This is an “origin” story, about my return to climbing following a government-mandated hiatus in my start as a rock climber in high school and my subsequent start as a mountaineer and general ne’er-do-well in the back country in college. Looking back on more than 50 years of climbing I now know the true significance in these types of tales is in the friendships forged and adventures shared rather than in the actual details of the deeds that were done. In this regard I have been over-blessed in the quality of my many adventure partner friendships and in the many wonderful hours we misspent just messing around in the wilderness. Now, on with our tale….

We were all newbies once (or FNGs in the parlance of some). It was early summer in ’71 and I was a freshly minted short-haired civilian just out of the Corps trying to make new friends at the student union. Every time someone walked by wearing mountain boots I’d ask them if they were a climber. During the ‘70’s in Gunnison everyone wore mountain boots so the answer was usually no. The first “yes” I got was from Charlie Pitts, thus starting a life-long friendship based on shared backcountry adventure. You know you have found a true friend when you have spent time digging ticks out of each other’s backside on some belay ledge. That summer and autumn we climbed in Taylor Canyon and scrambled amongst the peaks of the Elk and San Juan Mountains. The following spring the Western State College Mountaineering club decided that they wanted to put members on top of all 54 “fourteeners” in the state on the same weekend. Charlie and I volunteered to do Snowmass Peak and Capitol Peak on the chosen weekend. It was May, there was a ton of snow in the high country, and we had no idea what we were getting into.

A general lack of experience and knowledge at this time in our lives had not really been a handicap in our budding mountaineering careers, since we had been confidently working our way up the learning curve on the local cliffs and peaks in more temperate conditions. Armed with more enthusiasm than sense, we checked out a couple of pairs of snowshoes from the student union, packed our kit, and hitchhiked to the “Butte” to start our adventure. The first inclination that this might not be the typical weekend romp we had grown accustomed to during the previous summer and fall was the incredible amount of avalanche debris we hiked over at Schofield Pass near the start of our adventure.


As was typical for this time of year, although in our inexperience we didn’t know this beforehand, the snow was melting out on the sunny side of the lower elevations, hard and crusty higher up on sunny slopes, and a post-holing nightmare on the shady slopes. For those deeper snow conditions the snowshoes were a real blessing, but we determined that they performed poorly as skis while descending long open slopes. This was really our first trip into the high country while it was still mostly entombed in snow, and thus, it afforded us a real education. One of the take home lessons was that we really didn’t like snow shoes. By the end of the trip we were convinced that it was snow shoes that killed off all the dinosaurs – had those “terrible lizards” only had access to good skis they would still be with us today. Later as a geology student I would learn the truth, that bad coffee was really what did the dinosaurs in.


By and by, we made our way to Snowmass Lake, the proposed base camp for our assault on Snowmass Peak. USFS signs informed us that camping near the lake was prohibited, but the only patch of ground free of snow where we could pitch our tent was directly beneath the “No Camping” sign. Apparently, camping in no camping spots is the gateway drug to further criminal activity in the backcountry and, thus, my career as a back country n’er-do-well and general rapscallion began. Ultimately it would lead to my being arrested for illegal ice climbing (twice) and serving hard time (24 hrs – thanks for bailing me out, Jimmie) for same. But I digress.


Turns out that Snowmass Lake and the peak that is its namesake are just buried in snow in any given May. Although we didn’t know much, we DID know we didn’t want to perish in an avalanche. Since the big bowl of snow that gives Snowmass Peak its name was striped by wet snow avalanches all around its interior, we decided that failure in our summit attempt was not only an option, but the only option that made any sense. Upon further reflection, we concluded that should we actually survive such an attempt on Snowmass Peak, we would probably be old enough to collect social security by the time we slogged our way over to Capitol Peak to give it a go as well.


We were especially impressed with the east face of Hagerman Peak and vowed to come back and give it a go one day. Both Hagerman Peak and Snowmass Peak would, in the fullness of time, serve up their own adventures – some in the tradition of grand alpinism and some in the “bullet narrowly dodged” format. However, acknowledging that common sense had triumphed on this particular day, we descended the Snowmass trail down towards Aspen and marveled as the world changed from proto-winter into glorious spring with each footstep. In one of those little ironies that can convince a guy that God has a particularly puckish sense of humor, we met my former boss, Robert McNamara on the trail. He was backpacking with his wife Margy, who did all of the talking. Given that my utility blouse was still emblazoned with the “buzzard, ball, and fishhook” on the front pocket, I intuited that Robert was reluctant to stand around and chew the fat about the good old days of the recent past. That was cool because I wasn’t really keen on indulging him on that one either.


While it is true that this trip was not marked by feats of derring-do crowned by alpine glory, it did set Charlie and me upon a course of back-country adventures that enriches our lives still, and gave us skills that would be well and truly tested in the fullness of time.