If you’ve noticed that my blog has been blank since March – I apologize. Life moves in mysterious ways.
Five friends of mine have left this world this year – five friends who made the mountains their home and livelihood. Writing about it offers some catharsis but there were many other things I pursued over the last several months that gave me what I was looking for, and so it's been some time since writing has felt like the natural thing to do.
Jonny Copp was one of my best friends. He lost his to an avalanche on Mt Edgar in China’s Sichuan province this past May. Killed with him were my two other friends’ Micah Dash and Wade Johnson. Jonny took risks for a living, as many of us do – but he relished it in a way that propelled him to a stature unmatched in our international community of climbers and adventurers. His enthusiasm was contagious, and at times intimidating. But his passions were pure, and they were balanced by his compassions and his chronic desire to understand the people around him. People use phrases like “wide, toothy grin”, “bear-hugs”, “cackling laughter” to describe him. Indeed, those images are what stick with me. And I can’t go climbing on a rock or mountain – can’t visit Boulder, can’t push an overflowing luggage cart through an airport – eat whipped cream out of a can - watch Zoolander – argue with border police – look at photos on my computer – can’t to any of these things without being filled with powerful memories of some of the most intense events of my life: memories spent with Jonny Copp. To say he was like a brother would be cliché, but it would also be an understatement.
He was 35 – too young to go as many say. But he pushed it hard when he was in the mountains. I used to take such offense when I’d hear people say cliché remarks like “at least they died doing what they loved”. The last thoughts of a climber moments before the end seems too terrifying to me to conjure the possibility of emotions like “I love this”. Death in the mountains is tragic – and the last emotion any of us would expect to experience right before the end is enjoyment. But this summer’s experiences give me pause. Climbing is just another form of gambling: we wager heavily on the unique and powerful reward of our achievements. In a society where we’re limited by square city blocks, square walls, and square pieces of paper full of rules, laws, and fine print about what is acceptable and what isn’t, it’s refreshing to see a select few intrepid individuals escape these confines and push beyond their own boundaries. After all, they (we) only have one lifetime to do it. Why live life like you can “do it better the next time around”?
I’m no fan of close calls and brushes with death, and those things happen in the mountains. Jonny and I survived a number of them together, and I’m honored to have journeyed to the edge and back with him. We both learned from those experiences, even if the lessons we took led us in different directions at times.
I’ve had many moments of disbelief over the summer – disbelief that he’s really gone. I heard the news while I was on a photo shoot in Alaska’s Little Switzerland. I flew off the next day and began making my way to Boulder. An arrival into one’s hometown induces certain habitual behavior. I developed an informal list of the people I would call to connect with when arriving back in Boulder. Jonny was always on the top of that list. And there I was rolling into Boulder for another reason – to say good-bye to my best friend and to be close to everyone else that shared him with me. Since then I frequently close my eyes and envision a mélange of sepia-toned memories: Surfing the old cargo van across desert landscapes, Drums and flutes in J-tree, forced bivies from Red Rocks to the bottom of a fishing boat in Chile to the top of a wall in Argentina; wearing ladies underwear for a Boulder Halloween, whipped cream nitrous attempts on the rim of the Black Canyon, and laughing in airports around the world… “Dylan, it’s a shit day when the airline looses your luggage”.
In 2003, Jonny and I, along with two other friends’, Mick and Jared, went to India’s Gharwal Himalaya to attempt an enchainment of routes on Bhagirathi III, IV, and II. Jonny was a seasoned veteran of Asia travel. Visually he stood out like every other tall, goofy American but despite not speaking Hindi he blended right into the population while the rest of us maintained our gringo status.
We didn’t accomplish our objective. The weather was unforgiving, and only allowed us one strong attempt at a wall on Bhagirathi III. We were most of the way to the summit, but the sudden onset of storms and precipitation forced us to rappel our two ropes tied end to end, and, because they still weren’t long enough to get us down to a bivy ledge, we tied all of our slings and aiders together and clipped them to the bottom of the rope. We down climbed the slings and barely reached a ledge that would fit our tiny bivi tent. Since we were out of gear, we had no way of attaching ourselves to an anchor or to the fixed ropes above. We had to untie to crawl inside a tent so cramped for real estate that one corner (where my head was) overhung the edge of our ledge and had only 3000 feet of air beneath it.
We sat in the tent for several hours without much concern. Then the snowfall intensified until it was pouring off the face above us in a constant cascade. The weight of the snow began to collapse Jonny’s side of the tent (the wall side) and push us and our tent towards the void. Jonny and I had to spoon on the outer half of the tent for hours – occasionally using our cook pot as a makeshift shovel to dig out the drift that was rapidly threatening to push us over the edge.
