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The Tercentennial Climb of Mount Yale
April 2002
by John Boak '70 John Boak '70 is an artist whose work can be seen at boakart.com. The top of Mount Yale, at 14,196 feet, is a pile of very large rocks, the sharply angled rocks of a young mountain range. They are not comfortable for weary legs and backs. So exhilaration must substitute for comfort. East and west the land drops away. Mount Princeton’s steep silver chevrons of scree rise just south of us. To the north are Columbia and Harvard, linked enticingly by a saddle. To the northwest are the Three Apostles. Wedged into the rocks are over 100 climbers, young and old, from as nearby as Denver and as far away as Moscow. Their agitated activities of eating, talking, arranging, and photographing match the busy jumble of rocks. Most of them are Yale graduates. The rest are family and friends. I’m still on the job. After a hasty half-sandwich, I get out the video camera. Scott Gessler '87, president of the Colorado Yale Association, has gathered our mob around the banner. We run through six takes of “Happy Birthday, Yale!” I interview our AYA contingent: Jeff Brenzel '75, executive director of the AYA, and our own Maureen Doran '71MSN, AYA board chair. Over their shoulders peer the heads of Presidents Richard C. Levin and Kingman Brewster, my last-minute graphic contrivance to extend the reach of Yale officialdom across space and time. Dennis McClure '70 talks of youth and age, finding Yale’s 300 years young compared to the old rocks of the young Rocky Mountains. Ken Cohen '68, accompanied by his son, Jeffrey '94, praises Yale for its progress on many fronts under Levin’s presidency, and makes a pitch for giving. Curt Wood '54 is not a mountain climber; he lives in Florida and is simply thrilled to be at the top. Bill Fanning '45W, our oldest climber at 77, is from Telluride (8,800 feet above sea level); he has home-team advantage. Dick Bass '50, climber of Everest and six other continental highs, rambles on about the bonds forged in hardship and the efficacy of poetry for endurance. Juana Gomez '82 is behind the Kingman mask; later we discuss art in architecture; later still, as I am leaving the mountain, I find her climbing back up to the peak because her husband has finally arrived with their two kids. Now, our youngest hiker is 6. I hike down the wide ridge with my son Canyon and my brother Jerry. I am giddy, but at last I can relax. For over a year I had been living this Tercentennial trek. In the middle of the night I would sometimes awake and think, “It’s 11:45. Forty climbers are on top. Forty are on the boulders. The clouds are building fast. The first big lightning bolt just hit the Three Apostles. How are you going to get them all down? Will they turn around on your command? Or will they take it into discussion and debate?” No one got hurt. The weather was perfect. Many hikers may not have even realized how dangerous it can be when you have 2,200 vertical feet of almost complete exposure to lightning (the half of the hike that is above treeline). Instead it was their fate to climb and talk and discourse their way up and down Mt. Yale. There are still painful consequences. Jeff Brenzel was quoted back in New Haven as saying, “My legs are insulted. They aren’t speaking to me today. And I expect that to be the case for a few days.” |
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