“If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too damn much room.”

— T-shirt worn by John Galvin, Mountain Rescue Aspen

Back when I was a member of Mountain Rescue Aspen, it was months before I realized that “Galvin” was not his first name. Everyone called him that because I suppose “John” was just too prosaic for his personality.

Galvin was one of the strongest and most skilled members of the team. And in grit, he was the undisputed king of the mountain. He had the true kind of grit, the kind that made you wipe your feet and pick your teeth after spending time with him.

The kind that made you want to tie into his rope when you’re on the sketchy stuff. He took risks, but he calculated them.

Years ago, I was with Galvin on a body recovery mission in the Bell Cord Couloir, which separates North and South Maroon Peaks. The couloir is a steep, loose, ice-paved death trap that channels falling rocks and boulders and accelerates them to ballistic velocities. It has claimed novices and experts alike. You can do everything right, and still die in the couloir.

That was the case with the victim whose body we recovered that day. He had been knocked into the top of the Couloir by a falling boulder the size of an oven. He slid and tumbled 600 vertical feet before being caught by the bergschrund separating the ice face from the rock wall.

A Blackhawk dropped off our rescue team at the base of the couloir. And I mean “dropped.” In full rescue gear, we jumped 5 feet out of the hovering heli onto a steep boulder field.

Three of us were chosen to ascend to the victim about 1,000 vertical feet up the Couloir. The leader of that three-man team was an excellent, local mountaineering guide. Galvin and I were the other two.

A debate ensued as to whether we should climb unroped or, alternatively, rope into a three-man team and drive pickets and ice screws for protection.

The couloir is over 45 degrees and was hard ice that day. We wore crampons and carried ice axes of course, but a slip onto the ice would be perilous. If we were unable to self-arrest our fall using our ice axes within a few feet, we would be goners. Imagine a hockey puck on a frozen waterfall. The leader insisted on roping up.

Galvin disagreed. Roping up would cost us a lot of time and it was already mid-afternoon. Moreover, if one of us fell in a three-man rope team, the yank on the rope — a dynamic force that could amount to hundreds of pounds — could easily pull the others off their feet. The three of us rocketing down the mountain could then rip out the pickets and ice screws, and all three would be goners.

Because I was unsure myself of the best approach and was the newbie on the team, I kept quiet. Ultimately the leader exercised his authority to decide, as leaders should.

Galvin cursed and complained about that decision for the next five hours as we climbed. I remember thinking, “Man, this climb is close to my limit, and your bitchin’ makes it no easier.”

We finally reached the victim in the evening, and with a lot of effort hauled the body out of the bergschrund.

But how to get the body down the couloir?

There was no way to get the Blackhawk into the narrow couloir. And a long line from a Blackhawk hovering hundreds of feet above the couloir would be dicey.

Galvin then did something amazing. He wrapped the body in a tent (we had no body bag on hand but did have an emergency tent) and then tied up the packaged body with a spare rope. He tied the other end of the rope to himself.

We also still had our separate team rope. On that rope, Galvin would be the low man in charge of managing the body package. The leader would be the high man managing the team rope and the belays — a feat in itself. I was in the middle and didn’t do much.

The body package was nearly 200 pounds of dead weight. Galvin positioned it downhill from himself, edged into the couloir and began a side-stepping descent. The idea was that the package below him would slide down the slope. Gravity was our friend.

And our enemy. The descending package exerted a huge and jerky downhill force as it bounced over the steep and rough ice. Stowing his ice axe, Galvin held the package rope firmly in both hands and dug his crampons into the ice.

A single slip could have been catastrophic.

But Galvin didn’t slip. He descended in the dark for hours — over 1000 vertical feet. It was a stunning exhibition of problem-solving, brute strength, phenomenal endurance, balletic balance and true grit.

It was pure Galvin. The man lived on the edge — till the edge gave way.

As for what happened April 8, some may say he miscalculated the risk on the edge that time. I can imagine him replying in his salty way that it is they who miscalculate by missing the view out there.

