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Honestly

Questing on a different type of fun on a first ascent of a hard new mixed route in Colorado. Photo: Karsten Delap





by Chris Wright

Billy Joel says honesty is a lonely word, yet both he and my mother always told me it was important. I know you know this, but I’m telling you now too: it is. It’s hard sometimes, but as Shakespeare reminds us, “To thine own self be true.” If you’re not, you will know it, and when you’re up on that crimp high above that wiggly little cam or strung out on a ridge in goodness-know-where wishing to anything you weren’t there, you may wonder why you put yourself in this position. When it comes to climbing, as it does in so many of life’s avenues, if we could only be honest with ourselves, we could be so much happier for it.

Here’s what I mean. If you’re anything like me, you do things for a lot of different reasons. Some you have to, some you want to, some you enjoy, some you don’t, and some you like sometimes and not so much others. So it is for me with skiing. I love to ski. I’ve done it since I was a little kid, I do a lot of it for work, I do a fair bit for fun, and mostly I like it. My favorite is touring; I love the feel of being out in the mountains, moving elegantly though them, setting a skin track, and getting up high. But what I love the most is the movement. I love laying my skis over on edge, skiing fast, and the feeling of flying that I get when it all lines up just right. But I hate skiing moguls. I hate crud and choppy snow, I don’t like it if it’s icy, I’ve no interest in dropping cliffs (okay, maybe little ones), and I certainly don’t see death-fall faces as my idea of a good time. So if I’m honest with myself, I know I don’t really love to push it in skiing. Sure, I love big days. I like long tours, ski mountaineering, and skiing the steeps. But I’ll never be motivated by the extreme line, the gnarliest huck, or the sickest spine. I know I could probably get better if I logged endless crud laps and drilled myself on the bumps, but it’s just not who I am. I ski because I love the feeling of it, and it doesn’t have to be hard to be good. When it comes to climbing however, my motivations are different.

Give me a painful jam, an epic adventure, a miserable bivy, a god-awful slog and I love it. Give me a nice crimp, a nice crack, a long route, a hard route, a short route, or an easy route and I’d probably take it. I love to climb for so many reasons. I love the feeling of being up in the air, I love the struggle of a hard move, and I even like the feeling of groping desperately, pumped stupid, not knowing if I’m going to fall any moment. I like the uncertainty of seeing how far I can go, how high I can climb, and how far I can take it, knowing the beauty is in the un-assured outcome. But I also like a nice classic 5.easy, I love the feel of a good move whether it’s hard or it’s not, I like big mountains and small, and I’d be lying if I said that I wanted to push it everyday or that I could always wake up and go questing. Sometimes I just want to go climbing, and I don’t want to be scared, or to bleed, or to fall off at all. I just want to go powder skiing, if you know what I mean.

So here’s where the honesty comes in. Freud used to say that we can change what we do, but not what we want to do. That may or may not really be true, but when it comes to climbing – or skiing, or hiking, or running or whatever – you can’t fool yourself into wanting to do what you don’t want to do. You might very well be able to actually do it, but if we do these things for fun and you’re not having any, then what’s the point? Because even if you get up the climb or down the run, if you hate it, why do it?

One of my good friends and climbing partners gives sage advice sometimes. He’s not trying to be profound, but two things he’s said to me over the years have really stuck. We were once standing underneath Heinous Cling, one of my favorite climbs in Smith’s famed Dihedrals, and I was fretting that I hadn’t been on it in a while and didn’t remember the moves. He told me that I should just climb or fall off, and to not make it any more complicated than that. So simple. He also once told me I should grab the white ones and step on the black ones, which if you’ve ever done that route is surprisingly useful beta, but the point is that it worked for me that day. Over the years I’ve found that the days I climb the best are the days that I can just get out of my head and climb. Those are the days when I’m not thinking about falling, I’m not thinking about the buts and the ifs and the doubts, I’m just climbing. But I know that’s not going to happen if I try to go hard every day I go out. I’ll probably have a lousy time, I might fall off a bunch, I might let my partner down, and worst-case scenario I might actually get hurt. So I try to be honest with myself when I ask the simplest of questions in choosing an objective: What is it that I want? Do I want to go on a vision quest, or do I just want to go climbing? Do I want to go big or do I just want to get out? Do I want to dig deep, or do I just want to have fun?

As a mountain guide I’ve seen this experiment play out again and again. I’ve seen people have the most moving experiences and the lousiest vacations, and the bad ones are almost always the result of people throwing themselves at things they actually didn’t want to do. Whether it’s because they never asked the question or didn’t give themselves permission to respect the answer I’ll never know, but for your sake and your partner’s, just try it. Ask yourself what it is you really want to do today, and listen. Sometimes it’s going to be the case that you really do want to venture out in to the void, to pull harder than you ever have and to embrace the uncertainty of success. Sometimes the noble struggle will leave you so satisfied you’ll be glad you fought through it. Other times you might just wanna ski powder, or climb something that’s fun, even if it means that it’s easy. We do need to train our weaknesses, but not every day. It doesn’t always have to be a voyage of self-discovery. Sometimes we can just let ourselves be, give ourselves what we want, and enjoy it.

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The Eyes and Ears of Search & Rescue

Comm team doing communications and mapping on a SAR mission. 



by Kevin Machtelinckx
The news stories about search and rescue operations that happen every summer in Oregon, from overdue hikers and climbers in the national forests to missing persons in urban areas, often focus on the K-9 units and front line searchers. Much less in the spotlight are the men and women of the support units who act as the lynch pins of all those operation. One of these units that help search and rescue organizations function more effectively is a communications group. Russell Gubele, president, board member, and command officer of Mountain Wave Search and Rescue gives us an insight into this critical backbone of his organization.

What is the role of the comm (communications) team in Mountain Wave SAR?
The role of the communications team is to provide communications, coordination, documentation, situational awareness, and technical support to search and rescue operations.

What goes on in the comm truck during a mission?
During a mission, the communications team is actively monitoring and communicating with field SAR teams, aircraft, 911 centers, law enforcement, the military, and any other agencies involved in the search. They also would be issuing satellite trackers to team leaders, radios and GPS units to those that need them, and providing any needed technical support. They are also tracking teams, making missing person flyers, mapping, tracking clues, social media, downloading GPS units and providing overall coordination for the mission.

Com 4 setup and ready for a training mission at Timothy Lake.

Do all SAR organizations have a communications truck/team?
No, most don’t.

How crucial is this team to the searchers in the field?
Communications is one of the most critical parts of any SAR mission.


How did you personally get involved in this role?
After being involved with dozens of incidents where communications was a problem, and always hearing at mission debriefs that the biggest problem on a mission was communication, I got involved because I felt I could help make this situation better.


What equipment do you use?
Too much to list! The short list is radios that can communicate with almost everyone, computers, phones, GPS units, drones, satellite trackers, and more.

What makes Mountain Wave’s comm truck special or unique?
Our rig is unique because it has the ability and equipment to communicate with all agencies; local, state, and federal and not just our agency or a local agency. It is built to be highly functional and able to handle any type of SAR mission or large scale event or disaster.

Com 4 being setup on a SAR mission for a
missing climber on Mt. Hood. 

What technical skills or qualifications does one need to be a member of the communications team?
A background in electronics, public safety communications, and computer technology is very helpful. Being a Ham radio operator is also a plus.

Many times SAR organizations work in conjunction with the sheriff or other local authorities. What is the communication team’s role with these local authorities when out on a mission?
Search and rescue operations in Oregon are the responsibility of the County Sheriff. That is who calls Mt. Wave and the other SAR teams out on missions. Our role is to provide communications and documentation for all the teams and agencies working on the mission.

Are there situations that require more involvement of the communications team/truck than others? Why?
Yes. Larger incidents are usually very active and require more resources and equipment. There are lots of communications from many sources, and a large amount of documentation. For example, the recent search for Kyron Horman at times had more than 400 searchers in the field in addition to state and federal agencies involved. At times, we had 40 people involved and 3 communications rigs deployed.

What would you say are the biggest challenges in this role?
The biggest challenge is to be able to communicate with everyone all the time. There is often little or no communication infrastructure in the rural areas where most searches occur. Our challenge is to setup an infrastructure quickly so everyone can communicate.


What are the most rewarding challenges?
When everyone can communicate and we play a role in bringing the missing person and all the searchers home safe.

