Tell me this isn't true - Jim Anglin

[OldManRock]

A Tribute To Jim Anglin from Tom Bauman - Tom asked if I would put this onto the forum for him - Its an honor to do so.

 

November 4th – It has been gray, damp, and cool all day at work. I’m beat and I call it day. I head for the shop with saws to sharpen. Just as I get to the shop, a red tail hawk rises from in front of the shop and lands on the roof next to the weather vane. I stop, motor idling, and we stare at each other. One minute, then two.

 

Finally I release the brake and slowly inch forward. The red tail lifts off and flies 60 feet, then lands on top of the barn. I park between the barn and shop and turn off the engine. I sit and watch. The hawk is staring at me - or is it through me? In my 50-plus years on this piece of land I have not seen this kind of behavior in a red tail hawk. I sit and am amazed at this interaction.

 

If I were not so ignorant of the animal (spirit) world, I would have known that something huge had happened. Finally, I open the pickup door. The red tail flies over the top of me and disappears behind the shop, heading up valley. At home later that night I get the phone call. I start to understand.

 

November 5th – Cold, gray and damp! The whole day of work is one of sad reflection. Jim has left us and the void feels huge. His camaraderie, energy, athleticism, and spirit of adventure are a marvel that few can come close to.

 

Yet, could it be that when Jim’s spirit left his body it was captured by the hawk? There are those who know these things. For me it feels like this is what happened. Yesterday evening he came and said goodbye. Today he soars above, watching over all of us. Even if it is not true, for me it is the only way I can see, if only for a second, into that void.

 

It’s time to head for home. I drive slowly down our gravel road towards the highway and another commute. Ahead in headlights, a hawk lifts off and disappears into the darkness!

 

-- Tom Bauman

 

[ValNi16]

I am one of the many lives touched by Jim. He was all these things and so much more to our family! He is a mentor, an uncle, and one of the world's BEST! He died doing what he loved, I hope to be half as lucky. While I wish he were still here with us in body, I know I will carry his memory with me everyday of my life! I'm thankful to have you as a member of my family WE love you Uncle Jim!

[scarlet]

Jim Anglin touched many lives. He lived the life he wanted. Bless him for that. He climbed many mountaintops. Rescued people out of horrible situations. Skiing, kyaking, windsurfing, biking, running. Spent time with his children and grandchildren. He's been a part of our lives for so many years and, over those years, I've seen him mentor so many. He was so patient and kind. The twinkle in his eyes were so unique - they laughed.

 

I remember my first climbing experience when I was a mere 15 years old at the Columns in Eugene. It was the only time I climbed anything, but the experience with me was phenominal. My mother always wondered where the footsteps that went up the walls in the hallway were from.

 

He will be sorely missed and our family is grieving our great loss. His footprints will be large in the Northwest - it's true. The footprints he left in all of our hearts will be large as well. Stay high on that mountain. Climb on Jim. Climb on.

 

Love always, Audrey

[sk]

for everyone who can't be at Jim's memorial today, 2 pm is a good time to pause and have a moment and reflect on what we do and why we do it. to thank your self or your god or whatever works for you that we have this sport and eachother. i can not think of a better way to live my life.

 

xooxoxox

shelly

[billcoe]

I'm leaving in a bit, see you there.

[Couloir]

Let us not forget Jim.

 

Everything he taught, preached and exemplified.

 

Live well in heaven.

[sk]

I looked for you after the service Bill, but i didn't find you. I was sitting about 6 rows behind JosephH.

 

the service was lovely and emotional. I laughed and cried. Jim was a wonderful passionate exhuberant man who touched many lives. I felt privledged to be there and to share in all the memories. someone said that if we all could attempt to be a 10th of the man Jim was then we would be in good shape. I think he is correct. It was a honnor to have met jim.

[layedback]

The service was incredible, there were over 20 fire trucks and rescue vehicles that showed up. In Jim's career as a fire fighter and EMT, his fellow workers experienced Jim as us climbers did, they too would walk into any fire with Jim at their side...

 

 

 

[billcoe]

Sorry Muff, wasn't feeling gregarious and wanted to just be alone. Did say hi to Joseph and the 2 pretty ladies he was with before I booked out right after the service. I would have said hi had I seen you.

 

Here's my TR. Jim Anglins memorial

 

 

[sk]

well said Bill.

 

xoxoxxoxoox

[texplorer]

I just heard that Jim had passed on. I don't get to much time these days to check CC.com so I'm a little late.

 

I just saw Jim a few months ago here in Red Rocks with another legendary local climber. As usual he was friendly and modest. I can say that I've only met Jim a handful of times but have admired his work and accomplishments for quite some time. Though I was never a close friend of him there are certain people whose calm presence and stature instill awe. Jim was one of those people.

 

It chokes me up to see one of the greatest of our community of climbers go. His climbing accomplishments and route contributions are great but his life was even greater.

 

I hope he'll leave some first ascent splitter cracks in heaven for me.

 

I'll miss you Jim.

 

 

[scarlet]

Thank you to all of those who could make the service. The fire trucks and the climbers who attended was overwhelming. It was such an honor and a tribute for everyone to be there.

