Jack roberts RIP

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MCHS

Trad climber
Longview, Washington
Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 31, 2012 - 07:20pm PT
I met Jack during high school in Santa Monica through the Boy Scouts, so my tale about him is from the early years. We learned to climb and drink beer with the same group of G & E Buffers, including my brothers Jim and Tito Black, the Jennings brothers, Dave Hanbury, Robbie Dellinger, Michael Graber, Alan Bartlett and others. Besides doing routes together at Tahquitz, we spent fun nights on weekends at the Jennings cabin in Idyllwild. Jack and I climbed an early wall for both of us in 1971 on the West Face of Sentinel. Just outside the Valley, Jack took a turn too fast and we skidded off the road into the forest. The car was damaged and would need a tow back to home for repair. However, instead of being responsible and working on the towing arrangements, we first went and did our climb. We didn't climb fast, and spent a miserable night in belay seats just one pitch from a ledge. Jack led the dreaded expanding flake pitch (see photo), and was able to reduce the zipper length risk by using nuts that we had recently added to our rack of pitons. I believe the route was Jack's first grade six. The really crazy thing was that after the climb, we were able to get Greg Jennings to tow us all the way back to Santa Monica with his van using just webbing. Without a rigid connection between the cars, Jack and I had to sit in his car, foot hovering and ready to brake instantly in order to avoid rear ending the van, Needless to say, both Jack and I were fried at the end of that drive. Of course we were all young and reckless back then. I recall that Jack's dad was mad at us and restricted his car priviledges for a while. Not too much later, Jack went off to live and climb fulltime in Yosemite, and our paths diverged. I agree about the twinkle in Jack's eyes already mentioned by others. My condolences to Pam and family on their loss. David Black


scuffy b

climber
heading slowly NNW
Jan 31, 2012 - 08:30pm PT
Mr. Cool Head Sir,

Great to see you're still on this sphere.
This is Moyles.
You and Jack inspired a lot of impressionable youth back in the old days.
Tom F. was just asking about you.

Cheers
Bldrjac

Ice climber
Boulder
Jan 31, 2012 - 08:33pm PT
Dave,
Pam here. You and I met many years before. I'll have to double-check, but weren't you at our wedding? Jack still talked of you frequently, and I had heard that story before, but not in such detail! :-) What an amazing group of climbers you guys were! Are you still in touch with Alan Bartlett? I'd love to talk to him....I suppose he's still in JT at his place. Hopefully you've seen the other threads about Jack on supertopo? Lots of great stories!
I hope you are well.......this is still so surreal for me, and can't really wrap my mind around the fact that he is gone.
much love,
pam
Don Lauria

Trad climber
Bishop, CA
Apr 18, 2012 - 07:03pm PT
Sometime after September 1968, probably in the spring of '69, a young group of three or four high school students walked into West Ridge Mountaineering, a large mountaineering retail store in West Los Angeles. They announced that they would like to speak to the owner. The owner happened to be me.

They were representing a larger group of maybe 8 to 10 students from Santa Monica High School, all of whom were Boy Scouts, and all of whom were very interested in rock climbing. They were aware that Dennis Hennek and I had put together a slide show depicting our recent scent of the NA Wall in Yosemite Valley and they wished that we might show it to their group at the high school. I was delighted to do be asked by such a serious group of young aspiring rock climbers. The show was scheduled.

As I remember it, all these guys were seniors and after graduation they all frequented West Ridge. Some of them took summer jobs at West Ridge. They made me an honorary member of the G&E Buff Club – their climbing cabal that always got naked on the summit. Those that went on to college would always come back to visit or even work for the summer.

So it was that Alan Bartlett, Dave and Jim Black, Rob Dellinger, Mike Graber, Dave Hanbury, Greg Jennings, and Jack Roberts all became friends of mine. I was 20 years their senior- old enough to be their father, but when we were together we were brothers. Dave Hanbury ended up selling me his VW van. I helped crew Jennings’ sailboat down and back from Ensenada. Graber sent me photos for years from all his mountaineering expeditions – all with him in the buff. During the 70s, I climbed the south face of Mt Watkins with Rob Dellinger. About 4 or 5 pitches up we noticed another party was on the route below us. Lo and behold, Dave and Jim Black were on our tail. Jack Roberts and I went up to do the Steck-Salathe on Sentinel early one summer. We sat down at the base to snack and Jack fainted. To this day I have no idea whether it was the heat or what, but I decided it would be best to postpone our plan. We never did climb together.

I managed to keep in touch with Graber, Bartlett, and Dellinger (RIP) over all these years, but I lost track of Jack after that fainting episode. Dave Hanbury just popped up on Facebook this year. Hadn’t heard from him in over 35 years. As for Jack, I must admit that not only had I lost track, but I was completely unaware of his range of achievements in mountaineering until now. I am ashamed that someone as accomplished as he somehow slid under my radar. I’m also saddened that we never climbed Sentinel. I’m sure that had we succeeded, we would have been closer friends - lifelong friends.

My condolences to Pam.
Don Lauria

Trad climber
Bishop, CA
Nov 23, 2015 - 12:39pm PT
Bump for Dave Black
SteveW

Trad climber
The state of confusion
Nov 23, 2015 - 02:13pm PT
And for Pam too!
Messages 1 - 6 of total 6 in this topic
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