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David Wilson
climber
CA
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Mar 27, 2011 - 10:06pm PT
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I drove a lot with Galen and arrived at an alternate theory to Chris above. I just began to think he was lucky. Having road raced around the Berkeley Hills myself, his driving never seemed that precise, yet his tales went on and on. One time, he told me, Harding had a Jaguar and he had his latest souped up corvette or other muscle car. They were racing into the the valley and had passed crane flat and were well down into the stone walls and tunnel area. It was late at night and Galen accelerated and pulled out to pass Harding. All of a sudden off his right side Galen saw a huge shower of sparks from Harding's car - he'd scraped up against the stone wall. I assume Galen sped past.......
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Ricardo Carlos
Ice climber
Off center
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Mar 27, 2011 - 11:31pm PT
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At a show Galen did in San Diego late 70s Galen told me he was stuck due to the airport and fog.
My girl friend at the time lived in Santa Barbra. She offered a ride and it way readily accepted. I was so jealous he was riding with her not me I casually asked did you get the leak in your gas tank fixed yet.
The car really did have a leak that was poorly fixed.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 28, 2011 - 01:14pm PT
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Round round, get around, he got around...
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John Morton
climber
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Mar 28, 2011 - 05:04pm PT
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My first Galen sighting might have been when his mom was my brother's cello teacher in early fifties. I didn't know him, he went to a different elementary school.
But the notorious Scott Walker went to my school, and I can tell you he was a phenomenal hellraiser before the age of ten. He was so outrageous that I sort of looked up to him, in a way. My parents told me that under no circumstances was I to play with Scott Walker. Roper was a contemporary of Walker at that school, he probably has some stories. Rowell and Walker would have met up in junior high, and never looked back.
Galen as driver: I agree with some others that he probably did have great skill but also a bad temper coupled with a lack of caution. He offered me a ride home from Indian Rock one day, and accelerated around the corner of Indian Rock Ave. to find a fire engine blocking the street. Barely slowing, he drove right up to the truck and plowed up onto the sidewalk to get around.
Another tidbit: someone (little Joe? or maybe Andy Lichtman) told me about riding down towards El Portal with Galen. He stopped to go around and open the little window that covers the rear license plate on a Corvette. There was a stack of plates in there, and he shuffled through to find and install the one that matched his park pass.
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Sam R
climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Mar 28, 2011 - 06:33pm PT
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Yeah, Warbler, I heard that same story from him. He said he even had time to spread a picnic blanket out on the ground! He sure was some storyteller!
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Jerry Dodrill
climber
Sebastopol, CA
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Mar 28, 2011 - 09:41pm PT
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Warbler, C-mac and I did that run with Galen in '99, from Agnew to TM. At 59 years old he was bummed that it had taken over 7 hours, as he'd done it in just over 5 in '87.
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Jerry Dodrill
climber
Sebastopol, CA
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Mar 28, 2011 - 11:44pm PT
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Haha, too funny. Thats a heck of a run. I remember laughing as we passed a horse train, crashing through the woods in Lyell Canyon, toes cramped into my arches, and a rider yells, "Where'd you run from?" GR flashes a sideways smile and slurs "Agnew Meadows." The guys face goes white and he says "we left there three days ago..." Galen loved that kind of thing. He took a terrible fall a few minutes up the trail when he tripped on a root.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Mar 29, 2011 - 12:07am PT
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Yo Morton-love the switching of the plate story at the entrance station but that is the first I have heard of it. But on another level..............................
Walker was a bad dude but man could he and Galen attract the ladies. On occasion we used the two of them as chum! You know with the Checkered Demon and his gang hiding in the bushes.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Shoulda started a charm school---The Lucky Chum Academy!
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Surely Steve Roper is around somewhere, and can be nudged to add to this?
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crunch
Social climber
CO
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I stopped in at the Galen Rowell gallery in Bishop a couple weeks ago. aside form the amazing photos, the place is somewhat like a church or something; silent, reverential, expensive. One speaks in hushed tones.
Which makes reading this priceless thread of fantastic tales all the better; an icon of climbing photography made into a real human being; warts and all.
Thanks Peter!
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Yeti
Trad climber
Ketchum, Idaho
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Galen was not interested in small planes except as a handy means of getting around. His wife Barbara was the pilot and she learned to fly with the same passion she brought to everything in her life, which, of course, was a match for Galen's.
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GnomicMaster
Mountain climber
Ventana Wilderness
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Well, a mixed topic of skinned bears, errant NPS rangers, and Garden Trowel (Doug's nickname for him, not mine).
I only briefly met Galen and Barbara in the late-1970s when I was on road patrol on Tioga. It was a nice chat, and though as a climber I was impressed to be chatting it up with Galen, I found Barbara to have a very enticing aura.
I can attest first-hand that when I was an NPS ranger in Yosemite there were rangers I worked with who hunted in off-season in Yosemite's back-country. I was appalled when I was once invited to join in. Burst my bubble.
