For the Love of Mountains

Don Eastman. Photo: Mazama Archives.

by Bill Mosser   

Published in the June 2014 Bulletin. We were lucky enough to have Don Eastman, Priscilla Eastman, and author Bill Mosser drop by the MMC on June 23, 2014.

Although I am not a member of the Mazamas and I’m not a mountain climber, I know one. His name is Don Eastman and he married my mother, Priscilla Mosser, in 1987, about the same time he stopped climbing mountains. Now, at 91, he is more likely to take the elevator than the stairs. Last year, Don and Priscilla moved to a senior living community and I helped them distill their three-bedroom house and garage into a one-bedroom apartment. While going through Don’s things I discovered that he gave a lot of his time to serving organizations and that the Mazamas was at the top of the list.

Don served on the Mazama Executive Council from 1962 to 1966 and again in 1975. He served on the Budget Committee in 1965 and 1966, the Finance Committee in 1962 and the Long Range Planning Committee in 1965 and 1966. He was on the Climbing Committee in 1959, 1967–1969, and chaired that committee in 1969. In 1962, Don was the club vice-president, treasurer in 1963 and president in 1964. In addition to these commitments, he led Mazama climbs, and climbed his way to the top of over 300 peaks. I don’t know how he found time for his dental practice.

Serendipity has a way of taking you down a path you never could have envisioned. In 1954, while hiking and fishing at Green Lake, Don and Jim Craig met a Mazama group climbing South Sister and Broken Top. Later, when the two arrived home, they made a quick trip to the top of the Pacific Building in downtown Portland where the Mazamas office was located at the time. They spoke to Don Onthank, known as “Mr. Mazama,” and signed up for a Mt. Hood climb with Phyllis Neuberger as leader. During the climb snow conditions were such that they did a sitting glissade down to Silcox Hut. They had become Mazamas! Don’s first wife Sibyl supported his passion and joined him when she could. Many times in his journals he noted, after a climb was logged, “I owe Sibyl.”

A Mazama party on the Ptarmigan Traverse. Don is second from the front. Photo: Mazama Archives

Don’s daughter Kim Henson remembers her father as a man who loved the outdoors, especially the
mountains, and shared this love with his family. Kim told me, “So many of my best childhood memories involve the Mazamas.” When Kim was too small to make a climb, Sibyl and Marilyn Craig and their small children would hold down the fort at camp while Jim Craig and Don climbed. By the age of 8, Kim found herself roped to her father and making her first climb. When the time came for Kim to make her official Mazama climb up Broken Top, she was 11 years old and one climb away from getting her 10 peak award. Don took her out of school for a day and they climbed Mt. Thielsen so she was able to receive the award at that year’s annual banquet.

Don enjoyed leading climbs and derived great pleasure from the detailed planning. He was a cautious leader and instilled trust in those who climbed with him. The people he met climbing, skiing and serving on committees he considered some of his best friends.

Vera Dafoe met Don when she took the 1959 Mazama Basic Climbing School. She recounted a memorable (non-Mazama) trip to the Swiss Alps in 1974 with her husband Carmie, Don and Sibyl Eastman, Jim and Marilyn Craig, and Clint and Dorothy Harrington.

Don and Jim planned the trip for six people and purchased two Volkswagen Beetles—one orange and one yellow—to be picked up in Brussels and used for traveling in Europe, then shipped home. At the last minute, the party grew to eight, and you can imagine how crowded they were with their luggage, duffel bags, climbing gear, ice axes, and packs!

Don Eastman. Photo: Mazama Archives.

The primary goal of the trip was to hike the historic Haute Route of the Swiss Alps with an overnight side trip into Italy. Sibyl and Marilyn dropped the climbers off at the trailhead and drove the cars back to Zermatt. The first night the climbers stopped at the quaint Chanrion Hutte and the second night at the larger Vignetta Hutte. The first two days were sunny, but by the afternoon of the third day they were socked in.

