MY YEAR IN REVIEW

It has been a wonderful year. My children have enriched my life. I have reunited with old friends, made dozens of new ones, some on OS, some in person. Here are the highlights that make this holiday season so memorable:

My daughter, Daphne, drove over from Boulder to Ouray, Colorado, in January for a visit while I was house-sitting. It was the highlight of my trip.

Daphne in flannel pajamas

We spent a day at the Ouray Ice Park attacking the ice. Daphne has always been a natural athlete. Cool, huh?

Daphne climbing at the Ouray Ice Park

Daphne left me with two cats when she went off to college. They still rule the house and love me in spite of all my faults. Never thought I'd be a guy with cats...an inheritance from my daughter.

Ra and Magpie spreading hair and joy wherever they go

This winter in Anchorage, we held the first ever Alaska Ice Festival. Over 100 people participated, and I had the opportunity to teach two clinics, preside as Master of Ceremonies at the speed event, and perform as the auctioneer at the Organic Oasis dinner/fundraiser.

A competitor at the First Alaska Ice Festival

At the end of winter, the Anchorage Nordic Club holds an annual Champagne Brunch. Party, Party, Party!!! I love the skiing, the formal attire (check out my white shirt!), and the Champagne.

Colleen, Cynthia, Yours Truly, and Rebecca: the party animals

at the Champagne Brunch

Mid-March the annual Ice Pixies climbing celebration takes place in Valdez, Alaska, and lures women ice climbers from all over the state for a weekend of ascending frozen waterfalls and partying. I came for the dancing, beautiful women, and beer. At 4:30 am I was attacked by two baby Beluga's at the Pipeline club. Now that was memorable!

Dani with boa at the base of the frozen waterfall
at the Ice Pixies

Even though I live in the municipality of Anchorage, a variety of animals shares my yard with me. This lovely lady keeps the large willow tree pruned to perfection.

A moose nibbles the willow in my yard.

Come May, and the "World's Greatest Fisherman" shows up on my doorstep to take our little Lund skiff out onto the waters of Cook Inlet for King salmon and halibut. Thor has been fanatic about fishing since he was three. I've never seen him skunked, and this time proved no exception. He brought his friend Andy from Portland, and we out-fished the charter boats.

My son, Thor, with a nice King Salmon

May 9th, my daughter, Daphne, graduated from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. We all met her there and celebrated with her for the weekend. Emotions ran high, and tears flowed; it was simply the best time!

My daughter, Daphne, at graduation

Afterwards I embarked on a month-long climbing trip with my Colorado friends, starting at Ouray, then heading to Indian Creek with Donini and Chris in the pink Cadillac. We eventually went to Las Vegas to climb the Red Rocks, then back through the national parks of Utah, and ended up climbing in Vedauwoo Park in Wyoming. It was a fantastic trip!

Chris and I on the finest climbing road trip ever
through the West in the pink Cadillac

In mid-June, Rebecca and I headed to Banff for a week of hiking in the Canadian Rockies, drinking beer, and enjoying the local cuisine. We dined with my old friend Ron Perla, the first person to climb the famous Emperor Ridge on Mount Robson. Rebecca has a time-share condo...way cushy for a dirtbag climber like myself. The Rockies were fantastic!

Rebecca and I above Peyto Lake in Banff National Park

In July we spent a couple of weekends spraying, and sealing the log home I built in Denali National Park area. We got the caulking done just before freeze-up. I love the place, although it is remote from most of the world I inhabit these days. Twenty years ago I raised two kids and 30 sled dogs here. Memories of racing the 1000-mile Yukon Quest dogsled race from Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, to Fairbanks, Alaska, three times swirled in my head as I painted.

My log home in Denali Park

In July, time for a big halibut fishing trip on Cook Inlet. Rebecca and I hauled the Lund skiff down the highway, caught a mess of fish, and danced the night away to Scupper.

