Part I

In this Series of Pages I will attempt to create a path through meaningful episodes in my life, drawing on material in already existing posts augmented by gap-filling stories, especially about feelings, emotions. and understandings which seem compelling in retrospect. I will deliberately omit times of my life which seem boring to me though I might mention such and give dates in the interests of continuity. This will not be an autobiography, but a series of episodes which might well serve as a launching pad for thoughts and opinions seemingly irrelevant to a life story. As I begin this series, what I mainly wished to say in this blog is complete. As I write now (early 2025) about to become 96 years old (if Allah wills it so) I hope the story might be readable and interesting; however, as I’ve mentioned before, my motivation is, in part, that writing is an excellent way to keep my brain from a more rapid fading as well as a means of experiencing life as meaningful as my physical abilities decline.

I will start with my birth on May 24, 1929. May 24 certainly seems to be an unassuming date but I note that I share it with two rather famous people: Queen Victoria of The United Kingdom, who was born on May 24, 1819, one hundred and ten years before myself, and Bob Dylan born May 24, 1941, a date in World War II a year after the invasion and fall of France at a time when Hitler controlled most of continental Europe and there was a lull before his invasion of Russia on June 22, about a month after Dylan’s birth. Later in 1929 the American stock market crashed and the great depression of the 1930’s began. The crash did not occur until October 28-29th so I was born into a time of seemingly endless prosperity and economic growth with the automobile age coming into its prominence, radio broadcasting becoming popular and appliances such as electric stoves and refrigerators becoming common in many middle class households, while the telephone was becoming omni-present.

Hawaii was largely spared from the worst of the depression so my Dad’s position at Big-5 firm, Castle and Cooke, where he was working in the Accounting Department was secure. He had taken extension courses in accounting at the University of Hawaii and with his quick intelligence was able to pick up advanced ideas on the fly as he worked his job. As experienced accountants retired from the department, he moved up until by the time of World War II he was its head. In the Post History I I strayed off into an account of growing up in Hawaii during the 1930’s and 40’s. Rather than repeat that story here I’ll give a link (which you may ignore). memoir-link-1

This link to the middle of the History 1 Post tells of growing up during World War II, a little about my time at Stanford before the story drifts away into a consideration of history. At Stanford I was on the swim team for three years, and majored in mathematics. (See link memoir-link-2 for more about my interests at Stanford. In my junior year, after seeing the Tetons and hiking in them the previous summer I could no longer resist my urge to become a climber and joined the Stanford Alpine Club (SAC), going out on my first practice climb early in Fall Quarter, 1949.

Actually, as mentioned briefly in About Ho`ala Blog, I had already in earlier years developed an urge to climb mountains, aroused by a view from Paradise of the gleaming slopes of Mount Rainer, which we visited in 1936 on a trip to the mainland. In the late 1930″s, back in Hawaii, I day dreamed of being on those slopes, high on the mountain, approaching the summit. In the Post Meditation or How I etc.) I mentioned finding The Hindu Yoga Science of Breath in abandoned boxes of books at Kaiahulu in 1944. Another treasured book which I received as a gift in July, 1945, from a friend of my parents was Handbook of American Mountaineering by Kenneth Henderson, published in 1942 by the American Alpine Club, in the hope it would be helpful in the training of mountain troops. After receiving the book, I devoured it because I knew I wanted to take up roped climbing. I remember that first practice climb at Hunter’s Hill near Vallejo, California. At an outcropping the other beginners and I learned how to tie into the rope and practice a sitting waist belay. On other practice climbs we learned climbing techniques on successively more difficult pitches and in the Spring of 1950 we went to Yosemite and I was in the party, as David Harrah led the second ascent of the N. face of Middle Brother.