Our schedule wouldn’t allow us to get stranded at a high hut, so we eliminated the Italian detour and added to our day three what would have been our fourth trekking day,” Vera recalls. “By the time darkness fell we were worn out and still struggling through glacier rock debris under the west side of the Matterhorn. We could see the lights of our immediate goal, the Schoenbiel Hutte, half a mile away. That’s when we gave up to reality and made an unplanned, unpleasant bivouac. No dinner, no sleeping bags. The clouds lifted and a very cold, clear night took over. Still, we had survived and we had done the Haute Route!

Bill Mosser, Don Eastman, and Priscilla Eastman at the MMC (June 23, 2014)

Prior to this trip, Don and Jim had climbed the Matterhorn by the Hornli Ridge route. This time, they went over the pass to Italy to engage guides and climb the longer, more difficult south-side route. When they reached the Italian summit, the weather indicated it would be better to descend the shorter north-side route. So Don and Jim climbed a Matterhorn traverse. Carmie and Vera climbed the Matterhorn from Zermatt the same day—Swiss Liberation Day—Aug. 1. There were fireworks and celebrations in the town that evening.
Jim Craig became Don’s best friend.

“For over 30 years, Don Eastman and I have not only been friends, we have entrusted each other with our lives by sharing a climbing rope while summiting glacial mountains,” Jim wrote.

In 1955, when not very skilled at climbing, Don and Jim were supposed to meet the climb leader Bill Oberteuffer and climbing party at their bivouac on Glacier Peak. They took the wrong ridge and ended up, at dark, across the valley, far from the party’s campfire. They failed to catch the party the next morning. However, they did find a parachute cord left for them to belay up the glacier and around the rock pinnacle near the top, arriving at the summit just as the party was leaving. “Obie” wasn’t too happy with them.

Climbing presents many challenges. One, which could have been fatal, occurred during Don’s last climb on Mt. Rainier via the Nisqually Ice Falls. Just below the last ice cliff, before the summit snowfield, the party stopped for lunch. While they were sitting there, a portion of the wall caved in and large blocks of ice fell down among the climbers, crushing packs and creating pandemonium. Not wanting to alarm his parents, Don never mentioned this, but he did write it up and his parents, unfortunately, managed to read about it!
In a 2007 interview with Tim Kaye, Don describes his climb up the Devil’s Tower in Wyoming with an experienced guide:

What really made the climb possible was that we could get in the gully between ridges and find enough crevasses or cracks and footholds to make our way up through there. But then we had to cross over to get a little bit to the east because we were blocked and couldn’t go any further. My guide said, ’Follow me,’ and so we went across a ledge and got over about 30 feet, when the ledge ended, and I looked straight down hundreds of feet. 


Over on the other side of the gap instead of a ledge being there, there was a kind of a wall with a groove in it … and up above, there was a ledge. We had to jump (from) that four inch wide ledge we were standing on and grab that upper one with our hands, swing our feet over there against that rock wall and then pull ourselves up.


My guide had done it quite a few times so he knew how to do it and went over and climbed up on a ledge right above this crack. Then it was my turn.  


I didn’t think too much of that! I’ve climbed lots of mountains but I didn’t like that at all. He had a belay on me and so I had to go to that same place and jump across that thirty inch gap to that rock and grab the top with my hands. 


I did, but I couldn’t find any place to put my feet to help lift myself up onto that ledge and I couldn’t do it with only my hands. So the guide gave me a little pull with the rope and I made it. Then, coming down, we just rappelled right over that.

Don Eastman display at the MMC.

Some of the last major climbs Don and Jim made were in 1984. They summited the Gross Glockner, the highest peak in Austria, the Triglav, the highest peak in the former Yugoslavia and Mt. Olympus, the highest peak in Greece.

Don’s love of the natural world and sharing that love with others continued after he stopped climbing mountains. He began his second professional career as a photographer after retiring from his dental practice.

My mother, Priscilla Mosser, met widowed Don Eastman on a Native Plant Society hike in the Columbia River Gorge, where they were both photographing wildflowers. Don was determined to capture as many plants on film as possible and, eventually, my mother joined him in that hunt. Their search resulted in the publication of Don’s book, Rare and Endangered Plants of Oregon, in 1990. They traveled all over the world photographing nature, cities and people, and made a career selling these images to publishers of catalogs, magazines, postcards and travel guides. They retired in 2008, but that didn’t keep Don inside. He enjoyed going on long walks almost every day until last year, and his generous spirit and love of the outdoors remain undiminished.

