SOME CLOSE (AND NOT SO CLOSE) ENCOUNTERS WITH THE EARLY HIGHPOINTERS

BY CHARLES FERIS

Many stories can be told of how we got our first inspiration to pursue this hobby of ours, this . We’ve been inspired in a hundred ways; mine arose during a period of boredom, while in college. Seeking something other than study, I took out a Rand McNally road atlas, and looked at a map of my native state of , noting the little red dot in the northwest corner of the state. Wow, something neat to do. So while the other kids were off to Florida, off to I went during spring break 1961. Then it hit me; I had already done Mt. Whitney the year before, so why not do all the states. Now I was really excited. The next few years saw me collecting 13 more highpoints in the Midwest and southeast. I went my merry way, never realizing that others might be crazy enough to be pursuing the very same project. At this point I was not aware of the tiny fraternity of early highpointers who were already years before me. I had no idea of the remarkable people I was about to meet. Then in August 1965 a Sierra Club friend of mine in Chicago told me about C. Rowland Stebbins. I had found a kindred soul, one who had already completed the 48. I phoned him immediately. Soon my wife and I were off on the four hour drive to Lansing, Michigan. We arrived to an expansive mansion on Moore’s River Drive atop a bluff overlooking the Grand River. We were escorted to the large lawn behind the house. “Rollie” walked up to us with a big smile on his face, and a croquet mallet in his hand, asking us if we played. “No”, I replied , but we’d give it a try. Hours of good conversation, checking out pictures, and meeting his boys, Winston (20), Malcolm (19), and Kenyon (17), was followed by Rollie serving us a fine dinner. Since Rollie and the boys didn’t cook, his housekeeper served us dinner. I remember Rollie ringing a little bell to summon his housekeeper to the dining room. As the evening with Rollie wore on, conversation turned to A.H. Marshall, the first person to pursue and complete the 48 state summit project, and to Perceval Sayward, perhaps the first to write about state summits. First, a few words about Sayward. After publishing “The Highest Point in Each New England State” in the December 1915 issue of Appalachia, Sayward went on to write “Ten Trifling Hillocks”, and finally wrote a rough guide to the 48 state summits with altitudes taken from a list published by the Federal Board of Surveys and Maps. 2

In the 1915 Appalachia, Sayward wrote: “What pleasanter way, then, could be found of becoming Aquainted with the various sections of our country, than to make pilgrimages to the culminating point of each state”

We don’t hear from Sayward until 1934, when he, along with a Charles Hazelhurst of Philadelphia, climbed to 17 eastern high points. Next came Lawrence Grinnel of Ithaca, New York, who became active in highpointing at about the same time as A.H.Marshall. He already had a couple of Swiss summits under his belt. Grinnell and Marshall had some friendly competition in the 1934- 35 period, with Marshall sending him regular postcards detailing his progress. Grinnell ended his quest at 44, so it was up to Marshall to take the lead when he ascended Indiana’s highpoint on July 13, 1936, to be the first person to stand on the highpoints of the lower 48 states. A.H. (Arthur) Marshall was a remarkable man. My encounter with him was close in space (he lived across the Columbia River from my home in Portland), but far in time. He died on February 9, 1951, at the age of 65, 16 years before I moved to Portland. The hotel (the Evergreen), where Art lived as a bachelor in a 12 X 16 foot room, still stands in downtown Vancouver, Washington. The Mazamas Climbing Club Annual of 1951 describes Art as a truly unique individual “having no like or equal in the mountaineering world”. Art was never an expedition climber, technical routes were not his strong point. He never used piton, carabiner, or a rope rappel in his life. He just loved mountains, all 622 of them, including 281 solo climbs. His last summit was Oregon’s in 1948. Rowland Stebbins told me that evening in Lansing how he first became aware of Marshall. Rowland had already added 5 summits to his state summit quest, thinking he was the first, when in 1940, he noticed a note on the door of an old shack as he climbed Government Peak, then the highest point of his home state of Michigan. The note, written four years earlier, in 1936, simply read “34 th state summit, 14 more to go”, A.H. Marshall. Art Marshall’s accomplishment is all the more unique when we consider the project took him 17 years to complete, yet he never drove a car, using travel privileges as a telegrapher for the S.P.& S. Railroad to travel. Art hired cars and drivers when needed, walked many more miles than we have to walk today even to get to trailheads, and slept outside many a night without a tent. He developed severe rheumatism, which later contributed to a general downturn in his health. He wrote to Stebbins in late 1949 after Rowland visited him in Vancouver and after Rollie sent him a photo taken of the two of them, which shows Marshall looking very old and bent. “I didn’t realize how much I’ve failed in the last 3 years,” Marshall wrote. Marshall mentions the newly resurveyed high points in and , and states that he never will find out the truth of the problem. 3