Two road trips to Indian Creek: one in the spring and one in the fall with Jim, Chris, and the senior citizen gang. I dream of this trip every year, and my friends there are the reason for going. Camping, cooking, and climbing...my three passions.

High up on 'Incredible Hand Crack'
Indian Creek, Utah

In August I flew from Alaska to reunite with the 1967 North Face rescue gang in Grand Teton National Park. Ted's daughter Jenny produced a move about us while we were there. That was a delightful, intense, and educational experience. Four of us climbed the Grand Teton again...I think I've been up it over 100 times, but each time feels like the first! It was moving to meet Lori whom we rescued 42 years ago and reunite with the team...my best friends ever.

Ralph, Chris, Jamie and Mike on the summit of the
Grand Teton

The 1967 North Face Rescue Team reunited at Lupine Meadows

The rescue team and movie crew at the base of
the North Face of the Grand Teton

Of the many wonderful dinners out on the town, this one with a group of local belly dancers stands out as the number one highlight of the year.

Impromptu belly dancing at Turkey Red

My son, Thor, is the "World's Greatest Fisherman"; he is also crazy about hunting, especially Dall sheep hunting, so he, his wife Sarah, and I hiked 25 miles into the heart of the Alaska Range this fall to bag a sheep for the winter. This is what Alaska is all about. After the first day we didn't see another soul for 10 days. We hunted for the next week until we finally found a full-curl ram miles up a steep mountain. We floated out the glacial river in small one-person Alpacka rafts that Thor's mother manufactures.

Sarah and Thor get ready to cross the river

Each year while our mother was still alive, my sister Judy would gather us all at her place on Lake Tahoe for a reunion. Now that Mom is gone, we still assemble on the shores of the lake for a weekend and reconnect as a family. It's a lovely bunch; our parents would be proud!

My brothers and sisters with their families
Lake Tahoe, CA

Each winter I migrate south from Anchorage to Ouray, Colorado, for an extended visit during the darkest months of the year. Last weekend, I had the privilege of climbing with Chad, Sydney, Heidi, and Gena at the Ouray Ice Park. Three had lost legs due to a variety of conditions: Chad to an IED in Iraq, Syd to cancer as a child, and Heidi to a congenital defect. They are an inspiration to me.

Chad, Sydney, Heidi, and Gena
Ouray Ice Park

And, finally the best Christmas present ever. My two kids and partners came to visit me. We opened presents, ate lunch, played, and had the best time ever.

Corey, Daphne, Sarah, Thor, Yours Truly
Ouray, Colorado

My beautiful Christmas cactus in bloom!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

My son Thor, and his wife, Sarah, drove from Portland, Oregon to Ouray, Colorado, to see me today; my daughter, Daphne and her boyfriend, Corey, left at 6am from Boulder and drove down. It was the best Christmas present ever to have them all together with me today!

Corey, Daphne, Sarah, Thor, Yours Truly

Jack Kerouac Changed My Life. I grew up reading, reading everything. When 'On The Road' came out, it had a dangerous and forbidden reputation. I had to read it.

The stream-of-consciousness writing style captured my imagination: 'The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles.'

Jack Kerouac holding a first edition of 'On The Road'

As a young and impressionable guy I was mesmerized by the stories of the beatniks, chasing sex, drugs, alcohol, the aimless wild life on the road, and all the pleasures I was denied by my austere religious background. It rivaled anything I had read, but it was so real, so earthy, and so alluring. I had to drive!

Kerouac reading from "On The Road"

The pursuit of the sensual pleasures drove Kerouac and his friends across the country to Denver, San francisco, Los Angeles, the South, and even Mexico. Driving at high speed, fueled by drugs and alcohol, with a car full of friends reciting poetry, visiting friends, including women in the towns they visited. It was then I first realized that women were as sexual as men. It opened a new world to me, a world that Coleridge's Xanadu seemed mild by comparison.

