After attending my first Old Timers
trip this year I looked up my first old newsletters to confirm my memories of
those days. The first desert peak I climbed was Indianhead in about 1947. The
peak was added to the DPS list 27 years later in 1974. I joined the DPS in
early 1963. My recollection of membership was at that time you had to be a
member of the Section in order to receive the newsletter (then called the DPS
Newsletter"). I think my first DPS trip was an exploratory in the Coso Range
led in November 1962 by Walt Wheelock. In February 1963 I spent a very
interesting 3-day Washington's Birthday on a trip led by Trudie Hunt and guided
by Bud Bernhard down Tajo Canyon the Sierra Juarez of Baja California. Finally
in March, after consulting and planning with DPS Chair John Robinson, I bagged
my last three peaks required for membership, all in one day. I soloed Sheephole
in the morning, climbed Spectre in midday and finished on Eagle #l in the late
afternoon and early evening. Then I could receive my Newsletter!
The
Section had 85 members at the time and there were 58 peaks on the list. The
only people from that time who are still hiking with the DPS are Bob
Greenawalt, Jerry Keating, Barbara Lilley, Gordon MacLeod and Walt Wheelock.
Joe McCosker, Andy Smatko, John Robinson, Louise Werner. Abe Siemens. Frank
Sanborn. Monroe Levy, Sam Fink and Tom Amneus are still heard from. while a few
others like Willard and Marion Dean come to an occasional banquet.
My
most memorable climb, one of many, took place in February 1964, when I
organized a private climb of Big Picacho. after being on DPS trip the previous
Thanksgiving |
that failed to get the peak. Pat
Donegan, Arkel Erb, Ruth Karimi, Gordon MacLeod, Mike McNicholas, Jim Powers
and I climbed the peak via Canyon Diablo in three days - a day in, a day to
climb both summits and half a day out.
The biggest changes in the DPS
as I see them are: fewer people of scheduled trips (maybe because more peaks
can be climbed privately with help from the Peak Guide and you don't have to go
with a leader who knows the route) and, of course, the widespread use of 4-WD
to give a closer approach to the peak. In the 1960's if someone had a 4-WD or
even a pickup truck we were lucky. We would park the passenger cars as far as
we could drive them with maybe only a hole in the gas tank or oil pan, one
muffler torn off or one tire blown out. Then we would put our daypacks in the
pickup or 4WD and it would take our equipment as far as it could drive while we
walked along unencumbered at a fast pace and an easy start until we would catch
the truck.
At the Old Timers Reunion this year, the desert juice was
flowing freely. Not all of the stories attributed to me of the early days of
the DPS were experienced by me first hand. All were true, others were accounts
of other trips in the history of the DPS and, although I don't remember, some
may not be entirely true.
Editor's Note-A VW bug made an ersatz 4WD.
The bottom of the thing was flat and seemingly unbreakable. The feel of. a
boulder pounding beneath the floorboard was common. On a Ron Jones trip in the
Saline Corridor about 1980 several grunting DPSers lifted my VW off such a
boulder. |