A little over a year later, Art Marshall took his own life on February 9, 1951. He left one of the most amazing records of mountaineering achievement in all of North America. Art’s four highpointing journals and many photographs are currently in possession of Rowland Stebbins’ son Ken who tells me he is open to the idea of eventually donating the originals or copies to the Highpointers Club. That evening spent with Rowland Stebbins developed into a friendship marked by several visits and correspondence. Rollie lent me his voluminous files, which I carefully copied. He later visited me in Portland. Rollie liked to dine in the highest (in altitude) restaurant in every city he visited, and we were soon sharing a fine dinner on the 36 th floor of the 1 st National Bank Building. Rollie liked to collect more than just mountains, he skied every state and many countries that had a ski lift, knew the ‘fight’ songs from every state university from Maine to California. He never smoked, drank, or even tasted soda, coffee, or tea. “Awh”, he would chuckle, “When you’ve never had any of those, you never miss em”. He was a fine physical specimen who climbed hard and played hard by playing handball with his three sons, and climbing the stairs of one of Lansing’s tallest buildings. Many highpointers are familiar with Rowland Stebbins’ exploits. Not only was he the second to attain the 48 summits, completing in 1950, but he was the first to attain them a second time with his sons. Rollie also completed the high points of France, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, and Italy. When his wife fell ill later in 1950, and needed to leave their home for care, Rollie looked for a project to do with his three sons, Winston Lee, Malcolm Whitney(named for Mt. Whitney) , and Kenyon Rainier (named for Mt. Rainier). Rowland began retracing his steps to the highpoints with the three boys in 1952, when they were 4, 7, and 9 years old respectively. The Stebbins family began with the east and Midwest state summits, and by 1956 were concentrating on the higher Appalachian summits. Checking off the high points was fun for the three boys who eagerly helped Dad plan each new objective. In 1962, Roland attained the 48 for the second time, with his sons Malcolm and Kenyon being the 5 th and 6 th persons to do the 48 as they summated Mt. Rainier. Winston had broken his foot a few days before at a California motel after climbing Mt. Whitney. Winston went on to claim the 48 state title by climbing Rainier in 1963 to become the 7 th to climb the 48. Rowland added to the list in 1969, to be the 3 rd to do the 49 states. Rowland Stebbins died in 1983 at the age of 80, leaving a truly unique legacy. Rowland’s son, Kenyon, now lives in Michigan, where he still remains a member of the Highpointers Club, and his wife, Sally, is also a member, The Stebbins family not only established a lot of firsts, but started a family tradition that lives today among many of our members. Ken Stebbins has told me he hopes to visit the Ohio Konvention next year and tell us of his early adventures with his father. 4

GEORGE PETERS

George Peters summited in 1955 to be the 3 rd person to officially (according to Highpointer records) to complete the project. However, these were the years of rapidly changing surveys, and by his own stricter standards it was not until 1972 that he revisited the newly-surveyed highpoints to complete the project by todays resurveyed standards. George espoused a point of view held by some highpointers, that credit for a highpoint should be verified on the most recent U.S.G.S. survey. In a letter to Stebbins in 1961 George pointed out that A.H. Marshall can only be credited with the “first attempt” because he died before he could return to do the newly surveyed highpoints. This point of view has some credence; but the Directors of the Highpointers Club take the view that A.H. Marshall was the first. George was born in 1900, served as a Navy commander and later as a forest ranger in the Rockies. His profession was an engineer. George first heard of highpointing after reading of Marshall’s adventures in the 1936 Appalachia. He did his highpointing in spirts over a 23 year period, I met George in 1967 when my wife and I took in the Northeast highpoints. We drove up to his Honey Hollow retreat in the Catskills, a 22 acre piece of heaven. His home, built in 1786 by Quakers, was perfectly preserved, and the original owner was buried in the back yard. George was an avid ornithologist; he knew his local Chickadees by name as they came to eat seeds from his hand. George possessed a unique collection of fist-sized rocks taken from each of the state summits, and was described in a 1966 “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” newspaper column. The naturalist Edwin Way Teale devoted an entire chapter to his exploits in his book “Journey Into Summer”. George climbed Mauna Kea in 1958, claiming the first to attain the 49 states.

