lakes—he feels like he's living in a dream. For the next 55 days, he meditates endlessly, reads as much as possible, and starts understanding the natural patterns in the weather and the nearby animals’ behavior. At the end of the novel, on Ray’s last day at Desolation Peak, an enormous rainbow forms right in front of him, like a sign from the divine. He has a vision of Japhy, whom he thanks for teaching him so much about life, nature, and Buddhism. Then, he thanks God and the mountain itself before returning downhill toward civilization.