Besides becoming a friend with Roger Shepard as a freshman (see Post More Thoughts I), I made many other lasting friends, mostly in the SAC. A fellow math major was Sherman Lehman, who, unlike myself, was really serious about mastering mathematics, particularly Analysis which was Stanford’s strong point at the time. Sherman was also a leader in the SAC There were many others, geology majors being the most plentiful. At the time I joined the club the president was David Harrah, mentioned above, a philosophy major, who during WWII had registered military graves and who had a scarred face which I guessed came from a climbing accident in earlier years. Harrah was an indifferent climber on practice climbs, but when on a first ascent or new route, he turned into a tiger. He had made a notable ascent on Mt Johannesburg in the Cascades and had failed in an attempt to be first up the Wishbone arete of Mt Robson. During the summer after my junior year, Harrah joined a Harvard Mountaineering club expedition and with Harvard climber James Maxwell made a sensational first accent of Yerupaja, then the highest unclimbed peak in the Andes, almost losing his life and definitely losing all of his toes. Later, he became a philosophy professor at UC Riverside. His obit is well worth reading. https://obituaries.seattletimes.com/obituary/david-harrah-1086590890

In my senior year at Stanford I dropped off of the swim team and concentrated on climbing and graduating in math, needing to get a number of A’s to bring my average grade in math courses up to a B, after a failing grade in complex variables and a D in Vector Analysis. (At that time the Math Department was unique in requiring a B average. The university later forced the Dept. to accept a C average as was standard with other departments of the university.) At the Thanksgiving break that year (1950) The SAC went north to Mt. Shasta and Castle Crags. I was with the Castle Crags group which camped up near the “Dome”. A party, led by Sherman, attempted to climb Hubris Tower (so named by David Harrah) by a new route on the East ridge. Most of the East Ridge turned out to be quite simple: 3rd class, not even needing a rope. However, as we approached the summit we found ourselves on a false summit at a position where a deep slash across the ridge left a gap with vertical walls between us and the summit. The wall on the far side of the gap looked very difficult if not unclimbable. As we contemplated the situation for a minute or so, an idea occurred to me and we tried it. I tied in and was lowered down our side of the cliff seventy or so feet, where by kicking off the cliff I was able on the second try to grab a hold on the other side of the gap. The rest of the party rappelled down into the gap and with an upper belay from me, climbed up to my position from which we easily made the summit. Shortly after this trip I was made a leader.

In June, 1951, I graduated from Stanford with a BS degree. The last six months had been intense. I had made my B average in math courses by studying more frequently and by dropping a course in real analysis, which started with the professor handing us a long list of definitions and axioms which we were to memorize. Perhaps I should have dug in and memorized the material in the list, but at the time I knew I wouldn’t undertake such an alien path and would get an F in the course.

Climbing had by no means suffered during this time. Shortly after becoming a leader, during Spring break of 1951, I ended up in Yosemite at Camp 4 with three or four others thanks to a ride from Nick Clinch in his Pontiac convertible. Nick had developed an addiction to climbing by spending one or two summers in the Colorado Rockies with a group taught by Tom Hornbein. He had immediately joined the SAC upon coming to Stanford and was a good climber though not a leader at the time of our trip. Nick was from Dallas, Texas, and his family owned a number of television stations. Nick’s full name was Nicholas Bayard Clinch III and his grandfather with the same name, but without the III, had been a confederate Civil War general. At Camp 4 Nick’ almost immediately noticed that next to us was the camp of the two most famous Yosemite climbers of the time, John Salathé and Anton (Ax) Nelson, who in 1947 made a breakthrough climb of the Lost Arrow in Yosemite, climbing from its base to its summit in a 5 day effort. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Salath%C3%A9 .) Nick, being outgoing and enterprising,, went over as soon as Salathé and Nelson settled in and introduced himself and rest of us. The result was an invitation to climb with them the next day. Nick, of course, ended up climbing with Salathé, the more famous of the two, and I with Ax. We climbed the SW Arete of Lower Brother, which to us had a fearsome reputation because Harrah with Sherman and some others had climbed it Spring, 1950, and had found it incredibly difficult. As it turned out Harrah had been off route and the real climb went up an easy gully off the Michael Ledges route and had only one 5th class pitch near the top which Ax Nelson kindly let me lead.

