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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Jan 26, 2009 - 07:36pm PT
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Scott,
Very nice - thanks for sharing your story and photos.
I take it that Josef on the gravestone is Joseph H. Weis (1942-1978), Frank's climbing partner on the Grandes Jorasses.
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Double D
climber
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Jan 26, 2009 - 07:39pm PT
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Thanks for sharing Scott. Your uncle influenced many generations of climbers.
This thread just keeps getting better and better. It's amazing how broad-reaching this virtual campfire is!
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jan 26, 2009 - 08:08pm PT
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nephew said:
"so i want to thank all of you for sharing your stories and insights and thus shedding some light on who my uncle was. "
We will be thanking you for the same I'm sure.
That was so heartfelt: thank you for sharing and rounding out this whole experience of appreciating Frank's memory.
Welcome to the forum!
We hope you stay and play some...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 26, 2009 - 09:02pm PT
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Scott, thanks for adding to this history of your uncle. I'm glad that you found us, it has been a great work of discovery to piece together his life. Of course, he was busy doing it rather than recording it, and thus little is left to us that he wrote himself.
But somehow, everyone has brought a bit to the story. Hopefully we all have a better idea just who this man was.
What he did in climbing in Yosemite Valley in the 60s is still astonishing. And the fact that he played a large role in setting the direction of climbing in Yosemite Valley, and also in the US, makes his contribution even more important.
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jstan
climber
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Jan 26, 2009 - 09:23pm PT
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Just imagine. A biography of a physicist. One chapter with all the brilliant work
winkling out nature's plan. The next chapter one hundred feet out raging to survive yet
another challenge posed by nature.
What a read!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 26, 2009 - 10:03pm PT
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the Obituaries in Physics Today Feb. 1979 for Weis and Sacherer
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Jan 26, 2009 - 11:53pm PT
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If any American is over at Chamonix in the near future they should check up on/tidy up Frank's gravesite. In no time at all the name will be gone and after this resurrection of a sort, it seems fitting to preserve his name in stone.
The passion we have for our very own is breathtaking and makes me proud to be a climber.
JL
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jan 27, 2009 - 04:59am PT
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It sounds as though someone needs to act soon,
or they will exume these bodies.
I wonder, Jan, if there is a way to
specifically request that this not be done,
or to provide the caretakers of the graveyard
with the pertinent historical information, as
a basis to preserve the grave?
If not, wouldn't it be an interesting thought...
and I don't know if I should throw it out... but...
and depending on their family... and all... respectfully...
a funeral of some kind, or celebration, spread his
ashes, perhaps? somewhere in Yosemite... ?
I apologize if this was better kept to myself.
I might be a bit fuzzy brained...
It is 3 A.M. here, as I am in one of my non-sleeping
jags again...
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Jan 27, 2009 - 05:19am PT
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Amazing things keep happening on this website! I haven't seen Scott Sacherer since he was 6 months old. Now in the past three days I have talked to his father Ron on the phone and started exchanging emails with Scott as soon as I saw his posting. I did want to communicate with both Ron and Scott before I discussed the lastest situation concerning Frank which Pat aludes to. Having spent so many years in Asia, I can't help but believe in karma and that this is an example of it, if ever there was one.
The current situation came about when Jean-Claude mentioned in an email to me that Frank's grave concession was expiring. I had noted that all of the cemetery records were noted as "concession trentenaire" and assumed that marked the section of the cemetery that he was in. Instead it denotes the fact that a person in France and the rest of Europe is normally buried for only 30 years. At that time their remains are exhumed, the bones taken out and placed these days, in a smaller container and then stored underground with thousands of others (they are buried in wooden coffins without embalming). This of course came as a great shock since I was planning to visit Chamonix and the gravesite in two to three years. Jean-Claude kindly volunteered to help me check out the situation and in the past few days we have exchanged over a dozen emails and he has made at least half a dozen phone calls for me. Another woman at CERN, Christine Petit-Jean-Genaz, has also sent numerous emails and made several phone calls. The American Embassy has also been involved and now John and Brigitte Rander. I can't thank them enough!
This situation has arisen because of the problem of overcrowding in Europe. If everyone had a permanent gravesite, all of Europe would be a cemetery by now. Europeans do not generally cremate because the early Christians followed the Jewish custom of burial instead of the pagan Greek and Roman custom of cremation. The conserving of bones goes back to the days of the Christian martyrs and the catacombs in Rome, while every European city has great chambers beneath it stacked with bones. In former times, all the skulls are placed in one room and the leg bones in another etc. One can tour these in many European cities; I first saw them in Vienna.
