Celebration of Life for Rob May

[themayfamily]

It is with great sadness that we are informing those that may have climbed or skied with him, that our beloved family member, Rob May, has recently passed away.

 

There will be a Celebration of Rob's life held on December 7th. Below are the details:

 

Sunday, Dec 7th @ 2 pm, Beaver Lake Lodge, 25101 S.E. 24th Street, Sammamish. Dress is casual.

 

http://parkstrails.myparksandrecreation.com/Details.aspx?pid=110

 

Rob had been a very active climber and backcountry skier since he was fairly young, both here in the Northwest and in Colorado where he lived for 10 years or so before returning to the Seattle area.

 

Our family has no way to possibly know all of the different people that Rob shared all of his many adventures with, and do not know if he ever participated in any online community outdoor forums. We are posting a couple of notices on community forums with the hope that some who may have climbed or skied with Rob over the years will see this posting and come to his celebration of life and share a reflection or story about Rob with his family and friends.

 

Rob will be dearly missed.

 

 

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as the sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves." — John Muir

Edited November 16, 2014 by themayfamily

[ivan]

anybody know who he was on the board here?

[themayfamily]

Thanks to those we have been in touch with, and thanks for the photos of Rob out enjoying what he liked to do! Rob was also pictured on the north face of Mt Shuksan in the local guidebook "Selected Climbs in the Cascades Volume 1 Second Addition" in a photo by Andreas Schmidt, a long-time friend and climbing/skiing partner, as well as in a technical canyoneering guidebook by Steve Allen.

 

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[themayfamily]

[themayfamily]

A couple of reflections from friends and family of Rob:

 

 

By Rob Roseen:

 

Good Bye to Rob May---You Will Be Missed.

 

My great lifelong friend Rob May died recently. Rob was a great soul and the world is much less without him. Rob introduced me to so many great things and I always looked up to him. I have known Rob since 2nd grade when I first moved to WA , he was my first friend in the area and I remember climbing apple trees in the fields behind his house.

 

Rob was a fearless adventurer and introduced me to many of my greatest experiences: building tree forts insanely high up was only the beginning of my many experiences scared to death with Rob way off the ground; my first Pink Floyd concert; traveling by microbus from Seattle to Palo Alto to the first of many Grateful Dead concerts with Rob and camping in the redwoods and on the coast; my first really hard lead climb at Index Town Wall on Godzilla (5.9+++) (never ever ever been so pumped out in my life and Rob talked me through it); my first big backcountry peak climb on Mt Stuart and a near miss with a helicopter search and rescue when we did not come out on time (after an 18 hour day of climbing and hiking to get back to beat the rescue we stopped to find a hard cider that I had left in a alpine lake 3 months before...well chilled); my first time to Boulder CO and "the hill" for Spring break visiting Rob in college on a 30 hour drive from MA; first multi-pitch ice climb with Rob in Rocky Mtn National Park in some very big deep dark cold mountains; canyoneering with our buddy Steve leading us on numerous "firsts" of previously untrodden canyons as Young Turks during "sheer terror" gatherings of climbers in southern Utah; and with my love Heidi, Rob, and I travelling through Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize for 5 months with adventures in the dark corridors inside a pyramid in Mayan ruins of Palenque, camping in hamocks in the rainforest, drinking tequila and eating fish tacos on the beaches of the southern Baja penninsula; and spending Christmas as guests on a ranch of a crazy 83 year old US expatriot killing chickens and rolling chicken tamales until the early AM.

 

Rob, you will be missed. I am so sorry for you and your family.

 

 

 

 

We Lived Life

 

-for Rob May, from his twin sister

 

 

 

We take risks in our lives to experience life

 

We take risks in our lives to transcend freedom

 

We take risks in our lives to understand love

 

We take risks in our lives to stretch past our limits

 

We take risks in our lives to find our own power

 

power over life, over love, over ourselves

 

We take risks climbing mountains

 

with towering rock faces

 

Finding hand holds at the limits of our reach

 

in diminutive spaces

 

Balancing our lives

 

by a fingertip or a toe

 

Stretching past our limits

 

to find the next hold

 

We take risks climbing in silence

 

silence shared with a partner

 

Climbing for hours without speaking

 

in a bond of trust beyond measure

 

In tune with each other

 

climbing alone but together

 

Suspended far above earth

 

filled with passion and power

 

We take risks hiking in the wilderness

 

far off the trail

 

Finding quiet in the places

 

where there is no room to fail

 

Deep into the woods and the snow

 

where no one has tread

 

Trekking alone in the silence

 

the only voices in our heads

 

We take risks forging our own path

 

when no one knows where we are

 

Going deeper into the mountains

 

then we have ever gone before

 

Respecting the silence

 

and peace that exists

 

In a world far from people

 

we take our biggest risks

 

We take risks every day

 

when we push past our limits

 

Ignoring life’s pressures

 

and our place within it

 

We take risks in our lives

 

when we give someone our heart

 

And pray that our love

 

keeps us from falling apart

 

We take risks every day

 

when we just live our lives

 

But sometimes things

 

don’t work out quite right

 

We stretch as far as we can

 

but can’t find the next hold

 

We try to find our way back

 

but our trail has gone cold

 

We take risks all the time

 

knowing at some point we’ll fail

 

We can’t stretch that far

 

we can’t blaze a new trail

 

When the risk proves too much

 

and we can’t find our way through the strife

 

We take solace, because

 

we lived life

 

[DPS]

I climbed with Rob before he moved to Colorado. He was a great guy, a strong climber, and very humble. The first time we climbed together we did Liberty Ridge, at the time a big deal for me.

 

He mentioned he enjoyed canyoneering in Utah, so I checked a book out from the library on the subject. There was an entire chapter in it about how he and Rob Roseen (see above) blew into the canyoneering community and proceeded to do the hardest descents, setting a new technical standard.

 

We lost touch after he moved to Colorado, but I got updates from his brother who worked at Marmot. I had meant to drop him a line when he returned to Washington but never got around to it.

 

My condolences go out to his family and friends. This had been a shitty year for the PNW climbing community.