But there were other bubble bursters. My immediate supervisor once showed me the scam that he and his little clique of fellow rangers were running, and I was invited to join in, but declined, which put me on their black list. They would take the entrance fee at the kiosks, but not give every other driver the little green receipt unless the driver knew better and asked for it. Then they'd "sell" the receipt to the next driver and pocket that fee. On a shift mid-summer each ranger involved in that fraud was pocketing hundreds of tax-free dollars per day. Myself and one woman ranger I worked with who also refused to get involved would just watch these other rangers raking in the bucks. We thought about blowing the whistle but when one works with fellow employees who are armed and the surroundings are a rugged mountain wilderness where "things" can easily disappear, you just keep your mouth shut.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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I remember a time in the mid 60s when there was a sting operation set up at Arch Rock entrance station to catch said rangers pocketing the funds. Pretty dumb to involve yourself with a federal offense for mere pocket change.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Best Garage Bump in the World...
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frog-e
Trad climber
Imperial Beach California
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The last time I saw Galen Rowell, he was pulling out of
the REI parking lot in Berkeley. He saw me on my bike
riding past, recognized me, smiled and waved.
I was amazed he remebered me, after only seeing
him once briefly in the C4 parking lot.
This is such a great thread. What a cool guy. The freaking
AC Cobra must've been awesome.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Small world...my friend Brent was giving Mrs. Rowell flying lessons....
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Jerry Dodrill
climber
Sebastopol, CA
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Spent some time flying with Brent and Barbara. Cool Guy.
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Rick Sylvester
Trad climber
Squaw Valley, California
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In the company of Chris Vandiver -- now there's another subject to launch scores of postings! -- I once visited Galen at his San Pablo garage and later at his Albany home when he was married to his first wife. She was very gracious...and also very large. I got odd feelings, like he had a secret or double life, His wife did not look, at least then , like anyone that such an outdoors activist would be hooked up with.
Re. the entrance station pocketing fees scam, which I'm amazed to learn of for the first time, it bears striking similarities, from what I've heard, to film exhibition. The idea was that the distributor supplying the theater exhibitor rolls of numbered tickets in the rolls would prevent this type of fraud. But unless the patron witnessed the ticket taker at the door tearing in half the ticket there was no guarantee that the ticket wasn't resold at the kiosk and money pocketed, money that was meant to be shared with the distributor (who then was supposed to split with the production company personnel, actors, investors, et al.). I'd heard that the only way to avoid such fraud was for distributors to independently hire people equipped with clickers who'd stand outside the theater counting the number of patrons entering the theaters to insure the count that was given them was accurate. And it's said this is why the film business is filled with crooks, because each level, fearing, -- often rightfully so -- that it was being screwed would screw the next level (check out Cliff Robertson's autobiography. He, like only a few other actors at great risk of being blackballed, stood up against the system). Robertson and others claimed that the film business defined gross as other businesses defined net. There were other tricks too as I once heard Colin Higgins, director of, among other films, the wonderful cult classic "Harold and Maude", for which he never got a cent of hi scontractual net profit share. Hugely popular films such as "Harold and Maude" somehow ended up showing no net profit, and therefore there was li nothing for actors and others who had contracts entitling them to a share of the net profit. Unless they were to get a share of gross profit, virtually impossible to secure then (I believe things have improved) forget it. That accounts for the classic line, "The most creative thing in Hollywood is the accounting". And now I learn that the national park service engages, or engaged, in similar fraud though on more of an individual than an institutional level. I don't even want to think about the rangers regularly hunting within national park boundaries, another revelation. Human nature being what it is, especially by those in positions of authority, maybe I shouldn't be so shocked and surprised, including by my own naivete.
Re. Galen's penchant for scaring his passengers by making eye contact with them, he had nothing on Chuck Ostin (another fertile goldfield for postings not to mention one of the finest people I've had the pleasure to have known in this incarnation. He left us way way too soon). Chuck, ever so polite, actually was careful while driving to make eye contact with passengers not just beside him but in the rear seat of his Mercedes, thus scaring the crap out of me and other unfortunates to be sharing rides with him. It was terrifying. And it seemed he'd been involved in more than an average amount of crashes. But according to Chuck, such a truly great and generous human being, so intelligent, but perhaps a bit lacking in self-awareness here, those accidents were somehow always the other drivers' fault.
One time we were driving to the Wind Rivers (due to time constraints we spent more time commuting to and fro than at our climbing destination). Unlike Galen he allowed others to share the driving but vigorously urged keeping the speedometer above 100. Actually, I'm now finding this anarchy somewhat refreshing in a seeming increasingly politically correct, overly sanitized, overly regulated (no, not re. the financial world, the airline industry, clean water and air, safe food, et al.), a seeming increasingly timid culture where one's looked at askance if one's not wearing a helmet on a flat one mile bike ride to the post office (I won't even enter into skiing and climbing issues here), if one's not carrying an avalanche beacon in the low Sierras when it hasn't snowed in a month and there's a hard pack barely penetrable via ice axe, if one doesn't have available hydration via fanny pack or Camelback despite being out for only 10 ks at the local nordic center, etc etc etc. I'd prefer a lot more of the spirit of Loretan -- now, sadly departed, who supposedly carried only something like 8 ounces of water up Everest on his summit day which he ended up also carrying down never having touched it - or the great silent film comedian Harold Lloyd as exemplified by the title of one of his two most famous films, "Safety Last". Sorry. I'll dismount my soap box.
One last thing. Ages ago, Chuck, despite being very reticent to talk about himself, revealed to me which town or city he came from in the Central Valley but I've forgotten and it's been really bugging me for years. Does anyone know?
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