Dave Rearick RIP

On August 21, 2024. Dave was 92.

I knew Dave from gatherings in the Needles in South Dakota. For many years, an intergenerational bicoastal "Needles Society" including Dave used to converge on the Oreville Campground for a week or two in August of nubbin-pinching on the spires of Custer State Park. Other regulars were me, John Gill, Mark and Beverly Powell, and Bob and Bonnie Kamps.  I'm the youngster of the group at 80, we've lost Bob and Mark and now Dave. As a friend of mine noted recently---quite cheerfully---the sun is setting, for us and really for an era of American climbing.

Dave was a mathematician at the University of Colorado.  In the climbing world, perhaps his most noteworthy accomplishment was the first ascent, with Bob, in 1960, of the Diamond on Long's Peak (the route now called "D1"). 

Rest in peace old friend.

https://www.eptrail.com/2019/04/11/a-historical-account-of-the-first-ascent-of-the-diamond-on-longs-peak/

I have tried to keep in touch with Dave over the years, especially since he moved into a retirement home in Boulder. This past week I tried to contact him, but he didn't answer. Rest in Peace my old friend. 

I met Dave in the Tetons in the 1950s when he was finishing up his degree in mathematics at CalTech. As Rich said several of us made our ways each August to the Black Hills for Needles climbing, bouldering, golf, tennis, and whatever, including volleyball in the campground. In the evenings we sat around the campfire and told stories, drank Black Hills Tea, and played or listened to music, sometimes provided by Jan Conn on her guitar.

Dave drifted away from climbing during the 1970s and 1980s, and became a bicyclist, abandoning his old Subaru(?) in his garage in Boulder, cycling back and forth to work as a math prof at CU. He was one of the first to complete the demanding challenge of the Longs Peak Duathlon, bicycling from a bar in Boulder early in the morning, peddling up to the Longs Peak parking lot, and hiking up Longs Peak and down, cycling back to the bar by evening. And he told me a year or so ago how, in the 1990s, he peddled away from his home in Boulder on a Friday, went all the way up to the Canadian border, then back in Boulder for classes on Monday. At least I think that was the story. 

There are other tales he told that may come back to mind over time. 

Dave suffered a stroke in his early 80s, after a strenuous day of hedge trimming. He lost much of the use of an arm and a leg, going into a nursing home to make the transition into a new and unexpected chapter. As one would suspect he adapted and strolled around the retirement home on his walker until the last year or so. 

He was a bona fide member of the Golden Age of American rock climbing, and a respected member of Chouinard's Yosemite Climbers Club.

So many great lives lived. So many of the great climbers are mathematicians. I love hearing the history of the Golden Age climbers. Always have, as it is a thread that weaves with the history of the world at the time. Just as humans are not separate from the natural world, climbers are not separate from society. There quite often is a theme of Golden Age climbers giving "something" back to the community. I believe that continues today. Cheers to a life well lived!

I met Dave working for him in the math module department at CU in the late 80's/early 90's. Bernard Gillette and I both proctored exams, and we became friends thru this experience and Bernard helped me survive the most difficult math class I ever took.  

I had a couple of unique experiences that I value to this day. One was when I was able to onsight that slippery 2nd pitch of Athlete's Feet. I remember just barely getting it by being inspired to tell Dave that I got the pitch he first freed on my first attempt. When I told him later, he was psyched for me. 

Then there was the time that Dave invited me to his house in north Boulder to see some original slides of some pretty famous routes. I had climbed the Totem Pole in 1987, and Dave showed me his original pics of the first ascent of that. I felt honored to get the invite to see these photos, as Dave always seemed to be a private, low-key and humble individual. He spoke at length about his trusted partner, Bob Kamps. To this day, I have found the Diamond to be one of the hardest places to rock climb due to it's steepness and altitude. Just imagine what it must have been like to walk up to that mighty wall for the first time, using the gear of the day and not knowing if it was even possible. Proud! When you got Dave talking about climbing, a sparkle would light up in his eyes.

I had not seen Dave in many years, and heard he was in a retirement home. Nothing lasts forever, and our heroes that inspired us are passing away. RIP Mr. Rearick. You are truly legend, and I am honored to have known you many years ago.

Very sorry to hear this. Yet another of the 'icons' of the Yosemite ( and Desert and Colorado) Golden Age is now gone.

I once ( 1970) was taken to visit Rearick in Boulder by a mutual acquaintance and David showed us his homemade wooden 'nuts'---very innovative and beautifully crafted, though never commercially available.

RIP

Dave was a classical guitarist for awhile. He once went to Mexico to audition with Segovia to become one of the Master's students. But it didn't work out. He also applied to become an astronaut but I recall he was too old at the time. At least that's what I remember. No guarantees.