Hi everyone! My name is Natasha Mayestha and I’m the new Mazama Youth Program Development Intern for the summer. I’m a graduate student at
Portland State University in the Public Administration program, with a
specialization in nonprofit management. I recently completed all of the coursework and I’m ready to apply the skills and knowledge I learned
to my work at the Mazamas.

I also hope to be more active and to enjoy Oregon’s
beautiful nature during my time here. I look forward to having the best summer
experience with the Mazamas!

Residence: Portland, Ore.

Hometown: Rochester, New York.

When and how did you become involved with the Mazamas? A friend suggested we take Ski Mountaineering together. I liked the people, so I stayed.

What are your favorite climbs? As I rapped off Thielsen last year I SWORE it was the very last time, but dang! I put it on the schedule again for 2014.

What climbs/hikes are you most looking forward to this year? I’m going to share Baker and Rainier with Bruce Yatvin, and take some time for a few private climbs.

Best climbing memory: I recently climbed Kilimanjaro with several other Mazamas and friends. I am hoping to forget the last three hours up the Western Breach, but I will never forget the inside of the crater. The glaciers emerged from pure snow. We made first tracks as we walked up and touched them. I’ll never see the like again. The summit was anti-climactic.

Future climbing goals? Olympus has skunked me twice. Greg Willmarth is helping me plan a 2016 rematch.

Favorite piece of gear you won’t leave home without: My High Gear altimeter carabiner watch. It has BIG numbers.

Guiding principle/philosophy: There WILL be fun here.

Favorite leader treat? Home-baked goods.

Most influential book: Colin Fletcher’s The Complete Walker. I was 14.

Favorite quote: “I do NOT have to make this up.”

Words that best describe you: Most people remember my laugh.

Most treasured possessions: It must be the grand piano I barely play, because I’ve been moving it all over the world for 30 years.

Pet peeves: Cliques.

Person(s) most interested in meeting: Dr. Samuel Beckett.

Favorite vacation spot: The next one.

When you aren’t on the mountain, where are people likely to find you? Sunriver.

Hobbies other than hiking/climbing: Knitting, singing in Cathedral Choir.

Occupation: Purchasing manager for a global manufacturer.


In 2014 you led your second, all-women Basic Climbing Education Program (BCEP) group. Please tell us about the evolution of the group, the role you see it playing in the Mazamas, how it differs from your own BCEP experience, any unique challenges encountered by the group, and what you see as the future of the all-women BCEP group: I did not take BCEP. Right after 9/11, I realized my life at 43 had become too small, so I shook things up by joining an all-women’s group that trained together to do Mount St. Helens. I wouldn’t have done it if I thought I had to keep up with a bunch of young guys competing to go the fastest. Training was hard, but I got great advice from a female guide: “The summit never seems to get any closer; remember to look back and see how far you’ve come.”

I deliberately avoided the Mazamas because they had a rep among my climbing and hiking friends for being waaay Rambo. I learned by climbing with guides, which is very different than a Mazama climb. Then I took the Ski Mountaineering class, and I met great leaders who definitely did not fit that stereotype. Rather than take BCEP, I applied directly to ICS, and then to LD, with a goal to encourage women, middle-aged adults and other non-traditional types to try climbing.

Many women learn by connecting their emotions to the task, and they want to express their feelings. Some men, in turn, get weirded out by that, and it can be truly demoralizing when people are working at the edge of their comfort zones. I wanted to offer women a place where they could do totally badass stuff, and be OK sharing an emotional reaction. They also quickly realize there is no big strong man to carry the rope for them—pick it up! That goes a long way toward building the confidence we want our teammates to have.
In 2013, I finally got to lead a BCEP team, with Patrice Cook as my co-leader and mentor. Since an all-women’s team was good for me, I made the proposal to the Education committee and they supported giving it a try. We started with five women last year, and a dozen women volunteered as instructors. The students are all still friends, still climbing (on coed teams), are helping this year’s class and a couple are applying to ICS this fall.