REV. F.W. (FLOYD) McDERMOTT

Mac, as his friends called him, was born in 1899 on a farm, attended Franklin College in Indiana, and at an early age got a calling for the ministry. Dr.”Mac” served 16 years as Pastor of a Baptist parish in upstate New York, and finally ended up as Director of the Illinois Baptist Convention in Springfield. While in New York state, Mac spent his spare time leading groups of boys on climbing trips in the Adirondacks. He climbed Mt. Marcy a dozen times, as well as dozens of other summits in the range. One day in 1952, he suddenly realized he’d already done 24 state summits and might as well go for them all. In five short years Mac completed the remaining 24 states, completing his project on Granite in 1957, and becoming the 4 th person to join the growing fraternity of the early highpointers club. A short time later, Mac was invited to New Yorl City to appear on the “To Tell the Truth” TV show. 5

McDermott had noticed the names of Marshall, Stebbins, and Peters in registers, but at the time of his completion did not know of any others. A short time later, a news item in Sports Illustrated magazine told his story. Stebbins first heard of Mac’s project a few days later in August 1957 on a Lansing radio station. He promptly wrote to Mac with congratulations. The two met in Springfield in July 1958. I first met Mac in 1969, when he stopped off in Portland on his way to do Mauna Kea. On his way down from the summit he found that his rented jeep had bogged down in a snowfield near the summit. Mac started walking down and 13 miles later met the rescue team. Twenty-six hours later after rescuing the jeep Mac returned to his anxious wife. Now we know why rental agencies do not allow their vehicles on Muana Kea! On his 1969 visit to Portland he asked me to accompany him up Mt. Hood, which he had already done years earlier. Mac was now 70 and in fine physical shape, but pointed out to me that he might be a little slow. We took our time and reached the summit just an hour later than the usual ascent time. At the summit we were surrounded by much younger climbers, who were amazed at the strength of this 70 year old man. The Reverend was a very spiritual man, but what was so remarkable about him, was his very New Age philosophy concerning the relationship between man, nature, evolution, and fitness. To Mac these concept were closely connected.. While climbing Mt. Humphreys with his daughter, the Reverend was struck by lightning. He was thrown backward into his daughter who feared he was knocked off the mountain. In a state of shock, somehow both of them got off the mountain safely. We can speculate as to why the Reverend survived, but I like to believe that this brush with death, led Mac to perceive God and the Universe in a very different way. When I met Mac a decade later in 1969, I saw not only a man who radiated spiritual as well as physical energy, but who possessed insights that I had never before thought about. He viewed evolution, for instance, as a process by which Nature moves the species forward by continual testing, to a point where we are in complete harmony with our environment. He believed that the physical body we now possess is the end result of this process, and that we need to keep the body fit by hard physical work like climbing, in order to continue moving this evolution forward. I was fascinated by these ideas. Meeting the Reverend Floyd McDermott changed my life. Mac ascended Muana Kea in 1959, the year Hawaii joined the Union, placing him as the first to complete the 49, and the 4 th to complete the lower 48.

FRANK ASHLEY

I remember Frank as a climber, promoter, and accomplisher of a notable project done with limited resources and bold determination. We know Frank best as the first completer of the 48 states in one year (112 days to be exact), the author of the first highpointing guidebook, and the inspiration behind the Club’s Frank Ashley Award. The award is bestowed annually to club members “in recognition for significant volunteer service to the Club”. 6