Do you have any notable rescues or moments as part of Mountain Wave and the communications team?
The Kelly James search on Mt. Hood in 2006 comes to mind. Our team was able to pinpoint his location in a snow cave near the summit by tracking his cell phone. It was the first time this had been done and caused cell phone tracking to be used in almost all searches.


What do you do for a day job?
I work as an I.T. and communications manager for American Medical Response.


What about the other members of the comm team?
We have current and former public safety first responders, teachers, software developers, nurses, office managers, pilots, truck drivers, and many other occupations.


Who might find this kind of position interesting and how can they get started if interested in volunteering?
Anyone that has an interest in communications and technology and wants to use these skills to help missing and injured people can go to our web site at www.mwave.org for more information.

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On Mentorship

The membership of the Deerfield climbing club, 1995. Jonathan Barrett is at the top right.
Jim Salem is at the bottom right. Photo: Deerfield yearbook staff.

by Jonathan Barrett

In 2007, I received word from an old high school acquaintance that my first climbing mentor, Jim Salem, had passed away. The news report had said that he had been struck by a passing car while he was riding his bike. That was the extent of the information he was able to give me. Our conversation was brief. Before he hung up the phone, he offered his sincere condolences because he knew the deep and resonating impact that the man had had on my life.

The first time Jim invited me to his home, I was struck by the fact that his shed,where he threw pots, was larger than his house. Some of the vessels, shaped like rotund soldiers, were as tall I was at seventeen. Years later I can still recall their fine-boned structures standing in regimented rows waiting for the kiln. Waiting to be fired. His kitchen’s centerpiece was a wood stove, and herbs hung in thick bunches from exposed beams to dry. At the time, I didn’t know many climbers, or for that matter any besides him who were adults. His home would never have read “climber’s house” in the modern era of Instagram. Instead it whispered haikus about a loving husband and skilled potter, a soft-spoken environmentalist and a conflicted hippie. He was certainly one of the most well-paid staff members at my boarding school because he was the comptroller, but he lived like an ascetic. His art and his connection to the natural world were given pride of place. He split wood for heat, not because it was photo-worthy, but because it was elemental.

He had invited me into his home at that time out of compassion and a growing sense of connection. Jim—although it was always Mr. Salem until I got married—saw in me interest more than potential. While the other kids in our school’s climbing club were satisfied to loll about the base of Chapel Ledge and socialize, I wanted to test myself against every line regardless of the grade. From a cabinet beneath the stairs Jim produced a pair of ice axes which would seem laughable to climb on now. At the time they were beautiful and mysterious to me. That afternoon we top-roped snot-colored frozen drips at a road cut in western Massachusetts. I had never swung an ice tool before,and he was far from a seasoned ice climber himself. The whole experience was foolish, meaningless, and profound. Jim recognized in me a hunger to know what was just beyond the horizons of my own life and was willing to take me there even though the territory was unfamiliar to him as well.

After I graduated from high school, he and I drove north into New Hampshire for a brief foray into multi-pitch climbing and dirtbagging. We slept in the back of his sky-blue two-wheel-drive Toyota because it was cheap and easy. Over twenty years later, the sound of the rain drumming on the truck’s cap is still a resonant tone in my memory. I had felt frustrated that the opportunity would be lost, that the cliff would be soaked. “No point making plans until the morning,” he had said to me. It was neither an affirmation of the fact nor optimism. It was just the truth spoken by a man who lived a truthful life.

At the first meeting of our little climbing club several years earlier, he had distributed photocopied pages from Freedom of the Hills and led us in a knot tying lesson. We also constructed harnesses out of one inch tubular webbing which he assured us would, “pinch the boys” something fierce. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Eventually you may be lucky enough to own a harness.” 

The rain eventually passed and a stiff spring breeze dried the granite of Cannon quickly in the morning. I led every pitch that day while wearing a Black Diamond Alpine Bod harness that was only marginally better than one inch webbing I had worn for my first year. Jim was not a talented climber, so he struggled with sequences that I had felt weightless on. A short finger crack which left me feeling that universal joy of fine movement over perfect stone had him hangdogging through the sequence. This didn’t matter though. Our pack was far too large that day, particularly by our current light and fast standards, but his perspective was not one of speed or grades or sophisticated equipment, but being present. We sat on some ledge for far too long and assembled sandwiches with all the urgency of a Victorian summer picnic. There was a huge, crusty loaf of bread, a mountain of sliced deli meats and cheeses, an entire glass jar of Dijon mustard. It was stupid and beautiful simultaneously. In the place of speed we had a focus on being entirely in the moment.

When I think back on the power of his mentorship, it is clear to me now that I was deeply shaped by his point of view, that climbing was only an element of his life and not elemental to it like it can be for so many self-described climbers. He never aspired to live the life of a dirtbag as we would now recognize it, nor did he want to make it his whole focus. Instead he saw his life through the lens of finding balance. Only once did I ever watch him throw a pot on the wheel, and it was masterclass to witness. His hands which had seemed old and weak in contact with the granite of Whitehorse were confident and steady in contact with the clay. The form never wobbled even as he drew its perilously thin walls up towards his snow-white beard. It found its own center of gravity, its own point of balance against the whirling wheel.

My apprenticeship with Mr. Salem lasted only three years. I left New England and came to Oregon because in that short time his outlook became kiln-fired into my outlook. In that brief span Jim offered me something that I was not sure that I wanted or could even imagine to exist: he gave me the gift of a range of mountains, the Cascades, and the promise that the whole world was not like New England. Mentors work this kind of magic. They stand in a place and offer the opportunity to join them. They say that there is room enough for everyone.

Some years after I got married, I found myself in western Massachusetts with my new wife and time on my hands. An query to Jim about his availability opened up the chance to bring my old world and my new world together. Shelbourne Falls, where he lived, has one notable tourist attraction, the Bridge of Flowers, so when we agreed to meet, he wanted it to be there. I can’t recall Carissa’s initial reaction to this man who loomed large in my life. Surely she was struck by his snow-white beard, glacier-blue eyes, and genuine warmth. The three of us strolled across the bridge that was, at that moment in early spring, still only beds planted with promises to be fulfilled. He and I did not spend the time reminiscing about Chapel Ledges or nameless road-side icelines. We talked about Oregon which was a place my new wife had been to only once. We were thinking of moving there, I told him, but it would be a huge change for us to leave our families behind in Massachusetts. He simply smiled and began to spin stories of living on the Warm Springs Reservation as a economics teacher, of his little apartment which is now a parking lot for a trendy NW 23rd business, and of the iconic image of Mt Hood seen from Portland.

With Jim there was no formal curriculum, no immutable agenda. His life was one of clay, infinitely moldable, always reformable, and yet eternally fragile. The wheel spins, and he held on but never too tightly, neither to his own life nor to mine. Such was both the freedom and security of his mentorship. When my friend offered up his condolences that day in 2007, I think that he had missed the point. He should have instead expressed his joy that I had been given such a rare and transformative gift at all.

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PAFlete: Katie Mills—Inquisition of the Arrigetch

This article was originally printed in the 2016 Mazama Annual. Katie Mills, along with Rebecca Madore, will be presenting during the Portland Alpine Fest about their recent experience climbing the Moose’s Tooth in Alaska. Come out for Ham & Eggs on Tuesday, Nov. 14. Get tickets today!


by Katie Mills

Katie Mills, feeling right at home in
vertical terrain.

I thought I had picked an easy expedition. I laughed with glee at how easy it was going to be, feeling smug and smart at how clever I was, for we were going rock climbing. Alpine mixed/ice climbing is more a test of how tough you are, to endure the cold, to endure the exhaustion, to keep moving regardless because to stop is to die. Rock climbing? Well, you can’t do it if the temperature is too extreme, and you can’t carry all that much weight on your back, so you are guaranteed a mellower, pleasant time. The approach was a mere 12 miles or so, which, according to most American Alpine Journal (AAJ) reports, took parties a total of four days to do two carries of food and gear. Easy. We’ll suffer for four days, enjoy 16 days of Type I rock climbing glee, then suffer four more days of hiking out. I couldn’t believe how smart I was. I was soon to find out I was wrong.

The Executive Director of the Mazamas, Lee Davis, was the first person to tell me about the Arrigetch, because he had traveled there to backpack as a young man. I read AAJ reports and was astounded by the number of moderate 5.8 climbs, and a Google search revealed breathtakingly beautiful peaks. Why didn’t more people go here?! During the ascents of the 1960s and 1970s, climbers were allowed to airdrop their gear. When the area became a national park, airdrops were outlawed, making climbing there a much more back breaking task.