The precipitation eventually abated a bit and the winds picked up. We were still trapped there, but we had little to do but talk. I told all the jokes I knew several times. Eventually our conversations went to things like life, death, and partnerships in the mountains. In three days we gained a lifetime of understanding for each other. Jonny has had a lot of brilliant climbing partners on his frequent expeditions. I counted myself lucky to have had the opportunity to join him on several of these trips. But I never thought of myself as nearly the same caliber as others that he went on expeditions with. When we discussed this Jonny explained that I balanced him out – in an Yin and Yang sort of way. Jonny told me he felt “grounded” because my scaredy-cat nature was based on a preoccupation for professional (i.e. “guiding”) style risk management. In other words, he thought my overly analytical way of looking at mountain hazards would wear off on his decision-making style, and bring balance to his gung-ho hyper-motivation. But the funny thing was I was seeking balance from him as well. Jonny had a confidence that “it would all just work out” that I envied. I wanted his spontaneity, his fearlessness of expression, his utter lack of personal boundaries, and his devil-may-care attitude to wear off on me as much if not more than he wanted my “look-before-you-leap” caution to wear off on him. Eventually the storm ended, but the face was encrusted with ice, so we bailed. That was the last expedition Jonny and I undertook with one another. My taste for big alpine adventures morphed into a passion for big ski traverses, and my UIAGM education and personal life took whatever money or time was remaining. Nevertheless, Jonny and I still climbed together whenever we could, and we continued to brainstorm lifetimes worth of adventures-yet-to-be-had. The last time I climbed with him was in April. We scraped our way up the side of Hallets Peak in scrappy winter conditions with Steve Su, and then Jonny and I escaped from work duties later in the week to crag on Redgarden Wall.
Micah Dash was a friend, and though I didn’t know him as well as Jonny, Micah’s ebullient persona will leave an imprint on me. We both existed within a large circle of friends who were shattered by the turn of events in May. I’ll fondly remember his techno-wagon off-road stunts, his animated personality, and his wicked sense of humor. I’m consoled to know that Micah spent his last days with Jonny, in a place of irrevocable beauty and mystique. I met Micah through mutual friends while climbing in the Sierra. Bouldering at the Happy’s sometimes. We found out we had been living in Bellingham at the same time in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.
Wade Johnson entered my life in the summer of 2005, and it’s unfortunate that I didn’t get a chance to interact with him over the last couple of years, despite his serendipitous connections and filmwork with some of my best friends. Wade was a young, aspiring alpinist when we first met. He was a student of mine on the last part of an intensive 36-day mountaineering instructional course in Washington’s North Cascades and British Columbia’s Waddington Range. Wade was part of our group of 6 climbers who attempted Mt Waddington in July of 2005. I reached the Northwest summit of Waddington (the shorter of the two) with Wade and one other student in full white-out conditions as a horrific storm approached. We barely made it back to our high camp below the summit tower before the clouds unleashed. During the next three and a half days, the six of us barely ever left the confines of our tents except to participate in desperate shoveling. It snowed 8 feet in 30 hours. The snow was heavy and warm, and it was driven by 100 mph winds. One of our three tents were destroyed, two of our three shovels cracked, and our stoves could never be lit. Our tents were buried with us in them by the time the storm finally ended. Wade “the blade” (the moniker my co-guide Joey Elton gave him) rose from the tent with a grin on his face on that last day, and eagerly joined into the effort of moving tons of snow off of our tents and gear with our last remaining shovel. When the helicopter picked us up a day or so later, each of us saw clear skies, sunrises, and fresh-cooked blueberry pancakes as yet more reasons to renew one’s vigor for life.
Thierry Lokteff was one of the first French guides I worked with. I spent many weeks on Mt Blanc and the surrounding areas with Thierry over the past couple of summers in France. Married, and with a five year old son, Thierry lived with his family in Annecy – about one hour from Chamonix. He died in a crevasse fall while guiding on April 13 of this year. 12 other French guides have been killed this year as well.
I’ll remember Thierry for his ubiquitous Marlborough’s and Coca Cola, his sense of humor, and his openness. Hubris and arrogance are all-to-frequent attributes of many European guides, but Thierry was a team player. When I worked with him he was usually course directing 6-day Mt Blanc trips. He always asked us – his fellow guides – for our input or suggestions. He was a natural leader who incorporated the information provided by his colleagues into every decision he made. .
Craig Leubben died this past August in the North Cascades while training for his alpine exam. I was shocked when I heard the news - numbed by the news of yet another friend lost in the mountains this year. He was climbing on the same kind of terrain in the cascades that I was often climbing or guiding on in the French and Swiss alps. It gave me pause, and I found crossing beneath any hazard almost intolerable for some time.
Craig was the kind of guy that I would run into occasionally in the climbing circuit – places like Yosemite, Red Rocks, Boulder, and Indian Creek.
The first time I spent a lot of time around Craig was in 2003 when he was an instructor of mine in an AMGA rock guides course in Las Vegas. Craig was the most motivated of all the instructors when it came to getting us out on big routes with big guiding challenges. Another student, Bill, and I formed a frequent trio with Craig that week and spent several days guiding each other on some big routes. I don’t know where Johnny Cash entered the picture, but for some reason Craig and I always found ourselves singing Cash classics when we were on the rope next to each other. Bill would finish leading a pitch and while belaying the two of us simultaneously, he’d hear “don’t take your guns to town” echoing off the canyon walls. Since that year every time I’ve run into Craig we’ve reminisced about the impromptu Johnny Cash sessions on the sandstone walls of Red Rocks.
Jonny, Micah, Wade, Thierry, and Craig,
You will all be missed…