There were parts of "On the Road" that just hummed in my mind. I remember going downtown Salt Lake City with my childhood friend Bobby Nelson to "The Abyss", an underground coffee house on Second South street where I could wear a black turtleneck and listen to Rosalie Sorrels sing folk songs. I had entered the world of the beats. A world filled with poetry, wine, and a free lifestyle. It was the antithesis of the strait-laced Mormon culture I had been reared in.

As soon as I got my driver's license and a Jeep, I drove with my friend Milt Hokanson from Salt Lake City to Jackson Hole and climbed the Grand Teton. A few weeks later I got Ted Wilson and Bob Stout to go back with me to climb Mount Owen. Living in the campgrounds and the mountains with friends, I was in my element. Later I ended up working in the Tetons for sixteen years and drove back to Salt Lake at least once a month to visit...I'm sure I've driven that road over a hundred times.

Late the next winter Milt, Dave Wood, and I hopped into the Jeep and drove to Shiprock, New Mexico, and climbed Shiprock. We dumped the jeep on its side in a ditch in the middle of the night on a dirt road near the rock, but we were young and strong, and quickly lifted it back upright.

I didn't pick up the drinking...just the driving, and I drove everywhere. As the years went by, I drove across the US almost a dozen times, going to graduate school in Baltimore. And now that I'm retired, I travel constantly: two years ago I drove my diesel pickup from Alaska down and across the West, climbing, visiting, and enjoying the good life.

The suggestive cover of a paperback version of 'On The Road'

Kerouac wrote versions and pieces of his life on the road for many years. It wasn't until the mid-fifties that he found a publisher willing to take it. However, it needed a good job of editing, and the names had to be changed, less to protect the innocent, than the publisher, I believe. When I heard a year ago that the original scroll of 120 feet of teletype paper Kerouac had Scotch-taped together and typed the script for "On The Road" had been published, I had to read it. It wasn't the edited version I had read four times in the past five decades; The Scroll still had the original names: Kerouac, Cassidy, Ginsberg... And, all the wild times. As I read it, it seemed so real, perhaps even better than the published edition.

The recent edition of 'The Original Scroll'

As the years went by, I read many of Kerouac's books. I was particularly taken by "The Subterraneans", the story of his affair with Alene Lee in New York in 1953. At the time I remember feeling so sad for Alene, an African American woman who seemed to be so disadvantaged and lost in the book.

First edition of 'The Subterraneans'

William Burroughs & Alene Lee

A month ago I heard that One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur, was out in a DVD. It is tribute by Jay Ferrar of Son Volt and Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cuties, interspersed with footage of Kerouac and commentary from the like of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Tom Waits and others. "Big Sur" tells the story of how after the success of "On The Road", Kerouac went back to San Francisco to dry out at Lawrence Ferlinghetti's cabin near Big Sur. It didn't last long, and he hiked back to San Francisco and lapsed into a huge binge with old friends.

Trailer for "One Fast Move Or I'm Gone"

So....I picked up my copy of "Big Sur" and re-read it. I was sad for Kerouac, unable to kick his booze habit, not wanting to sit like a hermit in the wilds, wanting to be with his friends even though it killed him.

First Edition of 'Big Sur'

And tonight I'm thinking of getting in my car and driving the 4,000 miles in 4 days down the Alcan Highway to the "Lower 48" to visit my friends for Christmas....

MY LITTLE SHELF

Most of my shelves hold books, pots & pans, and tools: treasures for me, trash for you.

The only shelf with art objects on it, front row left to right: fossil walrus ivory tusk with carved new ivory whale atop; tiny green jade turtle; grass basket; brass cricket cage. Back row: turned birch bowl, ulu (woman's knife), jade walrus with missing tusk. A watercolor by Donna Gates King hangs above.

But here's the treasure. It is a little woven grass basket made by Eva Black sometime in the late 40's or early 50's. Eva Black was a Native Alaskan woman from the village of Hooper Bay. In the early 50's she was a patient undergoing treatment for TB at the Tuberculosis Sanatorium located about a mile and a half north of Seward, Alaska. She harvested the grass around the TB San and used sewing thread for the color. There was a store in the San that had been set up for the patients to sell their creations.