Frank's brother has expressed neutrality on the subject of what to do while Scott and I are agreed that we prefer to have what's left of Frank's remains cremated and returned to California where we would like to have a memorial service in Yosemite since so many of us felt cheated at not even knowing about the funeral at the time it happened. This will take a lot of arrangement, including a lot of international paperwork, but I will keep the blog informed as we go.
Meanwhile, here are some impressions of Frank's original funeral as conveyed to me by Christine Petit-Jean-Genaz.
"I knew and admired Frank very much. I attended his funeral in Chamonix just before the Les Houches Summer Study on LEP, which resulted in the decision to build that accelerator.
Frank's funeral was an almost surreal event which remains clearly in my memory. I recall walking the streets of Chamonix, on the way to the little cemetary, which I visited several times since. We were under a deluge of rain. A miserable, rainy day to match our spirits. But he is remembered by many of us, not only in the accelerator sector, but very much also in the theory division where he had many friends too.
It was indeed a double service. I remember Joe's wife was there and how brave she was........"
Now, this time, Scott and I would like to celebrate Frank's life in the California sunshine in Yosemite, the place he loved so much.
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Cloudraker
Big Wall climber
BC
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Jan 28, 2009 - 11:59am PT
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bump for an amazing thread
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jstan
climber
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Jan 28, 2009 - 01:45pm PT
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Jan:
I will want to know when Frank is scheduled to come home.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 28, 2009 - 01:54pm PT
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Wow... who knew... karma indeed. I can help get the physics community aware when it happens...
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Eric Beck
Sport climber
Bishop, California
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Jan 28, 2009 - 02:32pm PT
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I once asked Frank what he thought might set him apart from other climbers. He thought a bit and mentioned that he might be able to find rest spots that others missed. These might be a stem, a crouch below an overhang, a knee lock. These ideas are of course well known today.
In a different context, several of us were discussing protection and Frank gave the example of a hard section above a good stance. The mindless and chickenshit response would be to reach as high as possible to put in a piton, thus making it much harder for his partner to remove. We recall that pitons must be banged both up and down to remove them and by placing them high, the second might have to hang in a hard move to remove it.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Jan 28, 2009 - 02:50pm PT
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Good axamples, Eric. That is the sort of stuff that Bridwell used to teach us a few years later.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jan 28, 2009 - 09:35pm PT
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Cham is a good place to have a marker.
I don't know, personally, anyone who's buried there. But each time I've been in Cham, I've gone to the graveyard. All those names. And each time I've gotten choked up and had to leave before I was there too long. I don't know why.
The one in Zermatt didn't have that effect, for me at least.
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jstan
climber
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Jan 28, 2009 - 09:40pm PT
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Kerwin:
Never been to Chamonix. Saw all the markers at Tres Chima. If I were Frank I would want to come home.
John
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jan 28, 2009 - 09:49pm PT
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Until I clicked the links, I didn't realize how much money it cost to keep all those heroes in Cham.
I suppose they just maintain the markers?
The one in Zermatt feels like part of a Disney set. But then, so does Zermatt.
That '60s generation was basically the last one in North America that felt it still had something to do --and had to do something --in the Alps. Sacherer was there for work, but it was an arena that his generation had really grown up with. I don't think that's the case anymore. Andes, Patagonia, Inner Asia and other places have taken over.
Amazing thread. Thanks to all, and especially those who have real emotional investments, for posting.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jan 31, 2009 - 04:58pm PT
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I've been trying to think how to respond to
Eric's comments about Frank. They seem
interesting, in that Frank was never, to my
knowledge, known to have much concern for the
needs of his partners. I do not make such a
statement out of disrespect. I have as much
appreciation for Frank as anyone, but one of his
characteristics was his focus, combined with
determination and somewhat ruthless insistence
on a certain strict compliance to what he felt
was style. The spirit often conveyed was of a
man who was ready to achieve his objectives
and was not about to let any sort of
inability or incompetence on the part of
partners get in the way. Eric's entry
is the first mention, of which I am aware,
of a man who actually thought about
his partners and what might make things easier
for them. Frank didn't have to worry about
individuals such as Pratt, or Kamps, who could handle
pretty much any situation, but other individuals
and less experienced companions were, as it seems,
expected to keep up and weren't afforded a lot
of forgiveness, as it were. That was Frank's
toughness. So many have reported, including
Jan, those moments where he cut no one any slack,
so to speak... and even let fly the "words" at
times, in moments of impatience, until Eric's
comment about Frank's concern for the location
of a piton placement, which would indicate clear
consideration for his partners. Or could it be
he was bothered by this placement issue when he was
following and not when he led? One might think
such a consideration for a piton placement
totally incongruous, but... perhaps it's
just another dimension we didn't know about...
and in fact there was indeed that side of Frank
that honestly cared about his companions and
the quality of their experience? I would love to
hear more about this side of Frank.