As Alan mentioned, Dave was a very talented woodworker, an artist who created wooden pitons and nuts. He may have been influenced by Wolf Thron, a senior math professor at CU (who was a revered figure in my small group of colleagues). Wolf also produced lovely carved wooded objects, some based on mathematical subjects.

In my last discussion with Dave he told me that working on a particular mathematical research project kept his spirits up. 

Sad.  Rest in Peace, Dave.

I got to meet and climb with him in 1975.  Howard Doyle and I were on a trip to Eldorado Canyon that June, and we contacted him.  He took us up to Lumpy Ridge and we climbed the Bowels of the Owls, on Twin Owls.  Howard had a few problems in the squeeze chimney, being an ex-football player and a big man.  Dave was really a gentleman.

Both are missed.

A young Dave Rearick...

Dave’s death is even sadder as I look back over my 60 years of acquaintance with him. I met him in a year or two after his historic 1960 ascent of the Diamond with Bob Kamps. He had just moved to Boulder, where he had accepted a faculty position in the Mathematics Department at CU. At that time, especially to a teenager aspiring to become a climber, Dave had mythic, god-like proportions. And yet, he spoke softly and humbly, as he did his entire life.

 I recall climbing on Lumpy Ridge with Dave, who had brought his famous collection of beautiful, hardwood, home-hewn wooden devices. Among the many nuts was a large, hinged gadget (a “clapper”) that worked like a cam in wide cracks. It was exactly the right piece of gear for the wide crack we climbed. The last climb I did with Dave was in August, 1985, the 25th anniversary of his D1 ascent. We climbed the North Chimney below the Diamond with my brother Roger and Dan Stone, who were headed for their project called the King of Swords. Dave and I sat on Broadway for at least an hour, absorbing the immensity of the place. I could tell that Dave was also reliving that unforgettable day, 25 years earlier, when he and Kamps were in the same place, all alone, preparing for the climb of their lives.

 I was lucky to be on Longs Peak one more time with Dave in 2012; I believe it was his last visit to the mountain. We hiked to Chasm Lake, and again I watched as Dave sat in silence beneath the great East Face. Perhaps he was quietly enthralled to be able to return to such a magnificent spot and to know the part he played in its history.

 Dave slowly gave more and more of his time to cycling, and again, he had some heroic adventures, many of which were undoubtedly unreported. His garage on Cedar Street was filled with road bikes, many of them vintage European bikes.  He often rode across Colorado and Utah to climb peaks, and then rode home. And he and John Link were among the first people to do what’s now called the Longs Peak duathlon (bike and hike Longs Peak, out and back).

 His many friends knew Dave in different ways. He was a professional mathematician, who taught decades worth of students; a master wood worker; a consummate classical guitarist; an entertaining raconteur with an astonishing memory for details. During the final decade of his life, spent in a senior living facility after a debilitating stroke, I visited Dave occasionally, often with friends who knew of Dave’s legacy: Jim Erickson, Dan Stone, Steve Levin (who inherited Dave’s classical guitar), Josh Wharton (whose father made the first ascent of Syckes’ Sickle on Spearhead with Dave). Our visits were never long enough to hear (and re-hear) Dave’s many climbing and cycling reminiscences, always in the same thoughtful, self-effacing manner. I’d like to think that those visits also gave Dave a lift and offered him a chance to look back on his remarkable life, hopefully with a modest amount of pride.

wow, what a great write up. i can't believe he hiked up to chasm view when he was around 80 years old. really cool to read about all of the other aspects of his life, a renaissance man for sure.

A Leisurely day at the Jenny Lake boulders ca1960. Dave is on the center problem of Cutfinger.

An old school mathematician, Dave had little to no use of computers. Like Chouinard in this respect. Nor did he require television. Kamps once told me that he and Bonnie visited Dave in his home in Boulder, and after dinner were invited into the living room to watch TV. But there was no TV. Make of this what you will, but for me it illuminates a certain subtle charm of my old friend, as well as Bob's delightful wit.

Dave demonstrated that one could become a highly accomplished climber in the Golden Age of American Climbing and have an entirely separate and successful working life. He was not alone in this regard. But the Yosemite elites of the Age were a mix of the working class, academics, and a smattering of professionals who devoted most of their energies on climbing goals. In later years some of those singularly devoted to climbing became very successful businessmen - Chouinard and Robbins for example.

John.  You keep seeing and re-living the path of the last chapters of many lives who have impacted thousands.  You have lived a unique life unlike almost any other.  It would seem unlike many along your timeline you still have a vision of hope for the future and have not turned full curmudgeon. I read your posts and I feel the wisdom of a very open minded individual who has much hope.  At least that's how I read it and "Thank You".