I also admit I picked a rock climbing expedition because rock is what my boyfriend Todd excels at. While happy to leave him to go climbing for a week at a time (since alpine wasn’t really his thing), three weeks seemed too long to be without his company. However, we had learned that when he and I climb together our motivation is less than when climbing with friends, so we would each need our own teammates. Together, but apart. The Alaska bush is an intimidating, remote, bear-filled place where one must be self-reliant, so a team of four seemed to be the safest way to manage it.
Nick Pappas walked into my office three years ago and said, “Hi. I’m Nick. I like your photos. I’m a climber too.” “That’s cool. You should come to my party,” I replied. And we have been friends ever since. It was a very fortuitous meeting, as both Todd and I fight over who gets to climb with Nick. I want him for my alpine multipitch adventures, whereas Nick is equally at home sport climbing, crack climbing, bouldering, or on big walls with Todd. Nick was, of course, a shoe-in for our trip and we decided he would choose a big wall objective with Todd.

On the Ham & Eggs route.

So who was I going to climb with?! None of my usual climbing partners wanted to blow all of their vacation on a random week Alaskan trip into the unknown, surely involving great suffering, so I sent out emails to a few climbers I hoped might be interested. None of them really wanted to blow all their vacation either, except one girl, who displayed just the excitement I knew was necessary to stay psyched for the expedition ahead. I had met Cigdem Milobinski four years earlier in an ‘alpine fitness class’ but we didn’t really talk much. Fast forward to present day and suddenly I noticed she had gone from a barely experienced rock climber to crushing hard routes at Trout Creek that I certainly didn’t have the guts to get on. I am really grateful Cigdem was interested in my trip, because we quickly became very good friends, and with her being so much better than me at cracks, I hustled up my game to improve at climbing because I did not want to be the weak link letting her down! I made a new dear friend and got better at climbing. With three hot-shot rock climbers and me, the lone alpinist I had finally formed my team and submitted my application for the Bob Wilson grant in July. Happily, we were notified in September that we had won the entire $10,000 grant!

Over the winter I spent hours comparing photos to AAJ reports and found the unclimbed faces which I thought would make good climbs. I wanted to do day climbs with Cigdem, whereas Todd and Nick settled on a big wall. Nobody has ever hauled big wall gear into the Arrigetch. For good reason.
We went to work Friday, July 1 and then it was off to the airport that evening. The trip wasted no time in becoming surreal. During our first flight to Fairbanks we watched in awe as the evening got later but the sun grew brighter. Goodbye, darkness. Goodbye, night. We then took a small plane from Fairbanks to Bettles because there are no roads. The plane allowed 40 lbs. of luggage per person, with $1.80 for every extra pound. I almost passed out at the $560 overweight baggage fee. And we think we are carrying 470 lbs. on our backs?! Next time I will know to do a weight check of everyone’s gear before the trip.

Bettles isn’t much of a town. Just an airstrip with a handful of lodges and bush plane outfitters. I immediately tell Todd and Nick to start dumping gear due to the weight limit. Out go the extra pitons. Out go the bolts. Out goes the 10 lb. bag of extraneous trail mix.

Rebecca & Katie on Ham & Eggs.

We make our way to the ranger station for back country orientation. Really, they just want to tell you about the bears by alleviating your fears while preparing you for an attack. We each rent a can of bear spray. Nick and Cigdem have pistols. Then comes the part I had been dreading, when we have to fit all of our food for 24 days into bear canisters. The ranger gives us each one bear canister, sets us and our giant bags of food up at a picnic table and tells us to “see what happens.” “I need another one,“ I proclaim within 30 seconds. He begrudgingly produces a second canister. And then a third. And then a fourth. I see he is quite saddened that our team is hogging 16 of his bear canisters that are meant for all park visitors, but there is nothing we can do. The canisters are huge and guarantee two carries, since they are so bulky you can only fit two in your pack at a time.

We weigh all of our gear and our bodies. The weight limit for the bush plane is 1,100 lbs. and we are at 1,118 lbs. The pilot lets it slide. WHEW! Good thing I picked Cigdem for a partner instead of some large man. We pile into a plane that looks like it’s from the 1960s and held together with duct tape. I do not enjoy this plane ride. I am still getting over food poisoning from a couple days before and the plane dropping several feet at a time makes me motion sick. We fly over wide swaths of forest fires. We see the Arrigetch Peaks in the distance and it’s amazing. The pilot lands us in a scummy lake and bumps onto shore. The only sign of humans is a rusty old gas can which I assume they leave there on purpose so you know you are in the right spot for pickup.

Nick administering backcountry medicine
to Katie’s gaping leg wound.

The plane takes off and the mosquitoes and reality set in. It’s 5 p.m. But it doesn’t get dark. So let’s get moving! The internet said there were two ways to go: up and then down a ridge or up the river and up the creek. One webpage says up the ridge is the way to go so up we charge. It’s two miles to the top of the hill. I figure will get up there in two hours. An hour in we’ve barely made any headway.

The mountain Nick and Todd dubbed “The Shiv.”

The brush is thick, the packs are soul crushingly heavy, the ground is spongy, and we sink back half a step for every step we take. The bugs have descended. It’s hot. I feel sick. The motion sickness on top of the food poisoning is making me feel really ill. I’m out of water. I’m gonna die if I don’t get water. I look longingly back at the stagnant lake. Unfortunately, I can’t just drop my pack, get water and come back because I fear I will never find my pack again in this intense brush. This 90 lb. pack and I are together for life! Nick points out what looks like a drainage to us on the map, to the north. We traverse towards it for 45 minutes, desperately hoping, but not really expecting, to find water. A sludgy trickle of water appears and we rejoice and guzzle, never so happy to have found such an unappetizing, ugly stream! First adversity conquered!

We continue our struggle up the hill. Finally, we break out into a beautiful, open, flat area. We will camp here tonight. We’ll have to conserve water, but thank god we found flat. I look at my watch. 1 a.m.?! It took us seven hours to hike two miles. I have so underestimated this trip already. We happily take photos of our magnificent hilltop campsite, but they are obstructed by big ugly mosquitoes that look like birds due to their proximity to the lens.

The second day isn’t any easier. Although we are going downhill, the skies open and drench us, forcing us to slowly pick our way down a heavily-forested ridge with many dangerous drop-offs. It takes us six hours to hike two miles and we rejoice upon finding a trail at the bottom of the Arrigetch creek drainage. We set up camp.

Notes about route by Nick & Katie.

The third day is the worst. We set off back to our cache at Circle Lake around 1 p.m. We follow the trail this time, having sworn off the ridge as horrible. The trail is hardly a trail, being overgrown with plants and very faint, but it is better than nothing and we are excited to have it. We are in high spirits until we reach the main river valley and the skies open and pour mercilessly upon us. We learn that when it rains the mosquitoes swarm. We are trying to hike in bug nets, but the branches spray our faces with water so we can’t see, and the mosquitoes swarming around us make it even worse. I don’t know where the best place to hike is: down near the river where it is marshy or up higher on the ridge where it is brushier. They seem to equally suck. Many times we end up in a cursed tussock bog. Tussocks are plants that have grown on top of themselves so that they form a pedestal up to about 2 feet high, which doesn’t sound too bad, until you fall off into the space between two tussocks and break your ankle. For me, navigating through the bogs with my short legs and heavy packs is near impossible. At the cache the boys are still unable to carry everything and will require a third carry. It seems we choose an even worse way to return to camp, getting lost several times. We arrive back by 6 a.m., an exhausting 15 hours later.

Next is a rest day. We are too wrecked to do anything. It’s strange that all the reports claim it only takes four days to do two carries into base camp. What’s wrong with us?! The next day we carry our gear forward for a change of scenery, dumping it when we get too cold and miserable to continue on. That night at camp, Cigdem slips on a rock and twists her ankle. We wait a day to see what happens, but she chooses to hike out rather than risk further injury. She offers up all her food she has ferried in and we tear into it like hyenas. In hindsight, without her extra food we probably all would’ve starved.

Katie on route.