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John Rander
Trad climber
Paris, France
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Here are a few notes and images to fill in the picture of those last days above Chamonix. As remarked earlier in this thread, Frank, Joe Weis and I had climbed a lot together in 1978. I have chosen images from three routes. The first photo (#1) is Frank, beaming on the summit of the Frendo spur of the Aiguille du Midi after our very fast ascent (Joe was traversing the Mont Blanc). The picture was taken Friday, Aug; 25, five days before the accident. The Grandes Jorasses are in the background. The second picture (#2) is Frank at our only belay on the 1100m high Frendo spur (other than that belay, no other protection was used on the route). The late season ice is quite visible on the exit slopes (a pair of climbers had fallen off here during the week). Next photo (#3) is the lower section of Le Linceul (Shroud) on the Grandes Jorasses. I took it two weeks earlier, while descending from the Rochefort ridge to Col de Jorasses traverse with Joe (the two of us had begun to consider doing the Shroud). The season was finishing, and the long term weather forecast was unsure when Joe contacted me Sunday morning, Aug. 27, to see if I could get away from CERN to do the Shroud with him on Monday. I was on shift at CERN, and had doubts about both the weather and the late ice conditions (it’s a long route), so after some hours tossing the idea around I finally declined and called Joe back. He was not giving up the Shroud so easily; he and Frank decided over coffee Monday at the CERN cafeteria to go up in the afternoon. Frank borrowed most of my ice screws and I promised to go up to take photos and check out the scene the next morning. I learned later that they had returned to Geneva for some gear before finally taking the train up to Montenvers. The following photo of the Shroud (#4) is the last taken of them by me. I used a telephoto lens from the Leschaux glacier around 10 or 11 on Tuesday morning. They were very low on the route (looking back at the first Shroud image one can easily locate the same rock outcrop). A zoom of this photo shows that Joe was leading at that moment. Late that evening they would bivouac high on the route, and finish the climb at the Hirondelles ridge as the weather folded. The accident occurred while descending an off-route couloir leading back toward the N. face. Two mysteries surround this climb for me: why the late start, and why after reaching the summit of the Shroud did they go down the complicated Hirondelles ridge? Joe and I had always planned to go over the top (250m higher) to descend by the normal route.
The last images are taken from our “possibly first?” ice ascent of the Chardonnet’s N. Face couloir, done much earlier that summer (note: the 500m high route is now known as the “Goulotte Aureille-Feutren”, it’s first ascent by J. Aureille and Y. Feutren dates back to 1942; Joe was convinced that the early ascent had climbed the 80° gully on rock, as the ice conditions vary considerably). It was Joe’s baby and the three of us did it in a rather long morning, rotating leads. The first photo (#5) was taken in the evening before the climb (the route goes up the obvious central line). The next (#6) shows Joe Weis leading the start of the fairly exposed crutch pitch (overhanging ice bulges) and the third (#7) shows Frank following a steep ice pitch in the couloir above, dusted with spindrift. In the last photo (#8) Joe or Frank took me starting up one of a series of long run-outs we swung to the summit. What I really do recall was the undeniable sensation of adrenaline flowing reminding me of Yosemite days. Frank probably felt the same…
John
Some links to these climbs (with thanks to Ed):
Le Linceul (Shroud), Grandes Jorasses:
http://www.summitpost.org/moutain/rock/150262/grandes-jorasses.html#chapter_8
http://www.camptocamp.org/routes/57995/fr/grandes-jorasses-pointe-walker-le-linceul
Frendo spur, Aiguille du Midi:
http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock/160114/frendo-spur.html
http://www.camptocamp.org/routes/54021/fr/aiguille-du-midi-eperon-frendo
Aureille-Feutren ice gully, Chardonnet:
http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock/150680/chardonnet-aiguille-du.html
http://www.camptocamp.org/routes/54316/fr/aiguille-du-chardonnet-goulotte-aureille-feutren
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