Frank bridged the gap between the limited knowledge some of us early highpointers possessed, and the much larger new generation of highpointers, by publishing his first “Highpoints of the States”. This little book inspired a whole new generation of highpointers, the ones who later went on to form the club we now know. Before Frank embarked on his climbing project back in 1969, he needed information in the form of easy-to-follow directions to some of the harder to find highpoints. I remember writing a very long and complicated (I hoped not confusing), direction to Mt. Arvon, which he somehow reduced to be understandable in his book. The guidebook was published in 1970, sold for $1, and was published by California’s LaSiesta Press. Frank was proud of being the first to complete the 48 in less than one year. When I met him in Portland after the trip he was beaming. He loved to poke fun at himself, felt very clever in getting certain free-be’s for his trip; like being loaned a free camper by Red-E-Kamp of Riverside, California. Or by raising funds for his trip by offering souvenirs consisting of envelopes with a commemorative stamp . Each was notarized and sent out to the investor from a post office near where each highpoint was reached for each of the 48. They sold for $7 per set. Frank later moved to Missouri and was visited by our own John Mitchler and Dave Covill, who were enroute to the 1999 Missouri Konvention. Frank died shortly thereafter at the age of 69.

VIN HOEMAN

After 48 and 49 completers, what comes next? You guessed it….50! The BIG 50. It took an expedition-level mountaineer like Vin Hoeman to be the first to score the first 50. Vin was a friend I never met; although we had several near-close encounters. I knew him only through correspondence and readings of his mountain adventures. He died at the age of 32 by avalanche on Dhaulagiri in 1969. The only survivor of the slide had just left camp when it rumbled down upon Vin and the other members of the expedition. His death ended a brilliant mountaineering career, but also plans to write a highpointing guidebook. In an ironic twist of fate, Vin’s wife Grace was also killed in an avalanche in Alaska just two years later. Vin had a stellar mountaineering history. His accomplishments are well known so I will not address them here. He loved . In 1963 Vin led the first east to west traverse of The Great One, in 1965 he traversed the mountain from north to south, arriving on the summit just in time to view a solar eclipse. In 1967 Vin helped recover the bodies of six mountaineers from the ill-fated Wilcox expedition. He has also climbed in the Andes, and spent his honeymoon with Grace climbing in the Alps. 7

Vin met Rowland Stebbins, on a hitchhiking trip across America in 1966, but I believe he never met George Peters as they had earlier proposed, or any of the other early highpointers. The busy lives and extensive travels, precluded many of us meeting more than one at a time in those days. Vin, like Arthur Marshall, climbed at a time when new surveys were being made, so may not have actually reached the ‘new’ highpoints now known by the Club. Vin may not have actually done the ‘new’ highpoints of Michigan and , but is officially credited with being the first to attain the 50 state summits.

MITCH MICHUAD

My one and only meeting with Mitch was over a beer (or two) here in Portland in 1969. I remember him as a man of grandiose plans, like walking from the Bering Sea to Tieria del Fuego and , of course, being the first to climb the 50 state highpoints in one year. In our conversations I never felt I was even close to knowing the man, he was trying too hard to impress me, or maybe he was just dreaming. Mitch came to Portland from our namesake in Maine in 1967. He joined the Mazama Climbing Club and was a member for three years before literally disappearing after his 50 state summit venture in 1970. No one here in Portland that knew him, knows what happened to him. Mitch started his quest in January of 1970 and ended on Mt. Hood in December of that same year, ascending Mt. Hood with Grace Hoeman, on a tribute climb to Vin on December 4, 1970. Mitch is a controversial figure; some have questioned whether he ever actually accomplished his feat. Fellow highpointer Frank Ashley has called him “a publicity hound without equal”. Every state summit seemed to have a drama; nearly breaking is neck on a rock on , nearly getting hit by a car on Ebright road, leading a high school band to the of Kansas, etc. Our own John Mitchler has stated that no one has actually stated in print that Mitch fabricated his ascent of the 50. But many doubts exist, not only in our club, but here in Portland where Mitch was a member of Mazamas. Not that Mitch could’nt do it, he could, and possibly did accomplish the feat. And its ironic, that he himself has created the doubt that now surrounds his accomplishments. He was an accomplished mountaineer who led climbs for Mazamas, climbed Mt. Hood at least 20 times, and climbed Denali with Lute Jerstad. But Mitch’s personality and reputation only cast doubt upon his accomplishments. I think we should give Mitch the benefit of the doubt and credit him with his feat of doing the 50 in one year, of spreading Oregon grass seed on all the summits. After all, we run on honesty here and in other clubs, our mountain accomplishments are accepted on our own credibility. It would be nice if Mitch could appear and defend himself. If he is still around he would be about 80.