The boys have to do a third carry from the lake, so they hike Cigdem out at midnight where a bush plane will pick her up at 10 a.m. I opt not to go because I am little and not in as good shape as they are, and I need my rest. As they get ready to leave, everyone hugs me like we’re never going to see each other again. Everyone thinks I’m going to get eaten by a bear. They leave and I am alone. My only job is to stay alive. Funny how the simplest tasks are hard out here in the Alaskan bush.
We pack up camp and finally set up base camp in the Arrigetch Valley below the peak Caliban. Eight days! It was supposed to have taken us four! Now that I have lost my partner, I am resigned to fully supporting Nick and Todd’s big wall goals. Maybe someone will have time to peak bag with me.

A solo backpacker named Josh hikes into our valley. He is really happy to see us. He tells us his first night lost in the bush he was so scared he cried. We all understood where he was coming from. It is scary out here, walking everywhere with your bear spray in hand, yelling at the bears to leave you alone. It takes some time to get used to. I read him the beta I had for climbing Ariel (the nearby “walk up” peak) and told him we’d keep an eye out for him. We saw eight people during our 24 days out here. Josh, a party of three across a river we never talked to, and an adventurous family of four and their dog.

Todd and Nick finally get a look at their big wall objective and decide it is too big for the time we have and the short number of sunny days we have between rain storms. So, as a consolation prize, we are going to climb Albatross! We have spotted a king line: 400 feet of beautiful crack to a lower angle shoulder leading to the striking dihedral on the north buttress. We decide to climb in a group of two for speed, leaving someone in base camp for safety. Todd and I climb better with other people than with each other, and since I had been eyeballing the climb this whole time, Nick and I choose to give it a go.

Katie & Todd enjoying their rest day.

Finally, on day 11, it is CLIMB DAY! When we wake up this morning there is not a single cloud in the sky, the first time that has happened the entire trip. I take it as a good omen. The mountain seems so close but it still takes us two and a half hours to reach the base, and we begin climbing at about 1 p.m. Nick wants to bring a ton of water and we have many layers because we know it will get cold up there, so the packs are heavy.

And we’re off! I can’t believe the beautiful 400 foot crack above us is unclimbed and we’re not waiting for it behind four other parties, like in Yosemite. Nick stomps across the snow and changes into his rock shoes. He attacks the finger crack’s bouldery start mercilessly, utilizing some face holds. It widens to a nice hand crack for another rope length. Thankfully I had put in my crack homework the year before, else I wouldn’t have been able to follow it competently.

The crack widens into a scary off width a size larger than the biggest cam we have but Nick bravely pulls some gnarly unprotected butterfly jams to get through it. I’m stoked I don’t have to climb with a giant pack on, as off widths are not my forte. Finally, the angle eases and the climbing gets easier.

The third pitch is a giant jumble of blocks we have to climb through. The fun subsides and terror sets in. Doing a FA means no one has ever been there and you don’t know what’s loose and what isn’t! I belay Nick with horrible dread in the pit of my stomach, waiting for one of the giant, car-sized blocks to crush me. We shouldn’t be here. Who was I to think I could pull off a first ascent. This was a bad idea. But we survive without incident, and come to a ledge I think of as a “nest” on the shoulder of the buttress where we can rest and feel safe for a bit. The next pitch looks chill so I get to lead! It gets hard again so Nick is back on the sharp end. He reaches the base of the dihedral and we are perplexed. The bottom of the dihedral is completely blank with no crack, and we don’t know how to get into it. Nick climbs up a nearby crack that peters out, bails, tries to the right and gives up, then walks all the way around the corner to the left to no avail. Our attempt at a first ascent may fail here. Todd texts me with the Gotenna, a device that allows us to text each other on our cellphones without signal, as if they are walkie talkies. He is worried we haven’t moved in so long. I assure him we are trying our hardest to unlock a secret passageway.

Nick then pulls off the most amazing climbing I have ever seen. He bravely climbs the face to the right of the dihedral on unpredictable tiny crimps that just keep appearing wherever he needs them until he reaches an S-shaped crack that also requires pumpy technical moves, but at least takes pro, then pulls onto the ledge. We are dihedral! If it were on the ground it would be a 4-star 5.10c at Smith. It goes! I text Todd of our movement and let him know that Nick is an American Hero.

The great dihedral never sees sunlight. It is wet, full of flora and fauna, and crumbly. The undulating cracks appear and disappear and make the climbing still quite difficult. I see a black inchworm with a blue diamond on its back and I wonder if I should take a photo, for perhaps it is a rare species only found in this dihedral. We pop out of the dihedral and rejoice! We did it! We have summited the unclimbed north buttress of The Albatross. There is also another safe nest to rest in. It’s probably 3 a.m. so we decide to curl up and take a nap. The mosquitoes are still merciless, even up here, but at least we are protected from the wind. We are low on food, so I start rationing. Only one bite of granola bar and a peanut every hour!

We run the gnarly summit ridge to a low point and then begin to rappel. “How do we do this, Ms. Experienced Alpinist?” Nick asks me. “I’ve never done this part before!” I cry. No, I have never made my own 1,200 foot rappel route into the unknown abyss. After our first rappel we pull the rope and a big rock comes with it, heading straight for us. Nick shelters me with his body (yes I noticed this … what a saint he is) but the rock ricochets and misses us at the last second. I assume we are going to die on the rappel and spend the entire time shivering with terror. Nick doesn’t mind leading all the rappels and I demand to leave behind two point anchors even if they’re both cams. “I’M RICH!” I proclaim, then start naming off the dumb stuff I have bought that cost more than this rappel route will. After what seems like an eternity, and 5 lost cams later, we hit the glacier and celebrate with my last two bites of sausage. We’re ALIVE! We saunter through the boulder field feeling surprisingly good and Todd meets us halfway up the last hill with a very welcome trekking pole for each of us. We get to camp and our minds and bodies give in to exhaustion. Thirty hours tent to tent. The next day is spent lounging in the shade of boulders reading and wading in the river. It feels so wonderful.

We then move base camp to the beautiful Aquarius Valley. On July 18, Nick and Todd climb the northwest ridge of an unnamed peak attempted in 2002. Classic 5.6–5.8 on the first few pitches leads them to a knife-edge sidewalk and a wild face, devoid of crack systems. It is clear that the 2002 attempt had ended here—Todd uses the previous party’s bail nut as part of the belay. Nick manages to free the next pitch on sight, calling it the culmination of 10 years of climbing and the best pitch of his life. Tricky ridge climbing takes them to the summit, from which they continue down the ridgeline to a notch, and then rappel the west side of the peak. Since it is our last day to climb before hiking out, they name the route Go Big or Go Home (5.10d R, ca 800 ft. vertical but considerably longer climbing distance) and dub the formerly unclimbed mountain The Shiv.

The Arrigetch Peaks may not have the best quality of rock and may be incredibly inaccessible, but I will say they are the most awe-inspiring mountains I have encountered. Never before have I seen a range with such incredible mystical spires and magnificent overhanging gendarmes soaring like the wings of some giant gargoyle. The peaks don’t look like mountains, but instead sculptures designed by an almighty Gothic architect. I feel incredibly fortunate to have been given the opportunity to spend time amongst these spectacular Alaskan behemoths of peaks.

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PAFlete: Rebecca Madore—Reflection on Patagonia

This article initially appeared in the Mazamas 2016 Annual (published in September 2017).

Rebecca Madore & Katie Mills will be presenting on their experience climbing the Moose’s Tooth in Alaska during Portland Alpine Fest. Tuesday, Nov. 14, come out to Ham & Eggs at the Mazama Mountaineering Center. Get tickets today!


by Maureen O’Hagan 

Rebecca Schob Madore and Brad Farra were the first recipients of the Bob Wilson Expedition Grant, which provided $10,000* to help them make a big trip to Patagonia to climb Cerro Torre. They trained hard, did their homework, and arrived in El Chaltén in December of 2015 very well-prepared. Unfortunately, the realities of climbing in Patagonia got in their way. They spent much of the time waiting for a weather window. When one finally arrived, they set out on their journey but were forced to turn back.

It was demoralizing for both of them, and they struggled to adjust to these feelings when they returned home. Madore threw herself into non-climbing projects, as well as examining the thoughts and emotions that had bubbled up since the trip.

