1966: My Last Mentor
By the end of the summer of 1966, I had succeeded on two big alpine climbs in Rocky Mountain Park – the Jackson-Johnson route on Hallett’s Peak and the 2nd ascent of the Hypotenuse on Longs Peak. Being that I was only fifteen, this garnered some attention in the climbing community, which I no doubt enjoyed. I had surpassed my first mentor Gary, and all my other climbing friends, but my hunger to get better and climb harder was only growing.
I don't recall when the thought first came to me, but in August just before I started at Boulder High School, I decided to call up one of Boulder’s climbing luminaries, Pat Ament, and see if I could go climbing with him. He was all of nineteen and viewed around Colorado as the future generation of American climbing and perhaps heir apparent to Kor, who was nearing the end of his serious climbing days. Pat had, and still has, the distinction of being the only person mentored by both Layton Kor and Royal Robbins, arguably the two greatest climbers in the world at that time, and still among the greatest in history. So, I gave Pat a call and was surprised at how friendly he was. I half expected him to tell me to get lost, but instead he invited me to join him and some friends in Eldorado a few days later.
As instructed, I arrived at the Supremacy Slab area in Eldorado Canyon, and saw a large group of people gathered around the overhanging Supremacy Crack on the backside of the formation. Pat was tied-in and about to take off leading the crack, attempting to do the first free ascent. Our eyes met and he stopped to acknowledge my presence, then introduced some of the people strewn about on the rocks and slopes around the climb. Belaying Pat was Royal Robbins – my jaw dropped – and his wife Liz sat nearby. Royal had a friend named Don Whillans visiting from Great Britain, who I later learned was a legendary climber. Don had a posse of wise-cracking Brits along with him, and Liz and Royal had their own entourage. I had walked into climbing royalty and I couldn’t even drive yet.
This photo of me following the crux section on the Northwest Corner of the Bastille appeared in the 1st edition of High Over Boulder by Pat Ament ad Cleve McCarty (Jan 1, 1967). Photo: Pat Ament
I don’t recall many other details of this first meeting with Pat, except that he did eventually lead Supremacy Crack and, more importantly, he invited me to climb with him on another day.
This was the start of an intense and deep mentorship that included an epic six-day adventure to the Black Canyon, and awakening to the early days of the counterculture. Over the next three months I would grow tremendously.
Pat and I started climbing together as much as possible. He thought I was a gifted climber, and nearly from the beginning he set our agenda: We would be the team to climb the Nose of El Cap the following spring. It had been climbed only eight times, so this was a lofty goal in the climbing world at that time. In a letter Pat sent, he told me that Royal had heard through the grapevine that we (Pat and me) were the two most promising climbers in Colorado and could be another great team like Kamps and Rearick or Robbins and Frost. This was heady, seductive material for a fifteen-year-old who desperately wanted to be a better climber.
And so, we went into training for the Nose, climbing as much as possible and devoting our lives to the dream of going to Yosemite in May. Pat was obsessed with the Nose, and for my part, I was ecstatic to be climbing with him and gaining confidence and strength. I met Robbins and Kor on several separate occasions, and was introduced to other top climbers, but to my climbing friends at school I had graduated to a level and a world they could not imagine. That fall Pat and I did some notable firsts in the Boulder area. I was able to free climb on top rope the Vertigo dihedral (now 5.11) and the Northwest Corner of the Bastille (now 5.10+), and we put up a new climb in Eldorado called the Sidewall.
I was becoming the new young phenom of Boulder climbing. In those days fifteen-year-olds were considered children, not capable of very much (how this has changed!), so for me to be climbing that hard was inconceivable to most adults – including climbers. And at that moment there probably were no other fifteen-year-olds – anywhere – climbing what we now call 5.11, except for a kid living over in Ogden. His name was Jeff Lowe, and he was always trying to keep up with his older brother Greg, who was a brilliant climber. A few years later I met Jeff when he lived in the Boulder area and we climbed and became friends. He turned into one of the greatest alpinists in the world.
Pat had no real commitments other than climbing but I was allegedly a high school student. Several times Pat asked me to skip school to go climbing, and finally I got busted by J. Allen Patten, the assistant principal at school. The adults in my life who cared about me and loved me were becoming increasingly concerned about my welfare. A counselor at school had a nice talk with me, and of course my parents were desperately afraid Pat was ruining my life. But I told them I was old enough to make my own decisions so there was no point in trying to control me. For my father especially this was entirely new territory, but he was a very wise man and gave me freedom, while praying things would turn out OK.
Pat and I were spending a lot of time together – not just climbing but also listening to music and hanging out socially with an inner circle of Boulder climbers that included Kor himself. On one Saturday night a pipe filled with an herbal substance they called “grass” was passed around, and as I inhaled, “Eight Miles High” by the Byrds was playing. Pat later introduced me to Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde” and “Highway 61”, and we spent many hours listening to and marinating in the lyrics. Dylan was the principal spokesman of protest in the still-embryonic counterculture, and he awakened in me the vision of a world without war, where all people could thrive, a vision I never lost.
In mid-October Pat put together a trip to the Black Canyon where we would attempt the first ascent of one of Colorado’s biggest walls, the Chasm View Nose. The story of that epic six-day adventure is the following essay, but after returning very drained, I was questioning whether I could stay with Pat and fulfill the dream of Yosemite. I did not like the demands on my time, I missed climbing with friends my age, and I was discovering that I could climb as hard as Pat. By mid-November I made the decision to walk away.
I don’t remember exactly how this came down but, for sure, Pat was not pleased. However, in a short time I was replaced by my best climbing friend at school, Tom Ruwitch, who was also a precocious climber, and there were no hard feelings. I was happy that Pat and Tom found each other. Tom was a year older than me, more mature, and solidly unflappable, all of which made him a better partner for the Nose. Throughout the winter they climbed together prolifically and became a strong team; that spring they made the trip to Yosemite and did the 9th ascent of the Nose of El Cap; and I had no regrets. They were Colorado’s top climbers at that moment, but I was setting my sites on the Diamond on Longs Peak for that summer. It had been climbed only 7 times.
As with my first mentor, I grew tremendously as a climber, and a person, under Pat’s tutelage. For that I am forever grateful. But as I approached my sixteenth birthday I was among the best climbers in Colorado, and there were no more mentors for me. Pat was my last. From then on, all my partners on serious climbs were co-equals, and each one taught me something and inspired me in some way.