 

His grandson in the fire truck carrying his ashes is something that I'll never forget. He was so brave. His granddaughter telling me that "she didn't so much like rock climbing, but she loved it when grandpa made her swing on the ropes." I only wished that his other two granddaughers could have been there to wrap my arms around and hear them tell me about Papa and his yoga.

 

Captain Jim will be a memory to live on for a long time. I loved hearing all of his stories about his adventures during the 30+ years that I've known him. My husband was taken aback when he saw a very young picture of himself and his friend, Mike, whom he lost to cancer a few years back, and Jim standing atop Smith Rock when they were so young. I think my husband was 16.

 

I was absolutely in awe when the firemen stood up and then the climbers stood up. God bless you all. Thank you for sharing your lives with us to honor such a great man. Thank you to those who had the courage to speak as I couldn't utter a word.

 

Live your life to the fullest. Treat each day as the best day. Be safe. Climb high. Conquer much. Accept the challenge. Love you all, Audrey

 

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery.

Today is a gift, that's why they call it a present.

- Unknown Author

 

Remember that great love and great achievments

involve great risk.

- Unknown Author

[tokyo bill]

At the risk of being labeled a ghoul, I'd like to let everyone know that a picture of Jim appears in the 2008 calendar produced by the mountain community web site.

 

The annual mountain community calendar is put together from pictures sent in by members, and my submission this year included a picture taken in April 2007 of Jim on the Rad Wall at Cochise Stronghold. I never gave the submission a thought at the time, and when we lost Jim it didn't occur to me to reconsider it.

 

In any case, perhaps some of you will find it inappropriate, but perhaps some of you will be happy to see Jim doing what he loved one more time.

 

A link to the order page for the calendar is here, and Jim's pic appears at the lower right of the December page:

 

calendar

 

My understanding is that the calendar is sold at cost plus $2, with the $2 applied to defraying the costs of operating the mountain community web site. (For anyone not familiar, the site is here: mountain community).

 

I hope this isn't offensive to anyone, and my thoughts in posting are particularly with Jim's family. If you find this inappropriate, please let me know.

 

 

[billcoe]

Not at all, thank you for sharing it Toyko Bill.

[billcoe]

Been a year ago today.

[sparverius]

Was just up at his old stomping ground, the Menagerie, a week ago. I though of him and was grateful for his bold pioneering climbs there.

[area51]

I was just logging in to bump this thread.

 

My wife and I have enjoyed many climbs put up by Jim, hopefully many more will do so also.

 

RIP Jim,

 

Paul & Kay

[OldManRock]

Billcoe - Thanks for kicking this thread on - For the last year every time I see a red tailed hawk, I think Jim is looking down and smiling - Its still hard to belive,

[JosephH]

Hmmm, hard to believe it's already been a year since his funeral. Still fairly surreal to contemplate.

 

Bill, thanks for bumping this and reminding us...

[Alti2de]

 

 

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…

 

[sobo]

Damn, I got so choked up by that towards the end that I almost cried.

Alte2de, you have paid the man a mighty tribute by your writing. I wish you peace.

[billcoe]

Thank you for the remembrance.

 

Just yesterday, no joke: yesterday, I went to lace up my LaSportiva Focus climbing shoes to do a lap and immediately thought of Jim as the shoes came out of the bag. I spent a couple min of fond remembrance and reflecting on the intransigent nature of life, sadly thinking of Jim and the natural follow up wondering if I am slated to get the chop prematurely as well. As folks who know me are aware - I do some f*ing stupid things on a regular basis, but was thinking that it was not what was seen coming that got Jim, but that which was mundane and invisible. Totally off the radar screen....could that be me as well, but I don't see it?

 

Jim was as least as safe as I perceive myself to be if not more so, and he was certainly vastly more experienced for sure. Jim was one of those guys I wish I spent more time with, I barely knew him till he moved up to White Salmon, although I'd almost killed him with a loose rock at Smith in the early 80's (before helmets:-) Screaming rock rock rock, they heard the echo from a half mile away bounce off Asterik pass and didn't move till the last moment. That was a defining moment for us as once down (We ran down the trail after we topped out, thinking we'd need to help medevac) . We were do relieved they were fine. I apologized profusely and repeatedly, but Jim deflected my apology and said he didn't blame us at all, he (Jim) felt stupid for being right underneath us, he knew that there were loose rocks at Smith back then, and a smart person didn't hang out underneath someone climbing above them....especially without a helmet.

 

Anyway, my ratty Focus shoes were bought when my wife spotted a climbing shop in Paris from the bus one rainy assed day in 1997. We buzzed the bus to stop and we ran back through the rain. What a great thing to do on a rainy day. 60 Euro's! They are on their 5th or 6th resole now, but are not my main pair of shoes, so they don't get out a lot.

 

But they are the same model, brand and color of shoes Jim often climbed with and rare is the day I don't pull them out of my rucksack and think of him as soon as I see them.

[sobo]

Been almost three years now...

[sobo]

It's been three years today.

Remember...

 

Although I never knew Jim, I'm feeling my age today. I will throw one back for him tonight.

[corvallisclimb]

Thanks for the bump sobo. I miss you Jim.