ROBERT G. ALLISON, 1928 - 2007
Robert G. Allison. Photo courtesy of Robert Hyman
Bob Allison died April 22, 2007, at the age of 78, after a long struggle with cancer. He was a member of the American Alpine Club since 1988, and was serving at the time of his death as chair of the Grand Teton Climbers' Ranch Committee and the longtime president of the Kansas City Climbing Club.
When I first met Bob he was already past 70, and my entire experience with him thereafter was at the Climbers’ Ranch in Wyoming. In these respects my perspective on his life was very limited. I did not know him among his colleagues at work, or among his friends and family at his home near Kansas City, Missouri. I did not know him as a young man. Yet, there were qualities in Bob that were so deep and constant that perhaps our friendship revealed gifts of personality in him that others were likewise fortunate to experience at other times in other places.
The principal qualities that struck me about Bob were his excellent health, his wry sense of humor, and his good heart. Just five or six years ago, while we were in the Tetons together, Bob was planning another of his many trips to the Wind River Mountains for later that summer. His objective was another climb of Gannett Peak, 13,804 feet, the highest mountain in Wyoming. If I recall, that was to be the seventh or eighth time he climbed the mountain. Of course, the "difficult" part of the climb only begins after a 25-mile approach carrying a 60-pound pack! I was impressed with his physical stamina and strength, and the happiness he found among the mountains.
During one of Bob’s trips to the Wind River Range, he and his group came upon a large, obviously man-made pile of rocks. Skeletal remains of a horse stuck out from the bottom of the pile. Bob paused to study the scene, as if in meditation, then wondered aloud, "Didn’t they know that if you pile a bunch of rocks on top of a horse you’ll kill it?"
At the Climbers' Ranch, Bob was always a quiet presence, though always sociable, ready to laugh and exchange stories—just more inclined to listen than to talk. It is a tribute to his easy-going manner and openness to friendship that people who met him at the Climbers’ Ranch enjoyed his company whether they were in their 20s and had met him for the first time or were older and had known him for years. He was universally regarded with affection and respect. His knowledge of the Teton Range and other mountains was well-known, and we were often entertained by descriptions of his journeys to Mexico, China, and the old British base camp at Mt. Everest. Bob could tell a very good story, even without the inspiration of Fat Tire beer. I included one of these stories in my Climbers’ Ranch journal, entered June 10, 2003:
"When I went to Mt. Elbrus," [Bob said], "we hired a Russian guide service. The mountain is in the Caucasus, 18,481 feet high. The guide service sent us an equipment list for what we should bring and what they would provide. They had the tents and the cooking equipment and the food and so forth. It was expedition style. When we got there we sorted through the gear. The tents were canvas halves that buttoned together. Everything was old and ragged and about left over from World War II. They didn’t even have tent stakes. They told us to use rocks [to hold the tents down]. As a joke, just before we arrived at the first camp, we put some big rocks in all the packs. That evening we spread the tent halves and then we went around asking everyone for their rocks, digging into the packs to get them out. The Russians looked at us like we were crazy. 'You don’t have to carry the rocks,' they said. 'There will be rocks at every campsite.' The guides pointed to all the rocks on the ground as if maybe we never expected it."
Bob told this story in a serious, slightly halting manner, leaving his listeners uncertain of what was coming, except for the tell-tale twinkle in his eyes and the slight grin he couldn't suppress at the end, as gleeful in the story as in the original mischief, and as innocent as Tom Sawyer.
When Bob was diagnosed with cancer two years ago, he reacted with a perfect balance of acceptance and determination. He even found humor in the situation. When the American Alpine Club waived the costs of his stay at the ranch that August, he told me afterward that it was a good deal, because if he outlived the prognosis of the doctors he might have free room and board in Wyoming for years to come.
Last June Bob was back at the Climbers’ Ranch, and was, as usual, an active participant in Work Week. One day, from across the ranch common, I saw him carrying a heavy load of building lumber. I walked over to give him a hand and said, "Bob, why don’t you leave that for the young guys?" Bob paused and gave me that wry grin. "It's late in the afternoon," he said. "The young guys are all tired."
My favorite recollection of Bob concerns an event at which I was not even present, but serves to very well illustrate his love of family and friends, his love of the mountains, and his celebration of physical vitality, even as, after a debilitating year of cancer and chemotherapy, his physical vitality was steadily waning. Bob told me last June that he thought he might try to climb up to the Lower Saddle, between the Middle Teton and the Grand Teton. The ascent from the Climbers' Ranch to the Lower Saddle is over five miles and 5,000 vertical feet. When Bob told me he wanted to go up there, he didn’t present it as a major goal or as the last ambition of a man in failing health. He just said it casually, as if the excursion might make a nice day, maybe in June, maybe later in the season. I expressed my agreement, both of us knowing that the Lower Saddle is one of the most beautiful places in Grand Teton National Park, storied in the history of the Teton Range for all the great climbers who have gone there and to the summits beyond. Bob seemed happy simply to have the prospect before him, the thought itself a pilgrimage into the future, a connection to the past, and a triumph over the constrictions of fate. In my heart, I did not think he could make it, that week or later. Yet he did make it, accomplishing the climb in August. It was an extraordinary achievement for anyone his age, and much more so with his advanced illness. When I spoke to him afterward, he expressed his joy with quiet humility and gratitude. My journal notes the event:
"In August Bob Allison returned to Wyoming with his daughter, Shawna, and friends from Missouri and Colorado. Bob is 77, the grand old man of the Climbers’ Ranch... He went along with everyone to the Garnet Canyon Meadows, at 9,200 feet, and camped. The next day he went where he wanted to go, reaching the Lower Saddle in the lee of the Grand Teton at 11,600 feet. He camped there with his daughter and friends, watching the Shadow Range on the floor of Jackson Hole at sunset, enjoying again the marvelous view out across Wyoming to the east, across Idaho to the west, range after range of snow-crested mountains, radiant in the late golden sunshine, slowly fading in the long blue light of dusk."
The last time I talked to Bob, early in April, he was cheerful and warmly asked about my daughter, who he recalled was leaving for Latin America with the Peace Corps this spring. He was looking forward to visiting the Climbers' Ranch again in June, he said, though I sensed that he knew very well he was not going to make it.
Bob lived with sensitivity to the resplendence of the earth, with fidelity to his family and friends, with kindness and generosity of spirit. He was modest and gentle and tough as Teton granite. In these last two years, he showed us how to live with serenity and resolve "in the long blue light of dusk." I will miss him, as will many others from throughout the country who shared with him his happy visits to the Climbers' Ranch.
William A. Fetterhoff
A memorial will be held in honor of Bob Allison at the Grand Teton Climbers' Ranch on June 3 at 7:30 p.m. Anyone who wishes to share memories is welcome to attend.