She and I sat down in May 2017 to catch up on what’s happened over the past year. One of her goals was to take on more leadership roles, and in that she succeeded, becoming a Mazama climb leader, among other accomplishments. She also talked about an event she and Mazama Valerie Uskoski held last year at Arc’teryx in Portland in which they invited women interested in climbing—whatever their experience or ability level—to come to listen, learn, and connect with one another. The event was called “Define Feminine: Unveiling the Mystique,” and the idea was to create a space for sharing and mutual support. The event was a huge success. “A room full of amazing energy!” is what Madore called it.

As we continued talking about her efforts to support women climbers, the conversation veered in an unexpected direction. At this point, she told yet another story that will ring true to many climbers. It’s a story of stress and fear—and ultimately finding her way back home.

How did you pitch the Arc’teryx event? 

I just thought about what we deal with as climbers, and as female climbers. I was reaching out to climbers of all kinds—mom climbers, gym climbers, alpine climbers, women who had accidents or lost their lead head or just wanted to climb harder.

It was mostly just a series of questions that I posed, saying if you want to talk about these things, come on down. Over 120 people showed up.


Wow. Was it hard talking to a group that big? 

No. I actually loved it because there was this sense of community and support. And my take on it was there’s no difference between me being up here speaking and you being out there listening. We all have fears, we’re all facing our fears, and we’re all one and the same. I think there’s more opportunity for this in our community.


Tell me about what you’ve been climbing since then. 

Last summer I spent time climbing with women that had all had injuries from climbing and were trying to get back their lead head. That was where I put my energy. It was kind of recognizing a need in the community—people that wanted to get into AR (Advanced Rock) or get their lead head back or needed some technique in terms of crack climbing.

Did your experience in Patagonia help you be more supportive to these women? 

Well, I realized I was dealing with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) about climbing events that had occurred before Patagonia. By “dealing with it,” I mean climbing well below my ability in order to feel safe and to manage the stress associated with climbing.


PTSD? Was there a particular event? 

A particular event doesn’t matter. It can be anything, really. It got to the point that I was going to quit climbing. At that point, I read Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine. And I got some help. Essentially, one session of EMDR treatment (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) changed my negative thoughts from constant stress, fight-or-flight to hopeful excitement. I had this renewed sense of my own personal power as a climber. I got back in touch with why I loved it and why I was good at it, and what good it brought to my life and how amazing ice climbing, in particular, felt in my body.

So you went on the trip to Patagonia not really understanding you were dealing with PTSD? 

Excitement and fear are enmeshed. They’re the same neural centers of our brain. There’s a good, healthy amount of fear in climbing. This was not that.

Can you talk any more about the PTSD? So may people have probably been in similar situations. 

When you climb, Mother Nature doesn’t give a damn who you are. At some point, you’re going to see something that is jarring, whether it’s rockfall that freaks you out or somebody has an accident or you’re part of a rescue. Maybe the well-being of somebody you care about is being threatened, or maybe it’s your own well-being. And that’s enough. That’s a traumatic event. Nobody asks to be put in that situation. You think, I’ll just be able to muscle my way through this. But the mental muscle takes a different kind of treatment. It was a matter of me being able to step into the role of somebody that needed help.

You had lost the joy of climbing? 

Sadly, yes. I was constantly vigilant. I was constantly thinking about the what ifs and what would go wrong instead of what would go right. When I came home (from Patagonia) it was not enjoyable to climb and I had to recognize there was this bigger bump in the road.
I had one (EMDR) session and the sun came out again. I had already done my own personal work, too, but I didn’t know that I couldn’t handle it on my own—which is a big type A personality pitfall. EMDR is the gold-standard for PTSD. I want people to know there are some really helpful services out there.

What are your goals now? 

In November of 2016 my goal was just to have fun climbing again on top rope. And then I was like, I want to lead ice again. That was goal 2. Goal 3 was that Katie (Mills, a fellow Mazama and recipient of the second Bob Wilson Grant) and I had a grant proposal to the Expedition Committee to climb Ham and Eggs in Alaska. It was a super classic alpine line, in super thin conditions. I led crux pitches. In November, I didn’t know if I was going to lead ice again and here I am in May succeeding on this for-real alpine climb. And I’m with another female climber. It allowed me to really own our success in a way that was different than the climbing experience I had with others in the past.

We successfully did it in a weekend, less than 48 hours. We watched the weather from Portland. We bought our tickets on Tuesday, flew to Anchorage, flew onto the Root Canal Friday morning, climbed, and flew back to Portland Sunday morning. I went to work on Monday. It feels like quite an accomplishment. I learned how to read the weather from John Frieh. I learned how to put the whole system together from my experience with Brad (Farra). We had done a similar type of climb three years ago. Katie had been to Alaska three times before. There aren’t many people you can ask to pick up and haul out to Alaska on a weekend!

Has your climbing mentality changed? 

I’d say it just feels like I had quite a lot of experience pretty rapidly in my short climbing career and the perspective that it offers is that I don’t have to climb everything now. It’s important to have fun and do what you enjoy and be with people that you care about. So essentially it’s helped me to chill out.

I like to build on many small successes before I take the next big jump. I’ve followed my own path in climbing, and it’s been incredibly great and rewarding.

And I am very thankful for the contributions of the people that have taught me on the way and the Mazamas Expedition Committee which has supported me in doing these things that I would have never been able to do without their support and their belief.

It’s really something when (the organization) just hands you (a check) and says go ahead and give it a try, tell us about it when you get back.


What are your future goals? 

Have fun. Climb with friends, climb with people I care about. I’m planning to climb Denali with my husband next year.

Do you feel like you have to have big goals at this point? 

I like having something to work towards. I like the process of seeing something that seems out of reach or really challenging and then breaking it down into all its component parts to get there. It keeps me invigorated. I can enjoy chilling out now in a totally different way than I did before. It’s much easier to take a slower pace and to be thankful for what you get. It’s really about the time I’m with people and I’m doing something that I love rather than having to prove something to myself.

*Note: Grant recipients are required to pay taxes on their awards based on their specific tax bracket.

The Mazamas provides a service for Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) to any climber who asks for it. Just call and leave a message asking for a critical incident debriefing and trained volunteers will get back to you. 

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PAFlete: Aaron Mulkey

We are excited to have Grivel athlete, Aaron Mulkey, returning to the Portland Alpine Fest in 2017. Aaron is teaching two clinics on Intro to Ice & Mixed Climbing on November 18.

Few are as dedicated to ice climbing exploration as Aaron Mulkey, who has spent the last decade systematically scouring the canyons of northern Wyoming for undiscovered ice lines. Seeking untouched frozen treasures deep within Wyoming’s toughest mountain terrain, he often trudges for days in his boots, testing his own limits, and the patience of his climbing partners. But, the occasional gems he discovers fuel his determination, pushing him forward to find the next untapped treasure. As the ice begins to melt, Mulkey trades in his ice tools and climbing rack for a kayak and paddle. The exploration continues, this time through the spectacular watery gorges buried deep in the Rocky Mountains. His year-round hunt for uncharted ice and water in some of the most remote locations in the West makes him one of the most prolific pioneers of the Rocky Mountains. Follow the exploration at www.coldfear.com.

The theme of our series of interviews of climbers is ‘before I was a Badass.’  It seems your love of exploration started in childhood when you would go hunting with your father in remote canyons. Can you tell us a bit about that? 

Photo: Nathan Smith

I grew up in California until I was about 18. My father took me out hunting when I was probably able to walk. He taught me to respect wildlife and our wild places. As I got older I was able to walk further and so we hiked further to get away from other people and explore places people rarely went. I was able to discover some incredible places and we were rewarded with many meals.Thus the appetite to explore began.

Do we have to go back to diapers and toddlerhood to find you holding on to someone’s hand for safety, nervous or otherwise feeling incapacitated in some ‘non-badass’ ways?

Haha, I believe until I was around 13 I wouldn’t go into the grocery store without my mom or dad…:(


Can you tell us a bit about your early, formative years? Where did you grow up? When did you first discovery climbing?

I grew up in California until I was 18 and then moved to Colorado for college. While working at a factory a guy took me out Rock climbing a couple of times and then winter came and he took me Ice Climbing. At that point, I was hooked on Ice climbing and sorta never stopped. 2 years later I would move to Cody, Wyoming simply to ice climb and explore.

What elements in your upbringing and childhood (or is it just the lucky draw of genetics) do you think gave you the quality of mind and of spirit to prepare you for such focus, determination, and character for such as a continuously successful life of climbing?

I wish I knew the answer to this. I think luck is definitely involved and good mentors that kept me alive. I made so many mistakes and bad decisions early in my years. One piece of advice I would give to a new climber is to pursue professional training and choose good mentors.