Here Eva Black is holding the basket, one of four that my friend Jim's parents bought at the TB San store when they lived in Seward from 1940 to the mid-1950's My great friend, Jim Jensen, sent me the basket as a gift a few years ago after a visit to Alaska. Jim was raised in Seward after the War, but hadn't been back since, so we spent several days revisiting his old town and neighborhood.

Jim and his brother with a King Crab in Seward...early '50s

Jim and I were Mormon missionaries in Finland from 1962 to 1964 and we have remained great friends ever since. Jim, a fascinating person, retired linguist, hospital administrator, Peace Corps volunteer to the Amazon.... He is writing a voluminous autobiography, Uphill Both Ways, and the section about his father tells the early story of the years in Seward. In about 1940, having dropped out of high school and telling his newly met young girlfriend he would send for her, his father migrated from rural Utah to Seward, Alaska. His dad was an artist, but couldn't make it on art alone, so he did a variety of jobs, from welder to taxidermist during and after WWII. In 1956 he moved his family from Seward to Boston where, with not even a high school education, he was hired by the great Alfred Sherwood Romer at the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Peabody Museum. He soon became the expert at reconstructing dinosaur skeletons. Later he was hired by the Brigham Young University Museum in the same capacity and was eventually awarded an honorary doctorate. Nicknamed "Dinosaur Jim", after his discovery of the 'Ultrasaurus', he is fodder for another fascinating post. My friend Jim has devoted a beautiful website to his father, if you are interested in dinosaurs: http://dinosaurjim.com/

Dinosaur Jim with the Ultrasaurus

And this all from a little basket that I admire every time I walk by....

TERMINATION DUST

Long green summer days
Turn yellow, red, gold, and brown
Frost this morning

Sandhill cranes feeding
Fill a field along the highway
Soon take flight and leave

Young wolf surprises me
Willows hide me, hide him, too
Dissolves into leaves

Birch, Aspen, Spruce, Alder
Separate silty river
And termination dust

THE NORTH FACE RESCUE - 1967 - Part V

PART V. THE REUNION- AUGUST 2009

You never know when and how the past will come alive again. Last fall in Salt Lake City, Jenny Wilson, our friend Ted's Wilson's daughter, read her father's account of the 'Impossible Rescue' on the North Face of the Grand Teton in 1967. Rick Reese and I were at Ted's home, so Jenny asked if we would be willing to get together in the summer of 2009 in the Tetons and make a documentary movie of a reunion for the rescue. We naively agreed. For us six, it would become a grand get-together 42 years later. I won't spoil the movie. You'll have to wait a good amount of time to see it, but I'll let you all know when it comes out!

However much a film might appeal to my ego, the prospect of seeing the greatest bunch of friends together again was the force that drove me for the next eight months. The moment I arrived at Lupine Meadows in the Tetons my heart started to pound. We hadn't been together for 16 years, and although we were a bit gray, I was so excited I could hardly stand it. One by one I put my arms around my old friends, hugged, shook hands and felt the warmest of emotions surge.

Mike, Bob, and Rick reunite at Lupine Meadows in Grand Teton National Park

THE OLD TEAM

Pete Sinclair

Bob Irvine

Rick Reese

Mike Ermarth

Ted Wilson

Yours Truly again under the North Face of the Grand Teton!
(I never photograph myself, so I must credit my friend and cinematographer par excellance, Peter Pilafian)

The only missing member was our old friend Leigh Ortenburger who had died in 1991 in the Oakland fires. However, Irene Beardsley, who had been Leigh's wife in the 60's, lives in Jackson Hole and came to our reunion. She has been a friend to all of us for likely 50 years, so it was a wonderful treat to see her again. When I was a young man, she was one of the best women climbers in the country and the one who first climbed the most beautiful rock climb in the Tetons, Irene's Arete.

