Jim Wilson 10/21/1922 - 8/14/2007

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Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 5, 2007 - 12:29am PT

Somehow I missed this...

from the Contra Costa Times

James Ricker Wilson Resident of Livermore James Ricker Wilson of Livermore, died on August 14, 2007. Dr. Wilson was born October 21, 1922, in Berkeley, California, to Leslie and Ethel Wilson. After earning a B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, he served in the U.S. Army at Los Alamos researching the properties of plutonium. He returned to Berkeley and earned a doctorate in the physics of neutrinos in 1952. After a year at Sandia Laboratory in Albuquerque, he joined the Lawrence Livermore Radiation laboratory, where he worked until his death. His expertise was computational physics, initially applied to classified projects. In 1968, he took a sabbatical year at Cambridge to study astrophysics. He applied many of his previous computational codes to public research for the next thirty-seven years. His professional recognition includes a Marcel Grossman Award in 1994 for work in relativistic astrophysics. In April 2007, the American Physical Society honored him with the Hans Bethe Award for "his work in nuclear astrophysics and numerical work on supernovae core-collapse, neutrino transport, and shock-propagation. His codes re-energized supernovae shocks and launched numerical relativity and magnetically driven jets." Jim met his future wife, Demetra Corombos, while climbing in the Canadian Bugaboos in 1947. They married on February 24, 1949, and enjoyed 56 years marriage until death parted them in 2005.
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Jim Wilson was known to friends and family for his mountain adventures including annual week-long family back-packing trips in the High Sierras, which continued a tradition established by his father in 1903. He made rock-climbing first-ascents in Yosemite Valley and Sequoia; mountaineering in British Columbia; and a month-long ascent in 1967 of Hummingbird Ridge on Mt. Logan, still considered the hardest mountaineering route in North America, which has not been repeated. His winter ski of the John Muir Trail was the first done without caches. Jim has many friends and relatives who will cherish their memories of his lively mind, fierce determination, and mischievous sense of humor.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2007 - 12:40am PT

Higher Cathedral Spire, North Couloir 5.8 A3 IV FA 1961 Dick Long Jim Wilson Ray D'Arcy Wally Reed
Nevada Falls, Right Side 5.8 A1 II FA 1966 Al Steck Jim Wilson Dick Long
Vernal Falls, Right Side 5.8 II FA 1966 Allen Steck Jim Wilson Dick Long
Diving Board - Sunshine Buttress 5.8 A1 III FA 1962 Dick Long Al Macdonald Jim Wilson
El Capitan, East Ledge Traverse 5.6 A1 II FA 1954 Allen Steck Bill Dunmire Jim Wilson
Watkins Pinnacles, from Tenaya Canyon 5.8 IV FA 1958 Gary Hemming Dick Long Jim Wilson Larry Lackey

Of course Jim Wilson was on many attempted Valley ascents, the Wilson Overhang on the Steck-Salathe named for him...