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Oldfattradguy2
Trad climber
Here and there
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Jul 31, 2013 - 04:50pm PT
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It is hard to summarize how nice of a guy Kevin was, the news was and still is devastating.
I was woken up by Jim Munson on the telephone after just getting to bed after a 24+ hour series of flights home from Alaska/Seattle when I got the news, still hard to fathom after all of these years. The 1st of too many climbers I knew who left us way too early.
His Mayor-ship should continue in honorarium for many years to come, I don't think it would be possible for another to replace him.
Robo Waiter, RIP.
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Vulcan
Sport climber
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Jul 31, 2013 - 05:26pm PT
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Yes...Kevin was a class act.
Beta started when climbs were recorded via BetaMax...give me the Beta.
Get it.
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Curt
climber
Gold Canyon, AZ
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Jul 31, 2013 - 05:55pm PT
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Give me the Beta, Max.
Curt
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DanaB
climber
CT
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Jul 31, 2013 - 06:31pm PT
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Just as a historical note, I'm pretty sure Kevin gave out "beta" before it was even called that. I believe Jack Mileski actually coined the term "beta."
Yes.
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steveA
Trad climber
Wolfeboro, NH
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Jul 31, 2013 - 08:27pm PT
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Alan;
Thanks so much for that great write-up on Kevin.
I became a close friend of his, while he was at Harvard, and hung out with him often.
He brought me down to N.Y.C. and I met his father, who was wheelchair bound from losing both legs, in a railway accident, when his father, used to hop freight cars. We went to the Guggenheim museum as well.
His stellar attributes have been described well by many posters here.
He had such a great attitude, and approach to life, and left a lasting impression on anyone he met.
I wish that I could post a great photo of him looking quite worried, on the second pitch of Intimidation, on a rare visit to Cathedral Ledge.
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Dave Hough
climber
Keene, NY
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I got the good "Beta" from Kevin once while struggling on a Gunks route. He was climbing the route next door, his kindly advice kept me from whipping. We later swapped ADK stories at local pub. He was a good guy.
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JerryA
Mountain climber
Sacramento,CA
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Apr 12, 2014 - 12:01pm PT
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In Fall 1983 on a business trip from the West Coast to NYC ,I went on the weekend to the Gunks for the first time , I bought the guide book at the climbing shop & asked for a guide reference. They introduced me to Kevin and I had the great pleasure of climbing with him for two days. He introduced me to his friends and to Jim McCarthy and Fritz Weisner who were walking on the trial.It was a wonderful introduction to a great area.I returned the next Fall in 1984 saw Kevin at his restaurant job & climbed with Jim Munson .
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Apr 13, 2014 - 06:35pm PT
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bump
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Apr 13, 2014 - 07:01pm PT
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Kevin died 26 years ago. I'd forgotten that I wrote his obituary for the AAJ. Here's a facsimile:
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Apr 13, 2014 - 07:06pm PT
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Sorry for your loss. I used to spend a bit of time in the Gunks early to mid 80's and it was a special place with special people. Is the tin cup still hanging on the spout at the Uberfall?
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slabbo
Trad climber
colo south
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Apr 13, 2014 - 08:04pm PT
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Alan- you forgot the little slab routes in Quincy during the 60's..sure they were short and TR's BUT 5.10 and IMO some 5.11 climbing !! In RR's ?
Those "little climbs" sure taught me a ton.
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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Aug 22, 2014 - 05:58pm PT
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Didn't know about this thread when I created the other so deleted it.Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 22, 2014 - 04:40pm PT
I am sure that some of you on here knew him, but he is the stuff of legend in the Black Hills. He was the author of many of the hard routes in Paul Piana's 1980 Needles guidebook Touch the Sky. I got to thinking about him today because of this great picture on my friend Luke Ross's facebook page which shows Chris Hirsch leading the route that he apparently sent earlier this summer. Anyone who has climbed behind Sylvan Lake has walked right under this and it is one of the most beautiful climbs in the Needles.
Luke Ross's photo apparently taken with Andrew Burr's drone.
Luke Ross's photo apparently taken with Andrew Burr's drone.
Credit: mike m
[Edit this Photo]
Anyway I would love to hear some stories about Kevin from some of you that knew him or climbed with him. Cheers Mike
Edit
mike m
Trad climber
black hills
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2014 - 05:54pm PT
He was involved on the first ascent of routes like Vertigo, Sahib, Crazy Horse, Nocturnal Submissions, Geriatrics, Not the Salathe Wall, Nevermind all that Technique Sh#t Mongo is Back in Town, Just Another Roadside Attraction, Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, Shredded Wheat, Julius Siezure, Brain Drain, A Farce to be Reckoned With, San Francisco Treat, Rice a Roni, Prelude to Orgasm, Agony-of-da-feet, Energy Crisis, Monomania, Shake and Break,and Arch Rival are just some of the 5.10-5.12 routes he was involved with putting up. Seemed to have some cool names picked out. Many of these routes rarely get done I would imagine. I also heard he did a lot of things out east and other areas.
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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Aug 22, 2014 - 06:01pm PT
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
Aug 22, 2014 - 05:59pm PT
By far one of the sweetest climbers you would ever meet. Climbed with Kevin in the Gunks in the mid to late 70's and then when Barbara and he moved to SD.
I repeated a number of the climbs you mention with Kevin and he was always willing to give good gear and move beta.
Wonderful person and was proud to have Barbara and him as close friends.
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jstan
climber
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Aug 22, 2014 - 06:39pm PT
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If you look at all the posts in this thread you don't sense people are remembering something they have lost. They are pointing out all the great things Kevin gave us and we still have.