In 2014 we had more women request the class than we could accept. But the point isn’t to get more women to request the team; it’s that the Mazamas want ALL of our BCEP grads to climb well, and stay active in the organization. If this team can give a group of students a stronger foundation to start their adventure with the Mazamas, then I’d like to keep leading it.

by Michael Zasadzien

Our route.

What do I know about the Sunshine Route on Hood? I dunno, isn’t it supposed to be a simple walk-up?

This was the question that kept running through my head as we’re doing our 3rd high-angle snow-pitch, after crossing a treacherous bergschrund, only after crossing a glacier field…

So, here’s a little bit of backstory. What can I tell you about ICS (Mazama Intermediate Climbing School)? It’s long. Like REALLY long. And there are days where you just feel completely broken. You’ve been standing in knee-deep snow for the last two hours. It’s been raining ice, and it’s cold, and you’re absolutely soaked. You look at your watch, and you realize you still have 6 more hours of this misery of diving into the snow with your axe, getting more wet and more cold, before you can go back to the lodge. And in case you think that’s the end of it, you’re sorely mistaken, since you have to go back into these conditions the next day…not to mention the next week….for a few more months.

Nightime navigation.

This is what I’d like to call the dark times of ICS. The seemingly never-ending struggles with low morale while learning important mountaineering techniques over and over again, weekend after weekend in what just always seemed to be the worst of weather. The lectures begin to feel long, the weekends even longer. You literally begin to run out of time in taking care of yourself. You come home late Sunday night. You unpack your gear Monday night to dry. You go to lecture Tuesday. You do your laundry Wednesday and pick up any new gear you need. You pack and cook Thursday. And you head back out Friday just to do it all over again. You’re just about at your mental, physical, and emotional limit of what you consider to be ‘fun’ while volunteering your own time for half a year to become a stronger climber.

But then there’s poor Gary Ballou. While we’re buried up to our necks in commitment for this class, we had

Audrey self-belays down to the Elliot.

a leader who, on top of all that, had to organize this cat-herd. Always somehow enthusiastic, and never letting us give-up, even when we really really wanted to, he was a positive leader and had tons of great assistants that pushed us hard to really drive some key concepts into our heads. They made us master important skills until we could, as some Mazamas love to say: “Do it in the dark, in a cold shower, upside down, backwards, one-handed, with thick gloves on…” etc. [I swear this list keeps growing everytime I hear it]. You’re also constantly building great camaraderie with other classmates, gaining an enormous network of cool climbing buddies for life, and somehow managing to get through the class hopefully unscathed.

So, here we are, four foxy 2014 ICS grads, just finished up with helping BCEP classes, free from all this torment! We were eager to climb any mountain presented with crazy-tough challenges that truly put all our skills to the test and generally ready to conquer the world!!

Starting to get dicey.

Or….we can do what we’re told is a nice and refreshing, easy but long day with just a couple of little-bitty technical spots. As Jason Wagner, Jesse Applegate, Audrey Brown, and I found out the fun way, it was a far more committing than that.

We had gear for what we thought was just going to be a simple glacier crossing down below, and maybe a little bit of steeper snow up above; possibly even a little step up over a bergschrund. Five pickets should take care of the possible crevasse navigation issues if we run into any, a pair of ice screws for the bergschrund, and an extra ice tool so that we can take pictures and look badass for mom at the top and truly mostly just for show.

Well, I can’t tell you how happy I am we brought all those things.

First of our major challenges that night was getting down to the Elliot glacier: it wasn’t too shabby, we engaged ourselves in crampon french-technique while traversing for a bit, and we’re there. As far as crossing the Elliot: we roped up just-in-case, found two hairline crevasses during our crossing, and figured we brought our pickets for naught. “Oh well’, I thought, “guess we got past the anticlimactic ‘hard part’; thanks ICS…for making us a bunch of over-prepared Mazombies…”

Audrey belays Jesse across the bergschrund.

So … here’s where I bite my tongue. A thousand feet later, we quickly found ourselves in a precarious area where things got pretty [d]icy. Not to mention that if anyone were to slip … well, it’d be a long ride down. But hey, really it’s no bigs, we got these pickets, we got the skills, and we’re already on ropes; which made for a quick travelling team with solid snow protection and we kept going up … thanks ICS.