Irene Beardsley - Married to Leigh Ortenburger at the time of the rescue

The Jenny Lake Sub-district Ranger in 1967 was Dunbar Susong. He and his wife Alice showed up; they are still hale and hearty, and seeing them again was such a wonderful treat.

Irene's husband, Dan Goodman and Dunbar Susong - our supervisor and Jenny Lake Sub-district Ranger in 1967

The team in original order:

Ted Wilson, Pete Sinclair, Ralph Tingey, Mike Ermarth, Rick Reese, Bob Irvine

Half way through shooting the reunion, we were treated to a big surprise: Lorraine Hough McCoy, who had been climbing the North Face with Gaylord Campbell, and who called for help, bandaged and cared for him the first day, suddenly appeared. Hugs all around, tears, emotion, and love flowed better than in any Hollywood film. None of us had seen Lorrie for 42 years!

Lorraine Hough McCoy

I knew we were making a movie, but I did not understand that the press would still be interested in our story. During the filming, two fine men arrived: Reporter Lee Benson and photographer Ravell Call from the Deseret News in Salt Lake City. They followed us around, interviewed and photographed us for the next few days. The ensuing story continued to solidify the myths and ferret out the truths of the past 42 years.

Director Meredith Lavitt
Producer Jenny Wilson
Lunch at Amphitheater Lake

Jenny Wilson, a Salt Lake County councilwoman, had previously worked at Sundance, so she engaged the services of director Meredith Lavitt, a former colleague. The two of them and a crew they hired took over our every move. Each day was tightly scheduled. After we had gone through our initial greetings and small talk, the film crew was assembled on the front porch of the old cabin where Pete and Connie lived in the 60's and where Bob and Marie lived for almost 30 years afterwards.

The team and Lorraine on the porch of Pete's cabin in the 60's:
Rick, Pete, Ralph, Lorraine, Mike, Bob, Ted

Jenny and Meredith had found our old friend Peter Pilafian, now a famous cinematographer to film the event for the next week. It seemed that for every step I took, Peter took two, following us around, interviewing us individually, and setting up the scenes as we hiked and talked.

Cinematographer Peter Pilafian at lunch

The final day of shooting the entire crew of rescuers, family, cinematographers, directors and producers hiked up to the Teton Glacier at the base of the North Face of the Grand Teton. It was a fitting finale to a the most enjoyable week I can remember.

The entire crew on the Teton Glacier at the base of the North Face of the Grand Teton

For the Deseret News story see:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705323778/Reliving-the-rescue.html
http://www.deseretnews.com/photo/slideshow/6243/Reliving-the-67-Teton-rescue.html

And for the Salt Lake Tribune coverage:
http://www.sltrib.com/outdoors/ci_13169395

THE NORTH FACE RESCUE - 1967 - PART IV

PART IV. FOR EVER AFTER

Press Coverage

It was in the aftermath of the North Face rescue on the Grand Teton that I discovered how valuable the press can be. I knew there was media interest, but I really didn't know, at age 24, that it meant reporters from all over the country would fly to Jackson Hole to report on the story as it unfolded. By the time I got down off the mountain, two hangers-on who wanted more in-depth coverage were still there. E. D. Fales, Jr. was representing "Popular Mechanics", likely because of the the helicopter, gear, and technical lowering equipment, I had guessed. But the story turned out to be the best written and most quoted of all. He checked his facts, had artists draw pictures of the mountain and the rescue, and put together a logical, coherent tale, unlike the melange of memories I'm conjuring up today. Dixie Scott of the Washington Post was very attractive, slightly older (to me...probably 30) and had a knack for getting the human interest side. She also wrote a story for the National Parks magazine, 'Outdoor World'. In the fall my wife and I migrated east to Baltimore and graduate school at The Johns Hopkins University. Even the Baltimore Sun had heard of the rescue, and I was interviewed at length for the front page. It was humbling and flattering.

