Major LAM
Activities:
As a Los
Alamos mountaineer for nearly 20 years, I had managed to deflect
all previous entreaties to join the board, until Zach Baker
finally caught me in a moment of weakness. The club has been
both good to me and for me, and I look at this as an opportunity
to give something back.
My love of
wild places was cultivated in the early years of my life in the
woods of northern Wisconsin where my grandparents had a cabin on
Butternut Lake. I spent most of the summers of my first 16 years
there on the shores of that lake and in the woods surrounding
it. No television and limited radio reception, led to lots of
time for reading. It was during this time that I developed a
vicarious interest in mountaineering through its rich literary
history. The stories of summiting the high mountains are epic
and I was hooked. Winters in Chicago, where I schooled, could
also be epic in its own way. Waiting for a bus on a corner at
5:00 am in sub zero (F) temperatures with a 20-30 mph wind led
me to imagine that I was sitting next to Maurice Herzog on his
descent from Annapurna. The frost-nip in my fingers reminding me
to keep my gloves close, as Herzog watches his slide down slope.
I still remember my first trip into Yosemite Valley in the mid
sixties. They were still doing firefalls. As I walked to the
base of El Cap to look up, I remember seeing those scroungy guys
pounding nails into the rock (what was that about). I was in
high school when I saw the news reports that Harding and Cadwell
had refused assistance from the Park Service on their way to
completing the first ascent of the "Wall of Early Morning
Light". While I thought that was extraordinary, my father
started having serious concerns about my mental health.
Michael R.
Altherr, Ph.D.
Shortly
thereafter, I got a poster of K2 to hang in my room. It may have
been with one of my initial REI membership purchases. Americans
had still not stood on its summit and I was already familiar
with the 1953 epic. At the time, I had no idea that I would come
to know and work with George Bell and get his signature to
sponsor my application to the AAC (in the days when that was
still a formality). It was truly my good fortune to share that
time with him, to get to know him, and hear all those marvelous
stories that he could tell while we traveled to and fro.
On the summit
of Antero with a snow dusted Princeton in the background (2009).
I summitted
my first 14er in 1974 at the age of 19 after hitch hiking from
Chicago to Colorado Springs. Yes, lowly Pikes Peak but it was a
thrill. I am in no rush to bag them all, at 56, I only have
about 20 more to go. I did my undergraduate work at Florida
Institute of Technology where the high points were the causeways
over the inter-coastal waterway. However, while transiting
between Chicago and campus on holidays, I managed to walk about
75% of the trails and a fair amount of the bush in Great Smoky
Mountains National Park, explore the caves in and around Mammoth
National Park, and explore the features of Red River Gorge where
I spent my first ledge bivouac. Another hitch hiking adventure
in September of 1977 brought a friend and me from Florida to
Colorado. We climbed Mount Elbert and Mount Harvard. On traverse
to Columbia it began to snow. We made it back to camp and it
snowed all night. We abandoned thoughts of completing Columbia
and Yale and began our trek back to sunny and warm Florida. In
1979, I again found my way back to Colorado this time as part of
a field ecology course, and this led to my first experience
leading a group. On my off day I had planned to climb Longs Peak
via the keyhole route. My Professor heard of my plan and asked
if I would take a few of my classmates with me. The last thing
that he said to me after dropping us off at the trailhead was,
"bring them all back." That turned out to be non trivial.
Another September, another snow squall at altitude and on Labor
Day weekend with a bunch of kids from Florida. Until then, I'd
never had to worry about anybody but myself. Among hundreds of
climber's, I was now responsible for a dozen, and some were not
making very good decisions. I did manage to get them all back,
one sans photography equipment. That day forged my personal
philosophy of trip leading. Simply put, objectives are
secondary; the well being of every member of the party is my
primary concern when leading a trip.
Taking the rack
on the Nutcracker, Yosemite Valley (2008).
While I
attended graduate school at UC Davis, a short drive from the
valley, my studies precluded much in the way of adventure.
However, I did make several trips to Yosemite, but I would not
climb there for another ten years. I did do several walk ups in
the Northern Sierra and became familiar with much of their
Eastern slope from Tahoe to Reno. I came to Los Alamos in 1992
after a brief foray into the biotechnology industry and a
research faculty appointment at UC Irvine. I am a graduate of
the 1993 climbing school directed by Stu Bowling. Rock climbing
got me to some beautiful places, and although I do not climb at
a high level; the ethereal feeling of watching recently released
condors performing their mating ritual in flight (below me!)
while sitting on a perch in Pinnacles National Monument with my
son is something that I owe, in part, to the Los Alamos
Mountaineers. I have climbed in the Shawangunks in NY, at Seneca
Rocks, WVa,, Yosemite Valley, CA, Cirque of the Towers in the
Jim Bridger Wilderness in WY, Cascades National Park in
Washington State, Mount Washington in NH and many locations
throughout NM and Colorado. My greatest affinity is for
traditional adventure climbing and the Brazos Cliffs is a
favorite place. I prefer to put skins on skis to earn a few
turns to sitting on chair lifts and playing dodge the humans en
piste. A couple of other memorable trips include a ski descent
of Mount Adams on July 4, 2001, the 175th anniversary of his and
Thomas Jefferson's death, just me and 150 of my closest friends.
We also used to do thematic vacations with the family. One such
adventure had us floating 165 miles down the Missouri River near
the 200th anniversary of Lewis and Clarks Journey of Discovery.
Finally, I am
extremely fortunate that my wife, Michele, has shared and
supported my interests in the mountains even if she is unable to
accompany me on all of my adventures. My children Heather and
Forest have developed similar affinities. Heather is currently
serving the Nation's interests in the Peace Corp in Zambia on
the African continent. I look forward to visiting her there in
July of 2012 and sharing adventures with her on that continent.
Forest, a recent graduate of UCSD, is an outstanding athlete
with a renewed enthusiasm for climbing and is currently residing
in Southern California. He longs to return to the mountain
states. He is currently considering his future options. He has
already found his way to the Valley much sooner than I did. One
of his first leads being the Nutcracker with the old man on
belay. Is this cool or what?