Perhaps, at this point, we need to define ‘bad-ass’. After all, one person’s bad-ass could be another person’s ‘day at the office.’ How would you define ‘bad-ass’?

To me, Bad Ass is someone that is bold, but smart. Above all, a bad ass person motivates others and shares their passion. It’s that one climber you meet that is having the most fun.

Do you view yourself as a bad ass like we do? 

I don’t consider myself one. I’m scared and doubt myself like many others. I’m lucky to have been given the opportunities in life to pursue my passion.

Who are the people in your life you look up to, or who do you think have played a significant role in making you the man and climber you are today?  

My parents played a large role and the partners I have climbed with. Over the last 7 years, my wife has been a major roll in my life in supporting my passion.


What is it about climbing ice that keeps you coming back? 

I love that ice comes and goes and its never the same twice. Its the pursuit I love more than anything!

How do you think your life would be different if you had not discovered the vertical world? 

Wow, I think about this and my life would simply not be the same at all. I have learned so much from climbing and climbing has given me so much outside of climbing. I feel like my life would be sorta boring.

What is your favorite climb that you have ever done? 

Too many to choose one.

What do you think were some of the major life-changing events that you are grateful for, but that also were the toughest? (or maybe you weren’t grateful for, and they were just tough).

I have found that everything happens for a reason and that the toughest times in life are also the things that allow you to grow. Clarity often comes after the toughest times, but that time in the moment can be painful.

Did having a family changed your priorities and risk-assessment? 

Actually, I think getting older has changed those priorities. As I have gotten older and my kids have gotten older I find risk assessment changes. The bonds become stronger.

Tell us about your experience climbing Gannett Peak with your daughter Afton when she was 15.

I can’t talk enough about this and how proud of her I was. It will truly be one of many great moments with her and I hope those memories will last forever. I can only hope climbing will give her what it has given me in life.

How was it different to be climbing with your daughter as compared to an adult climbing partner? 

This is the hardest part by far. It’s like being on constant guard and over analyzing everything. It’s actually very difficult to relax at times. I have to remind myself to enjoy the time and worry less.

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PAFlete: Jess Roskelley—Finiding His Place in the Mountains

by Jonathan Barrett

Photo: Ben Erdman

Jess Roskelley is a guy who is obsessed with climbing. It is logical, of course, that the alpinist who ticked off the unclimbed South Ridge of Huntington in Alaska would be single-minded about his climbing. However, he was not always this way. One might expect that the son of celebrated mountaineer, John Roskelley, would have felt the from the very beginning the lure of the mountains, but it was not always there for him as a kid.

Despite being very aware of his father’s climbing career and even dabbling in climbing as a kid, he was not particularly interested in the sport when he was young. In high school he was like most teenagers. He did not think much about the future or about what he wanted to be. His priorities were, in his words, “wrestling and chasing girls.”

Paradoxically climbing was at the same time an integral part of his life. When he started guiding on Rainier at eighteen, it was not a big deal to him. He described it as a

Jess camping with his family in 1986.

 “way to get out of the house and seriously. At that time in his life, he would, “run out with some other kids,” and occasionally put himself in danger. Climbing was a thing on the side.
make a little money.” Perhaps this should have been the first indication that he was due for much bigger things when a nonchalant job for him is a lofty aspiration for many young climbers. He continued to climb off and on in his late teens and early twenties but not particularly

It was not until he was twenty-five that there was a shift. Like many climbers, there was a moment, a single climb that reframed his perspective on the sport. Slipstream, a famous alpine line on Snow Dome, caught his imagination, and he asked his father, who was sixty at the time, to join him. Plans went awry though when the weather turned sour. He and his father were forced into an open bivy by terrible conditions, and the rangers were sent out to rescue them. The experience made him realize that climbing could be an intellectual pursuit as much as a physical one. He wanted to know how to do it better and to gain the knowledge that he was missing. Jess has that pivotal experience and has not looked back since.

Photo: Clint Helander

Although he has made other mistakes from time to time, he has learned to be patient while acquiring his skills. He noted that, “some guys go out full bore,” when beginning their career in alpinism, and there is the tendency to make mistakes. He described his progression and growth as being a natural one. When asked if he has had any close calls, he admitted that they have become more frequent in recent years. Two stand out in his mind. In Patagonia he recently ended up climbing a serac that he recognized at the time was highly risky. The next day, the glacier cut loose over the path that he had just been on. On Mt. Huntington, he almost took a fatal ride when an icy glove led to unclipping a carabiner.

Jess acknowledges that he does take some risks on climbs and that the more challenging the objective the greater his tolerance for risk is. The question is, of course, why. The longer he has been at the game, the more confident he has become in his skills and judgment, and the deeper his motivation is to strive for lofty goals. It is an obsession for him now. Jess believes that all serious climbers feel the compulsion in some way or another. For him, “it runs the show.” Climbing has determined his choice of job as a contract welder, the locations for vacationing with his wife, and the way that he eats every day.

He recognizes that he is very fortunate that climbing continues to bring meaning and purpose into his day to day existence. “Life is simple on a mountain. Your only job is to survive,” he said. “I feel like life would be mundane without the experiences I get while climbing mountains.” The experiences that his has in the mountains sustains him in his normal day to day life.

Photo: Clint Helander

When asked what his endgame was, he responded in the following way: “To be content is the endgame.” Has he achieved this yet? In his mind, the answer is a resounding yes. Somehow he manages to be both driven to achieve at higher and higher levels, and at the same time be satisfied with all that he has already done. When asked about what it was like to be the son of a prominent alpinist and whether he felt the pressure to follow in his father’s footsteps, he said, “Somehow my dad did it the right way, when it came to me with climbing.” Jess was allowed to find it on his own terms and define satisfaction by his own criteria.

Get your tickets to The Summit on Nov. 18 where you will get to hear Jess speak about his experiences int he Mountains.

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PAFlete: Chris Wright

I

Interview by Kevin Machtelinckx

As you grew up, was climbing on your radar at all? If not, what was? What did you think you wanted to do with your life?

The short answer on this one is no—I had no idea what climbing was. I guess like the rest of the non-climbing public I may have been vaguely aware that it was a thing people did, but it wasn’t a thing anyone I knew did so when I discovered it I remember asking myself why nobody had told me, because I thought it was the most amazing thing I’d ever done. Growing up in Northeastern Pennsylvania I had an appreciation for outside in that I spent countless hours playing in some beautiful woods as a kid, skateboarded and snowboarded obsessively in high school, but I think by growing up where I did all I really knew was that I wanted to get out. I left Mountaintop, which is about as small as it sounds, when I went to college and, even though Manhattan wasn’t that far away physically, it felt like the opposite of a small town in the Poconos. I went to study film production and I thought I wanted to travel to make movies, but in the end I’ve sort of come to realize that what I really wanted was just to see the world, to share meaningful experiences with people, and to maybe work with those people to make some stories. So in a sense what I’m doing now isn’t all that far off.

Was there a moment or experience for you that made you think “Climbing/alpinism is what I want to do with my life”?

I can’t remember a single moment of inspiration so much as I can remember the feeling after just going out for the first time. I had a buddy in college who was a climber, and one day he just asked if I wanted to go rock climbing. I remember saying sure, not knowing anything about it and of course not knowing that the Gunks, where we were headed, was a world-class climbing area. I just remember asking what to wear. Al told me to wear normal clothes, but I somehow didn’t believe him and wore gym shorts. Anyway, I remember going out to Pete’s Kill and hiking like a half an hour to the top of the cliff and watching Al rig some ovals and webbing around a tree. We dropped the rope down, and not knowing how to rappel (or even that that was what we would have done if we’d had a clue), we walked all the way back around to the base. Then we’d top-rope these crazy steep routes and go swinging off the routes into the trees, laughing and I’m sure looking like complete idiots. Then of course we’d walk all the way back around, move the rope to a different tree and do it all again. And yet I don’t remember feeling self-conscious about it at all. I just remember thinking, “This is fun. I wish I’d known about this earlier, because damn, this is fun.” After that it was all over. As soon as I became aware that people went ice climbing I wanted to do it, and as soon as I saw what alpinists were I wanted to be one, and for me I think even when I was just learning for some reason I just assumed that the end goal was to go someplace to do big new routes. As my climbing progressed of course I found out that not everyone shared that vision, but I was lucky to learn from a lot of great folks and have awesome partners early on, to survive my own idiocy and here we are.