The National Valor Award

It was a big deal! We didn't know how big. But by the end of the year, our District Ranger, Doug McLaren, and the Park Superintendent, Jack Anderson, had nominated us to the Seceretary of the Interior for the department's National Valor Award. The next year, 1968, we were all flown to Washington, D.C. to receive it. I remember the tan paper miniskirt uniforms the stewardesses wore on the PanAm flight, and walking past the White House at 10 pm talking with the guards who told us it was safer inside than out. Secretary Stuart Udall himself presented us with gold medals. My mother kept mine in a drawer for 35 years before I saw it again; she was so proud. Mom and Dad had come to the ceremony and had wanted to see the sights. Mom was wearing expensive clothes, and as she walked through the area around the Washington Monument, she was attacked by a cutpurse; a fight ensued, and Mom on the ground kicking, fighting, and hanging on to her purse with dear life. I get the story from Dad, because we six were running up the stairway in our fine clothes to the top of the Washington Monument on a bet.

At The National Valor Award Ceremony - Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. 1968

Ted Wilson, Ralph Tingey, Pete Sinclair, Stewart Udall, Rick Reese, Bob Irvine, Mike Ermarth

My Citation For Valor which I've kept all these years.

Unit Citation of Merit

Because the Support Team did such a wonderful job under dangerous conditions, they were also presented with a Unit Award for Excellence of Service.

Irvin L. Mortenson, Jr.
David G. Stevenson
Harold A. (Woody) Woodham
Hugh W. Scott, III
William L. Mekell
Lawrence T. Scott
Richard L. Black
John M. Morehead

And the Secretary gave a Letter of Commendation to the two non-park service participants:
Leigh N. Ortenburger
Robert K. Schellinger

The Legacy

Lives

Leon R. "Pete" Sinclair
Pete decided to stay in Washington state that next year. The rest of us felt we had lost an institution. After graduate school Pete went on to become a professor of English at Evergreen College from 1971 until he retired in 2000. He was always a great story teller, so it was no surprise when he wrote a book of the people and events that shaped his life, We aspired : the last innocent Americans. In it he tells the best account of the great North Face rescue, and a dozen other similar adventures and inspirational stories. It was published by Utah State University Press, Logan, Utah, in 1993. He and Connie still live in Olymmpia, Washington, in a beautiful old home. Their three kids live nearby. Three years ago, Rick, Bob, and I flew to Olympia and visited them.

Robert W. "Bob" Irvine
After Pete left the park position, Bob became the lead Jenny Lake Ranger and continued to return to the summer job at for 33 years, likely a record for a seasonal ranger in the Tetons. Even though is my senior, I eventually became his official supervisor in 1978 when I became the Jenny Lake Sub-district ranger. Bob is one of the finest competitive athletes I have known, from golf, to archery, climbing, cross-country skiing, and downhill skiing. As a masters skier he constantly placed in the top circle. For many years he was a ski patrolman at Park City - West. In the winter, Bob taught mathematics at Weber State College in Ogden, Utah, but he is now retired as Assistant Professor Emeritus of Mathematics. He and Marie still live in Ogden.

Richard N. "Rick" Reese
While Rick was in the Tetons, he spent his winters studying for a Ph.D. in international relations at Denver University. After graduate school he and Mary Lee moved to Helena, Montana, where he worked in state government and also served on the board of directors of the Northern Rockies Foundation. Yellowstone Superintendent, John Townsley, hired Rick to create the Yellowstone Institute; he was the first director. He was also a creator of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a group of disparate state and conservation organizations that work together on major projects such as the reintroduction of the wolf in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Fifteen years ago, Rick, then community affairs director for the University of Utah, was running along this natural pathway called the Bonnevile shoreline above Salt Lake City. Concerned that the trail would soon disappear under the cities that were rapidly growing into the foothills, Rick helped form the Bonneville Shoreline Trail Committee, bringing together a coalition of partners to create a permanent trail along the foothills of the Wasatch mountains. He retired in 2006, and moved to Bozeman, Montana. He has recently stepped back in as Interim Executive Director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition.