Nick Clinch was a very interesting person. He genuinely loved climbing, but, when leading, at the crux of difficult pitches had to fight an overpowering fear. With his background he was also driven to become well-known or even famous. In the Summer of 1951, he and I, joined by Richard Irvin, a Sierra Club climber, and later by my brother George, climbed together in the Tetons and Canadian Rockies. In the Tetons as novice climbers we felt an urge to become known as competent and respectable. After a climb of the Durrance Ridge of Symmetry Spire, which seemed unexpectedly easy after our Yosemite experiences, we decided to try for the second ascent of the Emerson Chimney on the North Face of Teewinot. Richard Emerson, a climbing ranger, had led the ascent in 1948 and it had not been repeated since, thus acquiring a reputation. After a 2 am start we climbed up the long slope below Teewinot’s Thumb and scrambled up to the cave-like Emerson chimney. Nick insisted on leading the chimney pitch. He had become an SAC leader shortly before our trip. Years later, he told me of leading a pitch with David Harrah watching, the pitch being a test of whether he should be made a leader. He so desperately wanted to be a leader that he put aside his fear and without halting climbed the crux, proving he was capable. In the Emerson Chimney he had plenty of incentive, but no such luck in putting aside his fears. I gave him a shoulder stand in support and then, at his behest, climbed a few feet higher, giving him another while I grew increasing impatient at his dithering at the crux. Finally, after what seemed an interminable time, Nick found the key move and led up to the sloping ledge on the north face. I came up last and with an adrenalin rush stoked by my outrage had no problem at all with the chimney. The remaining climb proved simple and we topped out on Teewinot.

Later Nick went to law school at Stanford, passed the bar exam and became an attorney. He led a group who climbed in British Columbia west of the Rockies, became a member of the American Alpine Club (AAC), and enlisted in the Air Force as an officer, following in the footsteps of his father, Nicholas Bayard Clinch, Jr, a colonel in the Air Force. Nick was stationed in Iceland where he pursued a project of climbing an 8000 meter peak in the Himalaya’s. The possibilities of an 8000er first ascent were rapidly disappearing as Nick tried to put his expedition together. At that time he corresponded with me at Fort Huachuca, suggesting I join the AAC which I did, easily qualifying from climbs in the Tetons, Canadian Rockies, and Yosemite. In later years I lost interest in being a club member and told Nick I was dropping out. Nick thought that was a bad idea and paid my annual dues, keeping me in the club. After that I stayed in, knowing that Nick would never let me drop out.

Against all odds Nick put together his expedition and in the summer of 1958 it made the the first ascent of Hidden Peak, now more well known as Gasherbrum I. At 8080 meters it is the only 8000er, whose first ascent was by an American expedition. It turned out that Nick was a great expedition leader, mastering the art of dealing with the innumerable details, becoming friendly with a rival expedition while out-foxing it so as to arrive in a reasonable time at base camp while keeping his friendship intact. In a later first ascent of Masherbrum (7821 m), Nick summited two days after the first ascent duo, so shared in the first ascent. Nick became president of the AAC for two years and later led an expedition which made the first ascent of Mt. Vinson, the highest peak in Antarctica. Successful in his ambitions, in climbing and in life, he rated an obituary in the New York Times.

In recollecting the stories of Nick Clinch and Dave Harrah, I’ve been brought to rethink my attitude towards ambition and accomplishment as a way of life, dependent on striving toward a goal fortified by wit and ego. Of course, I had achieved an underpinning for this kind of life by the time I had my Ph. D in physics, but around then during a trip back to visit my parents in Hawaii we were visited by my mother’s cousin, Jesse, the embodiment of a successful American Dream. Jesse had grown up on a subsistence farm in Colorado in the plains SE of Colorado Springs, an area of the Great American Desert unsuitable for anything other than wilderness. As soon as feasible, she left home, headed for Los Angeles and picked up a job as a clerk in a law firm, which gave her an opportunity to learn about the law. She passed the California bar exam, became a member of the firm and later practiced law before the Supreme Court. Of course, after hearing that I had a Ph.D. in physics, she immediately had a plan for me. I could get a job in research at a large firm and work my way up until I was the head of their entire research department. I gave a pleasant reply to her idea, but my whole soul was full of revulsion at the very thought of her plan. back to top to Part II