Photo: Lacey Gibbet

You are a self-described ‘avid first-ascensionist’. What advice do you have for those of us who aspire to similar dreams?

That’s a tough one, because on the one hand I want to tell people to just buy the ticket and go, and at the same time I can’t say that’s exactly what I did. As I said, I guess I always knew that I wanted to climb big things, but I think since I didn’t start until I was maybe 20 (I’m 34 now) I knew I had a lot to learn. I was just figuring it all out as I went along, and I was lucky to climb with folks who helped me hone the skills I needed, whether through big-walling in Yosemite, doing the same in winter, ice climbing, guiding – which of course hones your mountain sense by putting you out there so many days in a year, especially on days you don’t really want to go out, going on big (for us) alpine trips to the Rockies, and plugging into the incredible community of climbers and guides who called Bend home at that time. Through those connections it felt like I put in enough time to be proficient in most disciplines, and I just happened to meet a local hardman named Mark Deffenbaugh—who I think will end up being remembered as prolific in our little Oregon climbing community; you’ll see his name on new routes all over, from Ozone to Beacon to Smith and a million other little-known spots in Central Oregon—and become buddies with him at just the right time in my life. He and I are still friends, but honestly I say I didn’t just buy the ticket and go because it was Mark that not only opened my eyes to the possibilities, but took me under his wing and taught me the craft of new routing. He taught me everything from how to see a line to how to place a bolt, and he taught me an appreciation for the craft of opening routes. Going out with him I started doing new, mostly small rock routes at home in Oregon, but it helped me to see the way and I took that with me to the mountains. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I want to encourage anyone with the skill and motivation to just get out there and do it, but I also know that part of the community, and the kind of mentorship you just can’t really experience without engaging with people who can help you see the big picture.

Sometimes you just need someone to help point you in the right direction, you know? Then it’s up to you, and you really do just have to go do it. You’re probably going to go screw it all up at some point in the process of learning some of the lessons that just have to come the hard way, but that’s kind of just how it is. Failure is a part of doing big things, but you still have to go out there and fail, and hopefully it’s going to make you stronger, make you and your partners closer, and get you that much closer to your dreams. On that note, I’d love to offer whatever help I can to anyone who wants it. I’m at least good at getting excited. Best piece of advice I can give actually is one that Mark gave me years ago, which is that you’ll never try harder than you will on your own routes. I didn’t get it at the time, and maybe it’s not the same for everybody, but it’s true for me. I’ll walk away from your god-awful scary hard route that took years to do as soon as I decide the holds are too small or that it’s too cold. I’m not going to kill myself for a hard repeat. But if it’s new, if it’s my god-awful scary sufferfest, then I’m all in.

Photo: Graham Zimmerman

On your site, you talk about food, beer, and coffee a lot. I think many of us can relate. When you’re in the mountains, how much do you think about those things?

I’m terrible and always thinking about food. Graham and I have found we’re polar opposites in that regard. He makes this absolutely foul, but nutritionally ace brown powdered mix I’ve dubbed “techno-sludge” and could basically live off it in the mountains. I’m lusting after cheeseburgers, and will literally read food articles in the NY Times while I’m in basecamp. I don’t know why I torture myself I guess, but needless to say we take obscene amounts of chocolate and cheese and sausages (Olympic Provisions if possible) and try to do the best we can. At some point even a six-week old unrefrigerated Babybel seems like a treat, but I’m always craving something. I’d take a cheeseburger right now if you had one.

We all have important figures in our lives that support us (or don’t) in these activities that we choose to engage in. Can you talk a little bit about who those figures are for you and why they are important with regards to the decisions that you make?

I’ve always felt really supported by my friends, my family and especially my partners. I know my parents worry and don’t really get it, but they still try their best to be supportive. I have the most amazing friends though, and even if they’re not climbers they’re people who aren’t afraid to go for it, and so they get it and they’re with me. With my climbing partners I just make sure to go out with people I love and with whom I see eye to eye. It’s a fine line encouraging someone to hang it all out there and give everything they’ve got, yet to do it mindfully and carefully, but somehow that’s what we do. That’s what you want in your climbing partners, someone who pushes you, but also pushes you to make good decisions and come home safely. To me that’s going to equal success in the long game.

Ok… I have to ask. What is your go-to beer in summer? Winter?

I’m a total beer dork, so I can’t peg it to just one, no matter what the season. What I can say is that I always take my Oregon beer snobbery with me, for good or ill, and we brew good beers in all seasons. Funny thing though is that when I’m here for a while sometimes I get burned out on all the hops and what sometimes feels like an arms race to make beer taste like pine trees, but after a few months away (especially in France), just gimme the pine trees and plug it into my veins. If I had to say though, I’d take a Boneyard RPM IPA or a Weihenstephaner Weissbier in summer, and in winter I’ll go for a Jubelale on Nitro at Deschutes, preferably on Monday so I can get a Local’s Night deal on a cheeseburger. With fries.


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Memories of the Columbia River Gorge

Photo: Sandor Lao

We were extremely saddened by the fire that raged on through our beloved Columbia River Gorge starting in early September. The trails, waterfalls, foliage, and fauna in the gorge are significant to the Mazamas and to our community. Every year we collectively hike thousands of miles in the gorge—exploring its beauty, relishing in its lushness, and training our legs. Last year alone thousands of people participated in Mazama activities and classes in the gorge and hiked more than 10,000 miles on the trails.

We have heard from so many of you already about your deep personal connection with the area and the strong emotions you are feeling as this fire continues to burn. Here are some of your stories of what the Gorge means to you.


The Gorge Brought Me Back

Photo: Marti McCleskey

by Marti McCleskey

For me the Gorge was a place for emotional healing after a divorce that ended my 28-year marriage. I had been told for a long time all the things that I could not do. I decided to take up hiking, hoping the exercise would help me feel better. I was at an extreme low point and searching for hikes. I looked at the description for Eagle Creek. I must mention I was terrified of heights then. Maybe it was the description of the “Vertigo Mile” that made me decide to challenge myself, or maybe at that point I really didn’t care if I did fall off of it. I can’t really remember which, but I do know that on that particular day in Eagle Creek I came to several realizations.

The first was, “Wow! Eagle Creek is really, really beautiful!” The second was, “It is really cool to be standing on the edge of something that drops off like this.” And third, “I really want to find more hikes like this one.” Finally, “I can do this by myself.”

Something awoke inside of me that day, a growing sense of adventure that has since grown to climbing mountains, rock climbing, and even traversing the entire Mark O. Hatfield Wilderness and bagging most of the peaks in it along the way in one 75-mile, 17,000+ foot of elevation gain, four-and-a-half day through hike. I am thankful for that experience, all of my hikes I have done in the Gorge since that day, and the memories and photos I have of it before it was ravaged by this fire. I am thankful to the Gorge for bringing me back to life.

The Gorge Gave Me Plenty

Photo: Darrin Gunkel

by Darrin Gunkel

Summer of 2015 wasn’t a great year for Gorge waterfalls. Record low snowpack meant streams petered out early. So, not expecting a much beyond a fine stroll, my wife Karin and I set out one July afternoon on the Wahkeena-Multnomah Loop. We were in for a pleasantly palatable surprise. Who knew such a dry year could produce the bumper crop of huckleberries and thimbleberries we stumbled into! With all the dawdling to graze on the fruits of the forest and take pictures of wildflowers, we did the loop in a record (slow) three and a half hours.

The best moment, after watching Karin jumping to pick not-so-low hanging huckleberries, was her creation of the Woodland Amuse-bouche: thimbleberry wrapped in an oxalis leaf. The tart leaf and earthy berry combination opened for us a whole new dimension in forest nibbling. Too bad morel season was over; a few of our favorite mushrooms to accompany this treat would have landed us in Iron Chef territory, for sure.


The Gorge is Part of Me

Photo: Carmen La Macchia



by George Cummings


My love affair with the Columbia Gorge and the Mazamas began on July 26, 1959 when I joined a club hike on Observation Peak north of Carson, Washington. I had moved to Portland six weeks earlier and was working in a lab at what was then the University of Oregon Medical School (now OHSU). Two of my co-workers were Mazamas who, on finding that I liked hiking, told me that the club had a hiking program I might enjoy. So on that July Sunday morning at 7:30, I met up with a group of hikers in front of the Pacific Building on SW Salmon Street and got a ride with the Sazlow family. I don’t remember anything about the hike itself, but I do remember that, instead of returning the way we had driven on the Oregon side, the Sazlow’s chose to give me a better view of it—the best side they said—from the Washington side.