Ted L. Wilson

Ted and Rick have been life-long friends. Both were activated to full time status in the Army National Guard during the Berlin Crisis. He continued climbing and teaching. In 1969 he bought the nascent Jackson Hole Mountain Guides for a year. After running Wayne Owens US Senate campaign, he entered politics and won three elections as mayor of Salt Lake City from 1976 until July, 1985. Ted resigned during his third term to become the director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah where he held an adjunct assistant professorship of Political Science. He has traveled extensively in India, working with students there. Ted is married to former Salt Lake Tribune columnist Holly Mullen. He has five children from his first marriage and From his previous marriageand is step dad to Mullen’s two children.

Hans Michael "Mike" Ermarth
Mike worked at the North District Fire Cache in Teton park, and I saw less of him than my companions at Jenny Lake. However we climbed the dreaded Jensen Ridge on Symmetry Spire together the next year. Mike continued his studies and became a professor of modern history at Dartmouth where he still lives and teaches. The last time I saw Mike was in 1993 when we were all together at Black Diamond Equipment Company in Salt Lake City for the release of Pete Sinclair's book, "We Aspired". He is married to Barbara Wall, a professor of English at Dartmouth University. Mike and Barbara have three sons.

Ralph H. Tingey. That's me! After the rescue season I headed to the Johns Hopkins University to continued my studies of the languages of the Near East. At one time I knew most of them. But it was not to last. At the end of graduate school, Janet left, and I was devastated. It was the end of the Viet Nam war, and the country was similarly in a fiscal crisis. Colleges and universities were not hiring Arabic teachers, so after sending out 200 letters, I received only one reply, telling me how interesting my resume looked...nothing more. I returned to the Tetons for my summer job, and when winter came, the Chief Ranger asked if I'd like to stay on, and I agreed. That decision changed my life again and started my permanent career in the national park service. I stayed another ten years in the Tetons climbing mountains, remarrying, and starting a family. In 1981 we sought a new life in Alaska where I accepted a job as Assistant Superintendent at Denali National Park. Alaska would remain my home through several more superintendent positions; I retired three years ago as the Associate Regional Director for all the parks in Alaska, and now I've reverted to my former status as a climbing bum. I have a son, Thor, and daughter, Daphne.

Leigh N. Ortenburger (1929 - 1991) had a degree in mathematics from his native Oklahoma...he still retained the accent! A brilliant and detail-oriented guy, he migrated to Palo Alto and eventually got an M.A. from Stanford and was working on a Ph.D. He worked for Sylvania as a statistician, although I never noticed him working...only photographing, climbing, and writing. He was famous to us for writing A Climbers Guide to the Teton Range, which came out first in 1956. He updated it once, and was in the process of a third edition with the head Jenny Lake Ranger, Renny Jackson. His great passion was photography, and during the years I knew him, he always carried a Linhof Technika III 4x5 camera that could take plates or roll film. I know, because in 1973, he gave me the camera when Jane Hunter, a wild, leggy blond friend, and I were off to climb Table Mountain on the west side of the range. William H. Jackson had taken a photograph of the Teton Range from that spot, and Leigh wanted to duplicate it three quarters of a century later. He took many trips to South America, climbed and photographed the Andes. Every Christmas I would receive a beautiful card with a cover of one of his favorite mountains. In 1956 Leigh married Irene Beardsley, a beautiful and fun loving climber, one of the only women climbers from that era. They had two girls, Carolyn and Teresa, who with Irene have kept his memory alive with a new book Leigh Ortenburger in the Thin, Cold Air, commemorating the gift of Ortenburger's papers to the Stanford University Libraries in 2005. Leigh died in the Oakland Fires in 1991, visiting his old friend Baxter, for whom Baxter's Pinnacle in the Tetons is named.