The picture shows my climbing partner, Mike Hamrich, on the west side of Pyramid Peak. It is the summer of 2000. Our tents are perched beneath a cliff at nearly thirteen thousand feet. Why camp there? There is a story—actually two; but let me return to that later. What is significant about this picture is what you see and what you don’t. What you see is a hard hat. Good thinking, Mike. The gully he is about to emerge from is about seventy-five feet straight up from the rubble. Looking closely, there is loose shale on each ledge—plenty of opportunity for a head hit. The climbing is not really that hard. You would rate it maybe 5.2 to 5.4 if it were nice firm granite or Flatirons-like sandstone. This stuff is different, though. You climb as if each hold will come loose. Most of the rock would actually pull loose with an outward tug. You push down, but don’t pull out. Sometimes it was necessary to use a loose flake, but push it into the mountain as you pass. Nerve-wracking, but fairly safe if done slowly. I am reminded of the old motto of the Maroon Bells mountaineer: “If you don’t like your handhold, throw it away and get another.”

What isn’t in the picture? The rope. Imagine a rope from me to him. It would snag on rock chips and flakes and bring a lot down. Probably more risk. This certainly is a judgment call, but there are places in the Elk Range where a rope is perhaps more risk than solo climbing. Not that we didn’t have one along. We just didn’t use it there. Mike and I have a rule: If either of us starts thinking about a rope, we rope up. Neither of us thought a rope would increase our safety here.

We were camping up there to satisfy a long-standing quest of mine. I wanted to see if John Holyoke’s ice axe was still there. John was quite a mountaineer and explorer. He had some first ascents in the Tetons to his credit, and he wrote a marvelous article in T&T about a Gore Range traverse several years back. John did a lot of exploring by himself in the Gore and the Sangres. He was not a large man, but, at age 66, could out-hike most people. Nearly twenty years ago, he showed me a route up the west face of Pyramid that he had worked out the previous summer. He took his old axe with him. This thing must have been over five feet long and probably manufactured about 1925. Its graceful wood shaft bore scars of many mountain encounters. It was, however, just getting in the way here. He decided to step around a corner and lean it against a rock wall. We could pick it up on the way down. When we returned to what we thought was the right place, we couldn’t find it. We looked all over, but no axe. He told me he would go up and find it the following summer. That opportunity never came, so I wanted to see if it was still there. We didn’t find it either this year. That face of the mountain seems to have developed more traffic, and I suspect someone else has retrieved it.

Let me tell you about Mike Hamrick. I met him in the seventies when he ran a mountain shop in Ouray and did a little search and rescue there. We have climbed together on and off since then. Sometimes we get together each summer. Usually the hiatus is longer. We’ve wandered in the Weminuche, played around on the Zodiac Spires in the Gore, visited the Organ Mountains in New Mexico, the Sierras, the Cascades. At first we were young and lean. You wouldn’t describe us that way now. We have actually started our own mountain club, called “Outward Geezer.” The membership has hovered at two, but at least the dues are low.

Climbing with Mike over the years, I have learned a lot about equipment. Our first climb together was Chimney Peak, down ridge from Courthouse Mountain in the Uncompahgre. We did the same south-facing crack that the San Juan Mountaineers did so many years before. We noticed a breeze coming out of the crack and figured, correctly, that it must go all the way through to the north side. Two years later, we attempted that north-facing crack. As far as we knew, it hadn’t been climbed. We knew that the rock there was a bit loose. I decided to go out and buy my first hard hat. At that time, hard hats were not much used. Most of us wanted to look like hard-core mountain men and eschewed them. My first hat, a heavy white clunky thing, did not look a bit cool. We only got about two-thirds of the way up the crack before losing our nerve and retreating. I did, however, begin to appreciate hard hats when Mike dropped a baseball-size rock down on me from about fifty feet up. That baby hit my helmet like Micky Mantle connecting for a home run. It spun out over the abyss. My head spun, too, but all the parts were working. I still don’t think hard hats are cool looking. But having your life saved—even once—is o.k.

One summer we climbed the Geneva buttress on Mt. Sill in the Sierras. This is supposed to be a relatively easy rock climb to the top of this beautiful fourteener. We must have gotten off route, for we wandered all over that flank of the mountain. When I led out the last rope lead to the top, I got to see the sun go down over the Pacific. We bivouacked on top. Was it cold! The water in our canteens froze solid. I shivered all night, and I swore I would never go out without some sort of foam pad in my pack. This has pretty much been my rule since.

We got into some equipment difficulties in the North Cascades one summer of a different sort. We set off to climb McMillan Spire and Mt. Terror in the Picket Range. With names like that, wouldn’t you carry all sorts of climbing gear? We did. Unfortunately, the five thousand foot climb out of the valley floor to the basin didn’t work for us while carrying two ropes, plenty of chocks and slings, hardhats, and camping gear. Mike has since talked to some local climbers, all of whom go light just to get into Terror Basin, where the climbing starts. Here we had too much equipment. Sometimes that can be more of a problem than not the right equipment. In his book on climbing ice, Yvon Chouinard makes the point that being as light as possible gives you speed and hence safety. He even says at one point, “Carry light packs, and leave most of the “ten essentials” and other impedimenta behind. Remember, if you take bivouac equipment along, you will bivouac.

So, what is the right approach for equipment? I still don’t know. I think the best advice I ever heard was something to the effect that it isn’t so much what you took in your pack as what you decided you could leave behind.

Mike and I have shared some great experiences and have seen some marvelous country. We have been through some narrow times and dicey places. After eating our evening gruel, we talk of past climbs, other people’s adventures, and our common Coast Guard background. During Viet Nam, he watched the small boat ahead of him in the Mekong Delta get blown out of the water. My Coast Guard experience was on an icebreaker in the Antarctic. Much like Shackelton, we nearly became frozen-in in the Weddell Sea. I got to learn first hand the utility of non-operative treatment of appendicitis on board a ship. We talk about Polaris and the Southern Cross, shooting stars, movie stars, and other stellar phenomena of which, delicately, I do not speak. We talk about the trips we’ve taken, the trips we would like to take, and the trips we probably will never take. The tales grow taller annually; the mountains less tall.

Having all those miles together, I realize that the best equipment is a reliable climbing partner who is also a friend. May we all be so blessed.