Now we get to this “tiny step-up” of a bergschrund that I’ve heard so much about. Well, lets put it this way: when you’re looking at a crack in the snow that appears infinitely deep and goes 10-feet-wide directly into the mountain underneath that ledge you were going to step up onto, you re-evalute your life and what you’re getting yourself into. As frightening as it was conceptually, it was by no means a deal-breaker for us; for we had the training, and we had the gear. We placed a couple of bomber pickets in the snow for backup and up and over all four of us go. Thanks ICS.

High angle snow on the way up to Cathedral Ridge.

So now’s the walk-up, right? WRONG. From the moment we stepped over, we found ourselves on high-angle snow for the next 600 ft, that with any bad luck, we go barreling back down a mountain for thousands of feet, if not directly into the ‘schrund – not sure which is worse. The clouds have completely enveloped us. These momentary white-out conditions were actually quite positive for us, as it gave us a chance to rest. Since you couldn’t see anything – best not to move – and it conveniently played mental-pro and masked us from a dangerous fall zone down below.

At that very moment we realized we were a well-oiled machine prepped for these kinds of situations. We all had the skills and judgement we needed to make sound decisions based on constantly changing variables. We could climb up and over on any line we wanted. We had the gear we needed and the experience necessary that made all of this not that big of a deal. And we all knew that each one of us could be solidly relied-upon to carry through efficiently and safely in these conditions. From an earlier Mazama article that we were quoting at that very moment, we knew that there was no turning back, that “the only way is through,” and that we could do it right. Thanks ICS!

The summit! Jesse, Audrey and Jason.

After four protected belayed pitches using various types of rock/snow anchors and quite a bit time requiring intensive focus, the sun broke out of the clouds right as we gained the Cathedral Ridge, and we FINALLY hit that “simple walk-up” with a blue-bird sky. What a poetic way to enjoy a Hood summit: all by ourselves up top  after conquering a whole side of a mountain without seeing a single soul. A first experience for all of us on the north side, and a first successful ascent of Hood altogether for Audrey. It was awesome!!

A super-huge THANK YOU goes out to Gary and all of ICS, both assistants and fellow students, for making this last year fantastic, and for making us all dangerously good out in the field. All that time spent; in the cold, in the wet snow, in the darkness, has totally paid off.

For only after the night comes the sunshine.

You can just spot the climbers on a ledge right in the middle of Morning Glory Wall. Photo: Vaqas Malik.

by Sarah Bradham

It was Sunday, May 4. The Advanced Rock class had been in full swing for two months. This would be the second weekend the students would spend at Smith Rock State Park honing their lead-climbing skills. The day dawned sunny and clear and Forrest Koran, an AR student, headed out to the Morning Glory wall with Noon Pokaratsiri, his instructor for the day.

The plan was to climb Zebra Zion (the entire route is called Zion, combining Zebra and Lion’s Chair, but it is routinely referred to as Zebra Zion—our own Jeff Thomas holds the first ascents of these routes), a very popular and well-known multi-pitch trad route. There are a few variations, and Forrest chose the 5.6 traverse sport route to start. They were feeling lucky that the area wasn’t overly crowded, even though it was typically a pretty popular one.

The first two pitches were uneventful. The second pitch is considered the crux, with a 5.10 roof right off the belay, then a nice 5.8 hand-to-fist crack.

As they moved up to pitch 3, Forrest and Noon, in a bit of foreshadowing, talked about a rescue “scenario” they had run through in the classroom portion of AR. It was based on the 3rd pitch of this route—a very run-out knobby traverse. They both agreed that executing a rescue here would not be very fun.

Making their way up to pitch 4 involved climbing up a slab to a bolted anchor. Forrest set out on the final pitch, leading onto a traverse leftwards from the anchor, before the route would turn upward once again.
The first part of the pitch seemed heavily chalked up and very polished. He was feeling tentative at this point. He had gotten in two pieces. The first, a black Alien, and the second, two lobes of a size .3 BD x4. He chose to protect with small cams over nuts out of concern over dislodging gear in a pendulum fall. The first piece was okay. The second piece was psych pro at best. He was 15 feet from his belayer and had just pulled up onto a ledge to stand on.

