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Alti2de

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About Alti2de

  • Birthday 06/02/1954

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    Ohio

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  1. It never fails to bring a smile to my face, and inevitably, a tear or two to my eye any time I think of you Jim. I know you would tell me that the tears are wasted, but they are my measure of loss. I would feel odd should they not be shed, so just take them as a measure of my respect. I still miss you Jim...I hate this time of year.
  2. Memories undimmed by time and distance yet linger... Jim, you were one in a million... I'll never forget you...
  3. Please bear with me… I have hesitated a long while in doing this, but it’s time I think… I haven’t touched boot to stone for almost ten years, yet my brief time on that stone has remained among my most cherished memories. Jim was a part of that… After receiving a short, terse email from a friend in Oregon that read in part “Contact me immediately about Jim Anglin”. I called, and was instantly devastated to learn that Jim had passed away… We spent some time talking about Jim, but soon I had to hang up as words were just escaping me. I got online, and in moments I had read about the fall, something I never in a million years would have believed could happen to Jim, of all people…not the Jim I knew… Something must have happened to make him fall… All I could think of was that some medical event occurred to either cause him to lose balance, pass out, something… But to think Jim Anglin simply fell off a path? Not possible, my mind insisted… I had been back in the general area he is supposed to have fallen from many, many years before… The ways down are indeed exposed, some more so than others, but Jim falling on a fourth-class descent? It couldn’t be … but sadly it was… And so I was left to do nothing more than mourn… Engrossed in memory, I went and dug out what climbing gear I have left from the days I used to practice the sport, and began going through my dwindling stock. I found that I still have several ‘biners that I acquired from Jim way back in the late 80’s. On them, some quite faintly, you can still make out the scrawled initials, JA. 3 Bonaiti’s, a Salewa, an Eiger, and 2 SMC’s…these are the only remaining physical reminders I have of the man. Jim and I first met at his home in Lebanon, Oregon shortly after I was hired full-time at the FD in the next town to the East along Hwy 20…Sweet Home. A friend and fellow Paramedic, upon learning that I had taken a beginners rock climbing class at Linn-Benton Community College in Albany, told me that I should get in touch with a guy he called “Danglin’ Anglin” at LFD… He told me that Jim got that name due to his propensity for being found dangling from a fingerboard mounted above a doorway in the Lebanon firehall on a pretty regular basis. In any case, at our first meeting, I was impressed with this friendly, peaceful guy who seemed so perfectly at ease with himself and the world. I honestly don’t recall much other than impressions from that meeting, and that he generously offered me some of his older gear at a ridiculously low price to get started out with (a buck a ‘biner as I recall)…I had absolutely no gear at the time, but I was consumed with passion for my newly acquired pursuit. I think he saw that. The ones he gave me are pieces that he said he would still trust, and just based on first impressions I figured I could trust them as well… I ran into Jim fairly regularly after that, as we both worked in the same fields in adjoining jurisdictions. Monthly case reviews would usually find us saying “Hi” and sometimes making small talk about how my climbing was progressing, or of some route he thought I should give a try…all dependent on, and in his estimation, within my skill level. Jim always had encouragement…not once had I ever heard a negative remark from him. The absolute best experience I ever had in the relatively short time I climbed was during one summer in the Menagerie Wilderness. A friend, Mark Hilliker, and I had been on Rooster Rock that day and hiking out, we ran into Jim… He told us that the next day he and several friends were going to be climbing on another small spire hidden there in the trees west of the Rabbit Ears (please forgive me if memory fails me here, but I think that was the approximate location.) and invited us to join the group. We joined them the next day, guided there both by the directions Jim had given us, and when closer, by the occasional laughter, voices, or clinking of gear heard faintly through the trees. Arriving, Mark and I found ourselves in some pretty heady company indeed…particularly considering the unabashed newbies we were at the time. Jim was there of course, along with Tom Bauman, I believe Kent Benesch was another present, and Paul Fry…(I had climbed a short roadside route on Hwy 20 that Paul had established earlier that year if I am remembering correctly called “Road Scholar”) I am ashamed to admit that there were a few other climbers there that day I cannot remember to save my life… If any of you read this, and were among those present, please accept my apology for my poor memory…though some of the names in the threads devoted to Jim that I have read seemed very familiar… That day the climbing I saw and the apparent ease with which it was accomplished amazed me. Among other things, I was able to watch Tom Bauman drilling from a stance that I thought only a fly could have stood on, banging in a star drill like it was nothing… I watched Jim skim over another route effortlessly, while I later followed it slapping and clawing almost the whole way. Somehow he encouraged and cajoled me to the top… What impressed me most that day was the graciousness of everyone there… Not once was I made to feel as if I didn’t belong… This, while obviously floundering in a group whose climbing skill at even its lowest capacity far, far exceeded my best day on stone up to that point. I was present among considerable skill that day… To say I was awed by it is an understatement… I remember when Jim made a point of mentioning that I was making positive strides in my climbing… I felt humbled…and proud too that he thought enough to say so… That night, at camp on the old logging road outside the back border of the Menagerie, we all sat around a campfire sharing a couple beers and stories… The beers I shared in, but the stories… I listened…stories of my own I had yet to acquire. I remember feeling just slightly fuzzy and relaxed from the beer and listening and laughing a lot as others related various stories about routes climbed, falls taken, refrigerator-sized blocks being ridden as they came off the face, etc… It was peaceful, relaxed, warm, and I felt accepted as at least an aspiring rock climber. There was friendly ribbing, memories shared, and finally, as Tom later said goodnight and crawled into his tent, a reluctant (on my part) departure for home in the dark… The absolute best memory I have of my climbing days… I have, for the last couple of years read and re-read the tributes paid to Jim on this and other forums. I have copied all the pictures posted of him on various climbs with that ever-present smile and great twinkle in his eye. I have shed many tears, and bitterly regretted never staying closer to the man for whom I still, and will always hold an almost reverential respect. I could have learned so very much more from him had I not become, and then remained, so deeply entrenched in my own problems… Perhaps I would still be climbing… Yes, I am sad for myself…sad because Jim was a great positive influence and role model that I just didn’t incorporate into my life the way I should have… I should have made the time… I am sadder still for his family, and his other, closer friends… I can’t imagine how devastating it must have been to lose so precious a soul… I can only feel my own sense of loss… Jim, if there’s a place that exists where you can somehow see or sense anything from this world, know that I miss you, greatly, and will never forget you… Thank you so very much for your graciousness, your encouragement, your generosity, and your friendship…
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