(Published April 15, 2018 in the Aspen Times at https://www.aspentimes.com/opinion/glenn-k-beaton-galvin-rip/)

“That all you got, George?” — Muhammad Ali

It was called the “Rumble in the Jungle.” It was the 1974 boxing match in Zaire witnessed by 60,000, between an aging Muhammad Ali and the seemingly invincible George Foreman.

Foreman was bigger, stronger and in his prime. Everyone knew Foreman would win easily, especially Foreman himself who thought he’d put Ali away in three rounds. Foreman was the hardest puncher in boxing history.

Punch he did. He hammered Ali through the early rounds.

But Ali had a plan. He called it “rope a dope.” He backed onto the ropes and protected himself, a little, against the fury of Foreman’s near-lethal punches. Many landed but many others glanced off his arms and gloves.

In the seventh round, Foreman was still punching himself into exhaustion but Ali was still standing. After Foreman delivered a particularly hard hit to Ali’s jaw, the two men became entangled and Ali taunted Foreman with the words quoted above.

Here in Aspen, the sparring is mostly verbal. They don’t box, they preen — of their purported diversity, intellectualism and tolerance.

That often bleeds into sanctimony, priggishness and stultifying political correctness. Continue reading →

Armed sheriff’s deputies appeared on the scene of the recent school massacre in Florida while kids were still being murdered inside.

But the deputies failed to storm the building to apprehend the killer, to rescue the assaulted, to stop the bleeding and to comfort the dying. They failed to do their jobs.

Instead, they cowered behind their patrol cars waiting for, well, apparently waiting for the shooting to stop. Some 150 bullets and 17 lives later, it finally did and the killer walked away. Only then did the deputies enter the building.

About that, President Donald Trump characteristically said what he thought. He went on to say, “I really believe I’d run in there, even without a weapon.”

I don’t know Trump well enough to judge whether he would, but I suspect he would. He’s a bundle of contradictions, complexities, conundrums and occasional cartoons. But I’ll say this for a guy who took on the entire political establishment and won: He’s not a coward.

Today’s topic, however, is not Trump. Today’s topic is the issue he raises. Continue reading →

“When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.”

— President Richard Nixon

Early in the presidency of Barack Obama, some activists pressured him to stop deporting illegal immigrants brought here as children.

But Obama was a smart lawyer surrounded by other smart lawyers. He even boasted that he had been a Constitutional law professor. He had actually just been a part-time and untenured instructor, but he still knew that the president had no authority to ignore the immigration laws.

According to the New York Times and Washington Post, he clearly said so. In fact, according to the fact-checker Politifact, he said so at least 17 times.

But then he did it anyway. Continue reading →

Tribalism is in our DNA. This innate tendency to adopt the beliefs and customs of the people around us was the glue that held together small bands of nomadic hunters and gatherers.

Ancient humans with tribalism in their DNA survived in their tribe and propagated their DNA. Those without it didn’t and didn’t. It’s the natural product of human evolution.

Managing ancient humans was not like herding cats. It was more like herding herds. Stray humans didn’t last long on the savanna. Later, tribalism enabled us to coalesce into towns and cities, and to defend our resulting civilizations.

Even now, tribalism influences our relations with employers, extended families and communities. That influence is often good. When people work for the benefit of their tribe, they create focused teams that are more effective than individuals can ever be.

In short, tribalism has served us well for 99 percent of human history and in some ways it still does.

But tribalism poisons modern politics. Continue reading →

Continue reading →

Back when I was a young Boeing engineer Seattle was a modest place with (apologies to Winston Churchill) much to be modest about. They were always comparing themselves with the real city to the south, San Francisco. Seattleites knew they were more wet than cool.

So in a classic case of psychosexual compensation, Seattleites did the equivalent of buying the city a Porsche. They built a big phallus called the “Space Needle.”

Ever since, everything Seattle does is designed to show San Francisco and the world that Seattle is big.

I’d like to say this is a tale of two cities, but it’s a tale of many. Continue reading →