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mongrel
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Aug 22, 2014 - 10:28pm PT
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I'm glad to see this wonderful thread resurrected, and like others compliment Alan on his exquisite and accurate tribute. Though it's been a long time, and though I was not one of Kevin's closest circle, the hole that his loss left still hurts. I arrived in the east having climbed exactly one lead climb, a 5.4 in southern California (since upgraded two decimals, like about half the routes I did on that crag). But though Kevin was leading at a 5.10 grade (the climbs then called 5.9 or .9+), more than anyone else in the established climbing community then, he praised, befriended, and welcomed one and all into the campfire circle, no matter how humble their climbing ability. In time, with encouragement from him and others, I got better, and hopefully have retained a bit of what he exemplified. I wouldn't say I felt it was an end of an era when we lost Kevin, because he was simply unique. More the other way around: he just created the atmosphere, and it was contagious. One of the truly special human beings I have been privileged to share some brief time with. Thanks, bro.
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phylp
Trad climber
Millbrae, CA
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Aug 23, 2014 - 09:17pm PT
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My husband climbed with his group a bit for a couple of years during the Gunks period, and remembers two things best about him: how nice he was, and how strong he was. He was really welcoming and helpful to my husband, who was a new climber at that time.
Isn't that a great legacy for someone, just even that one thing, that people remember you as a good person?
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Aug 23, 2014 - 09:27pm PT
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I called Kevin once to ask about the weather in the Gunks, it was raining and ask what he doing, said he just ran five miles, I'm like cool how was in the rain and he told me he ran it in living/dining area of his apartment.
We took several trips to the Daks and I was a not eating meat and mostly organic foods...Kevin's breakfast was several sweet rolls wash down with cheap coffee.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Aug 23, 2014 - 09:40pm PT
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Great thread!
Just needs a few more photos.
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Aug 23, 2014 - 09:50pm PT
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Who's stealing all the years?
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Aug 23, 2014 - 10:47pm PT
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I met Kevin in the mid-sixties. He would have been maybe 16, and I perhaps 22. He came over to my house, and we immediately became engaged in a friendly rivalry over holding fingertip front levers on the doorjamb of my bedroom. Just as Kevin was about to surpass my best effort, the doorjamb exploded with a loud crack, spewing plaster and wood splinters into my room and the hallway on the other side. Kevin landed on his back on the floor. My mom came rushing in from another room and was horrified to see Kevin on the floor, covered in plaster dust, and the door frame in shambles. Kevin was lying still. His lips started to form a sentence, but his mouth was full of plaster dust. I leaned close. Spitting out debris, he managed to croak, "I think I'm entitled to a do-over."
Well, my mom was having none of that, so I eked out a draw in that contest. But a few years later, he had another chance, as documented in my account of our triple lever attempts at http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/996070/The-Saga-of-the-Triple-Lever-A-Trippy-Report. Readers of those adventures will recall that Kevin absorbed a lot of punishment, and with great cheerfulness and even enthusiasm at that.
Kevin got into endurance sports after he tired of superhuman strength (not that he ever got weak, mind you), and used to roller ski from Gardiner to Kerhonkson on Route 44-55, a hilly road with some very sharp turns. On one of these epic runs, a motorist hit him and knocked him twenty feet or so into the woods at the side of the road. He got up and skied home.
Here's a shot of Kevin on Matinee, still well-regarded today and I'm told perhaps undergraded at 5.10d.
The shot is from the sixties (as you can tell from the rack), but what is notable is the hard hat---nobody wore hard hats in the sixties. There was however a reason. Kevin had, at that point, taken two ground falls onto his head. One was on a very poorly protected climb called Sultana, a climb I never hear about anyone leading nowadays. I'm not sure about the other one. The point of the hard hat was to protect the delicate cliff base environment from Kevin's head, which had been wreaking havoc on the local ecology and the Preserve had had enough.
Seriously, Kevin did suffer from those impacts. He developed epilepsy and had several grand mal seizures. In one notable one on the subway in New York City, Barbara had an epic wrestling match with him trying to keep him from swallowing his tongue. Some dark times followed for Kevin, his climbing was constrained by the concern about seizures, he was working at an awful job as a bellhop at the Nevele, and he began to drink heavily.
Then one day he said that's it, and never took another drink. This change wrought a much more substantial one: the seizures simply stopped and never recurred. Kevin was back in the game and better than ever, and I think that was the period of his life that most people know about and remember now.
And so it appeared that Kevin was indestructable, stronger than plaster, wood, staircases, rock, and the very ground beneath the cliffs. But of course it turns out that we are all terribly fragile, and no one knows, as they set forth each day, whether they are destined to return. The Matterhorn that day was in terrible shape, with lots of icing. Kevin and Barbara decided to retreat, I think perhaps after witnessing an accident to another party. A rappel anchor failed---mercifully Barbara was not clipped to it as well---and Kevin was lost. Lost to Barbara, lost to his vast network of friends who loved him, and lost to those of you who never had a chance to know what a wonderful human being he was.
Years ago I was bouldering on the carriage road, an activity which was at the time solitary and without pads. I fell from a move, and was startled to feel myself gently guided to a soft landing. Kevin had come up behind me unnoticed and unannounced, and provided a spot when I most needed it.
It is close to a half-century since my house and I fought Kevin to a draw in the doorjamb front lever contest. My bouldering days are over, but I still manage to make it up some climbs. Living as I have near the same climbing area for fifty years, I inevitably repeat routes I did many years ago. The holds are the same, even if the fingers crimping them are wizened, and touching them provides a wormhole back to the experiences of days long past. Caught in the reveries of an aging climber, I often think of Kevin, now eternally unnoticed and unannounced, yet in my mind's eye still grasping the same rocks he loved and shared with such graciousness and charm. This thread brings a touch of Kevin back to life, for all of us, whether we knew him or not, to celebrate.
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