After the fall. Waiting for rescue. Photo: Vaqas Malik.

He doesn’t know what happened next, but he remembers falling. And hitting the slab below. The pieces had pulled. He was hanging on the low-angle slab just below the bolt anchor where he started pitch four. He started conversing with Noon. He was in an out. His mind was a little muddled. He didn’t remember losing consciousness but Noon, a trauma nurse (just the kind of person you want to have on hand in an accident), told him he had been unresponsive for five minutes. He dangled 30 feet below Noon. When the accident happened, she had the presence of mind to lock off the belay while finding her phone and calling 911. Rescue was activated. Now came the waiting game.

Forrest doesn’t remember having pain. There was a lot of blood coming from his elbow but he wasn’t particularly concerned about that. It was his ankle that he was worried about. Although it didn’t hurt, it looked swollen and seemed to be at an odd angle. He was a little nervous about his spine. Had he hit hard enough to do damage?

Behind the scenes the rescue mechanism was in action. A hasty team of two rescuers raced up Cocaine Gully and one rapped down from the top. Once on scene, the rescuer strapped Forrest’s neck into a C-collar and stayed with him for the duration of the rescue.

Forrest began to experience pain from his harness. He had been hanging for two hours before the first rescuer was on scene. Even though he was on a relatively low angle wall, all his weight was still on the harness. The leg loops were cutting into his legs and there was a significant amount of pressure around his waist. The rescuer helped him get a foot stirrup setup so he could stand up on his good leg and take some pressure off his harness. This was an incredible relief.

Meanwhile, the larger rescue party was heading up Misery Ridge. Once at the top of the pitch they drilled several bolts and set up a 7-1 haul system and, using a 600-foot rope, the extrication from the wall began. They lowered down a litter, packaged Forrest inside, strapped him down and then lowered the litter to the base of the wall.

The CAMP helmet cracked, just as it should, on impact. It will be retired as will the cams.

From the time of the accident to the time he was at the base of the wall was five hours.

Now came the evac debate—ground or helicopter? While he had been unresponsive for five minutes, since coming to he was cognizant of his surroundings and the situation. Forrest didn’t think his injuries were that severe. He was concerned about the cost of a helicopter ride. He advocated for a ground rescue.

However, in the end it was decided to fly him out. Six hours after the accident he was at St. Charles Hospital in Bend. He was evaluated, run through CT scans and x-rays, bandaged up and released within four hours of arriving at the hospital.

Forrest spent two weeks on crutches with a sprained ankle and had a bandaged elbow. He suffered a minor concussion from the fall. His CAMP helmet cracked upon impact and protected his head. It will be retired, along with the Alien and x4 cam that popped when he fell.

Upon reviewing the accident he’s still not completely sure what went wrong. Looking back he feels as though he had spent very little time climbing outside in the months leading up to AR, instead spending his time during the winter months in the rock gym. He was not as experienced in the outdoors as he was indoors and his judgement for evaluating routes and hazards had yet to be fully honed.

He had been tentative setting out on the fourth pitch traverse. He remembers the route looked more polished than he was comfortable with. He had a very difficult time finding cam placements and he knew that his pieces weren’t good. They were better than nothing, but he wasn’t confident in them. Properly extended, he thinks that passive gear would likely have been more secure. When he pulled up on the ledge it’s possible that his foot slipped on the polished rock and then he was in free fall.

His takeaways from the event are that he wants to step back a bit in grade and get more experience outdoors. He knows he’s a strong climber. He’ll get out to Smith again starting in June. He’ll tackle some 5.7s and 5.8s. He’ll follow. He’ll learn more, honing not only his technical skills but his comfort on rock.
He has plans this summer to get some time in at Leavenworth before attempting the East Ridge of Forbidden Peak. If that goes well, he hopes to tackle the Torment-Forbidden traverse in late season. And there’s a rock route on Mt. Stuart that is calling his name.

As Forrest looks towards his future plans and goals he said, “some things are more dangerous than others, and I’ll be thinking harder about what’s worth doing for the position or the quality of climbing.. I’ll also be more willing to punt leads to a more experienced partner when I’m not confident that I can protect adequately.”