I hiked frequently with the club during the fall and winter and became a Mazama after taking Basic Climbing School in the spring of 1960 and climbing Mt. St. Helens. I have no idea how many times I have hiked on the best side in all seasons with friends, family, students, and alone in the 58 years since that first hike, but I know that its trails, streams, forests and hills are part of me, and I am grateful for that.

The Gorge Feels Like Home

Photo: John Leary

by Jenny Dempsey Stein


As a college student in New York in the early 90s, I worked at the library returning books to the shelves. While I was pondering my future, I found the tiny section of books about Oregon, and two stood out. One featured a black and white photo of Multnomah Falls, which I gaped at open-mouthed. The other featured a story about female forest rangers.

 My imagination took off, and soon I landed a Student Conservation Association position in the Gorge with a U.S. Forest Service team and was based at Multnomah Falls visitor center. I also did campfire talks, paraded on July 4th wearing a hot Smokey Bear outfit, sold items from the bookmobile, and traveled on the interpretive Lewis and Clark Amtrak train.

 While discovering hot springs, huckleberries, old growth trees, and eventually my fear of heights too, I “fell in love outward” as poet Robinson Jeffers coined the term, and my life, now to be lived out west, was never the same again.

The Gorge is a Place for Adventure

Photo: Trapper Sutterfield

by Thomas Gibbons

No picture, just memories: In the summer of 1940 when I was sixteen I hitchhiked up the old gorge highway to Tanner Creek. Several of us found rides with the construction workers building Bonneville Dam. This trip I was alone and planned to find the “trail” leading above the main waterfall of Tanner Creek that my friend Bill Lenahan had told me about.

At a point about one hundred yards below the falls I crossed the creek on a log jam and scrambled up a scree slope. Low and behold it ended at the opening to a gully that led steeply up to the left. The gully ended at approximately two hundred feet above the creek. A scramble left brought me out to the cliff face!
Now I was on a narrow trail, with a cliff below and above. It was so narrow I had to turn sideways to avoid my pack brushing the wall. As I proceeded upstream the narrow trail became more like a game trail, and wandered through a steep forested hillside. Passing another waterfall the canyon opened up and nice pools invited me to fish for native cutthroat.

With enough fish for dinner I looked for a bench on which to make camp. Around a bend in the creek was just the spot; but someone had erected two large cabin tents and built a nice fire pit. While debating where to make camp three adults walked into camp and said “Where did you come from?” When I told them they could hardly believe it was possible. They were engineers surveying for the main power line and construction road on the east slope of the canyon.

One of them knew my parents and suggested it might be wise to join them the next morning, a Saturday, to hike out. Upstream we connected with a trail that led about two miles to a road heading west to Larch Mountain. About fifteen years later I did the hike with my young bride, later Mazama President Lois Gibbons. When we got to the game trail we turned up slope to Munra Point ridge and down the rough trail to I-84.

A few years later I led a Mazama hike up the route. Unfortunately the trip is no longer possible. A crack in the gully over time widened from erosion and expansion from ice and the whole wall on the creek side fell into the creek and created a partial dam. But a few of us have great memories of a beautiful, and adventurous, trip!

The Gorge Will Rise Again

Photo: Sandor Lao

by Reena Clements


Every winter, AYM is invited to visit the Trails Club of Oregon’s Nesika Lodge for an overnight backpack trip. Nesika, nestled near Multnomah Falls and Larch Mountain, recently lost both dorms to the Eagle Creek Fire, while the main lodge appears to be standing. A longstanding winter tradition, the annual Nesika trip is the perfect way to introduce our members to backpacking and to both our group and a sister hiking organization.

We have many fond memories and traditions at Nesika, both exploring trails, finding an old Buick deep in the Gorge and making new friends through board games, a potluck, trying to bake bread in the oven, and watching the Empire Builder go by on the opposite side of the Gorge. AYM feels deeply for the buildings Nesika has lost and will be there for Trails Club when the time comes to rebuild.

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PAFlete Spotlight: Graham Zimmerman

Portland Alpine Festival | Nov. 13–18, 2017

See the Portland Alpine Festival’s full lineup of 8 athletes here!




 by Darrin Gunkel

 How did you first discover climbing?
I grew up in the Seattle area and was first exposed to climbing through a club in high school and through one of my dad’s friends who took me up the south spur on Mt. Adams when I was about 15. That was my initial exposure to climbing. It was kind of a slow start; I think I got more and more into it as I went through high school. My parents signed me up for a course with the American Alpine Institute to learn the proper techniques to deal with mountain terrain. That gave me the idea of what’s possible for the mountains of the world and got me really fired up. I’ve been pursuing those goals ever since.

What is an important lesson you learned early in your climbing career?
The first expedition I ever went on was to the Kyrgyzstani Pamirs. I’d been reading a lot of Mark Twight at the time and gotten fired up on climbing without much gear, going really, really light. The big climb that we did there was on something like an 1,800 meter face, a big technical thing. I had a partner who wasn’t as experienced as I was, and we really didn’t bring much with us. For three days, I think we brought five cams, a rack of wires, a couple of ice screws, a single rope and just sleeping bags. We got away with it. It was sweet, no big deal, but I look back on that and think, o.k., you got away with that one, but in the future we need to bring more stuff. So if a storm comes in, you end up not being able to get through some of the terrain on the mountain, or whatever, you can either hunker down or get off the mountain quickly. If we had to get off that thing for whatever reason, it would have been quite the ordeal. Having a slightly heavier pack is o.k.
That’s a bold statement these days.

We still carry really, really small packs, but you still should probably have a tent if you’re putting up new routes in the greater ranges. [laughs]

Did you have a climbing mentor?
There have been so many people who have been climbing mentors over the years. Mark Kendrick down in New Zealand initially got me into some of the first big, steep alpine routes I did. Mark Allen is somebody who taught me a lot when I was younger and then later turned into one of my primary climbing partners. Steve Swenson these days has been guiding me through the art of dealing with big mountains in Pakistan. All these folks I couldn’t have done it without.

It’s one of the really cool things about climbing: we have a lot of opportunities for mentoring, and there’s a lot of patience in the community for dealing with people who are learning. There’s a recognition that you cannot do these things without a lot of knowledge, and so sharing knowledge is super important. I’m really grateful for that and those folks who have helped me over the years.

You’ve climbed all over the world, was there one region, or even mountain, in particular that originally drew or inspired you?
It’s funny. I very specifically remember seeing photos of the Baltoro region of Pakistan when I was in high school in some picture book. I remember seeing those images and thinking, “That looks really sweet. It would be totally unreal to go and climb in mountains like that.” I did my first expedition to Pakistan two years ago and so it’s coming full circle. Right now, my current inspiration is what I was inspired by when I was younger: the Karakoram. It’s a place that really gets me fired up now and has gotten me fired up for a long time.

 Was there a moment early on when it hit you that climbing was IT? 
I was originally born in New Zealand, lived there until I was four, and moved back when I was 18 to attend university. I had a bunch of time to climb before I started school, and it was at that point when I started to really zero in on climbing. Up to that point, my main mountain sport had been skiing—I did a lot of that and had a lot of fun with it—but by the time I moved to New Zealand, it was pretty clear that climbing is what I wanted to pursue. So, I didn’t actually bring skis to New Zealand and just brought a climbing kit. This guy Mark Kendrick, who I mentioned earlier as a mentor, and I were both living in Mt. Cook village, a little town beneath Mt. Cook in the central South Island. He asked me if I wanted to go climb the south face of Cook. It was something way out of my league. I told him as much and he just said, “I think you’ll be fine. I’ll lead all the hard pitches. It’ll be fine.” I really had a hard time on it. I didn’t fall or anything like that, but I remember being totally worked. We wrapped it up and it went pretty well and I remember it as being a sign, ‘O.k. This is something I’m capable of and this is something I really want to do.’ So I zeroed in on the pursuit of big mountains at that point. I still had to go to school, but it’s what I wanted to do in the long term.

Real world activities are always intruding!
[Laughs] Yeah. Unfortunately you still have to do all that stuff for better or for worse!