DESERT PEAKS NEWSLETTER No. 26 (53-3)
MAY 22, 1953
We have big news to report this time--Henry Greenhood, ex-DPS Chairman has taken a wife. The lucky lady is Nancy Sears of San Francisco. They were married in San Francisco on April 25th and are in order for hearty congratulations and best wishes from all of us. Their address is shown on the revised DPS membership list which is enclosed.
Other big news this time is that Marion Dean presented husband Willard with their second child, a boy, who will be known to all comers as David Scott Dean. Baby Dean tipped the scales at 7 pounds, 12 ounzes on his March 25 birthday.
The rolls of the section have swelled during recent months with the addition of two enthusiastic young people--Gary Bratt, a student at UCLA, and June Kilbourne who is known to many of you through her articles in the Southern Sierran. We bid them welcome and good climbing!
Our good Secretary-Treasurer, Emily Bear, who among other things does the honors on sending out these newsletters tells me that she has about six of the attractive DPS pins available for sale to qualified "emblem members". These pins represent a somewhat tied-up investment in view of their cost and this point takes on a greater significance when you consider the slim operating budget which our even slimmer treasury must support. I urge those of you who have qualified for the Section emblem to help yourself as well as us by writing Emily for your pin at an early date. (This helps us by releasing treasury funds for more active use.) We have established the price of $4.00 each. This may appear a bit high but the Club's cost is over $3.50. The small remainder is added to the operating fund in lieu of dues or other fees.
Emblem requirements according to the NEW by-laws are nine peaks from the qualifying list (including Rabbit. Pk, Montgomery Pk., New York Butte and Telescope Peak). Climbing any six peaks still suffices for Section Membership. The new emblem requirements are not retroactive to those aspirants, who were within one peak of satisfying the superceded requirements, on February 6, 1953, the date on which the So. Calif. Chapter Exec, Committee approved the revised by-laws.
Two DPS trips during the last couple of months have been, very well attended. On March 2l-22. Willard Dean reports that 26 people stormed the summit of Lost Horse Mtn., and 21 people climbed rock-strewn slopes to the summit of Queens Mtn., both in the Little San Bernardino Mts. Saturday night drew some 40 persons to a roaring campfire.
Bill Henderson's much heralded "climb-a-thon" to Telescope Peak from Death Valley interested some 23 enthusiastic Dersert Peakers and friends. They had their share of poor luck most of which occurred in the form of two major breakdowns to the hired bus, en-route to the jumping-off place at Badwater in Death Valley--elev. -262'. The delays of the breakdowns caused much lost sleep (literally!) and the climbers were more tired than they should have been for the long climb to the 11,04.5' summit. Unseasonable heat even during the usually cool night hours (they started from the bus at 7:00 pm, Saturday, Apr. 25) further drained the climbers' strength and they decided to turn back at a point about half-way up; that is all except Barbara Lilley, Sam Fink, Dick Woodward and Jim Forlan who went over the top to the Wildrose Canyon road where they hitch-hiked home --25 hours of steady going. Whew Jim Forlan amused his fellows by catching a live rattler and carrying this creature in a paper bag over the summit, down the other side and even hitch-hiked home with it!
Vice-Chairman Willard Dean has arranged three fine trips for the early summer period:
May 30-31 will see the DPS on Mt. Keynot in the Inyos;
June 20-21 is the weekend for Sentinel Pk., in the Panamints; and
July 4-5 brings us back to Boundary and Montgomery Pks. in the Whites.
Hope to see you on these outings.
Sincerely,
Lloyd Balsam,
Chairman, Desert Peaks Section
Sierra Club