|
A VIEW FROM THE CHAIR |
||||
|
The Desert Sage Vol. 235 |
||||
|
|
||||
|
List finishes and winter! The full moon over the snow on Stirling at night as I follow lion tracks going up the wash. Willie and I caked in ice and laughing on Tipton. Finding the name of one who stole my heart in one of Dale van Dalsam's cookie cans. Dropping from Towne Pass at sunset to Stove Pipe Wells in a dust storm that makes Death Valley seem on fire. Eating posole at Greg and Mirna Roach's list finish. Eighteen on us on top of Little Picacho at 9:30 in the morning for Erik Siering's 97th. What a great season it is already. So many list finish parties with circles of friends around fires at night. |
||||
|
After Suzanne and Igor Mamadalin's list finish we camped in the desert between State Line and Nipton. As we sat around the bonfire we took turns telling the stories of our first DPS climbs. Sitting there listening to each climber relate experience after experience I was struck by the richness of our past and how strongly it reinforces and influences our present. As Suzanne talked of meeting Igor and their first flirtations I looked at their daughter Tanya who had just flown in from Cornell. She had grown up climbing with the DPS. Many of the faces lit by the fire went back twenty and thirty years with the section. There were stories of the Burro bakes at Argus and how lousy the meat tasted. Someone told about the "Red Baron" who lost his tent while camping by Rosa Point and was found in the morning wandering stark naked. After that he had everything in red so it would be easier to find. We heard of climbers no longer with us, loves that had faded, and laughter from long ago. My turn came and I told them how three and a half years ago I climbed Rabbit one spring day alone surrounded by a billion butterflies and I didn't even know the DPS existed |
||||
|
The next morning John McCully and I climbed New York Mountains and as we were coming down John said "You know Richter, I really love climbing". |
||||
|
That pretty much sums it all up for me. |
||||
|
© 1994-2001 Dan Richter |
||||