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 highpointing. 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 Illinois, 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 Charles Mound 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 White Butte 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 New Mexico and Rhode Island, 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 Mauna Kea 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 Guadalupe Peak 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.