Climbing Heritage

As I mention in her mother's obit below, Libby was a second generation climber and a guide from the Rockies to the Himalayas. Her husband Harry, who died in a "backyard" fall in the Tetons after a far more frightening climb in China, was a serious one. Harry was father to my stepson, wilderness photo- blogger A Jackson Frishman, who was three when he died. As Jack (who also blogs on matters whimsical, scientific, and musical as "Peculiar") sometimes says, he inherited various things from all three of us.

His grandfather Ken Adam was also a famous climber, a pioneer of many routes in Yosemite, and one of only two people I have known who are on T- shirts, the other being Doug Peacock (Ken hanging from a rope in Yosemite; Peacock by R Crumb as the Monkey Wrench Gang's Hayduke). Though at first glance they make a strange pair, I suspect the old California Republican- but- green climber of "good" family and the feral bear biologist who once carried a spear he made in his garage to the Canadian Arctic would have found a lot of territory in common.

Patty's death and the recent reunion of Southwest Outward Bound, where Harry was Program Director, have brought a lot of emails, nostalgia, photos, and even people washing up on the dry shoes of Casa Q, and I thought I would share a few. My favorite without a doubt is this of Libby at 21, atop a California cliff near Donner Pass.


The scariest is this rather Mansoneque photo booth strip- how old are you if you remember these?-- of Harry and Libby in typical SOBS style ca 1972.


Addendum, Thurs 9 June: we found this lovely pic of Lib and Harry at their wedding in Kathmandu in December of 1972:


A more socially acceptable version than the "dirtbag" photo strip: Harry, Lib, and Jack at a summer SOBS gathering in Santa Fe-- same year as the one below it? Jack is about 2.


The infamous "Harry and the rats": Harry with a rat bounty in Szechuan the year before he died:


I don't have any climbing pix of Jack in the computer, and some fun adventurish ones-- with guns, butchering a sheep-- are perhaps off- topic (?-- will honor requests!) But I will leave you with the coming fourth generation: a pregnant Niki (Mrs Peculiar) last month, atop Mount Taylor on the edge of the Big Rez 100 miles away, at 11,300 feet above sea level. Happy climbing, little one!