The Bill Denz Appreciation Thread

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WBraun

climber

Sep 17, 2014 - 10:06pm PT

Avery

I don't remember Bill.

I remember the Zappa guy.

I watched the short film. Fuk!!! what an animal.

Bad to the bone.

Reminded me of Shipley and Charlie.

Good sh!t and tough dudes all round.

My roommate in Mammoth in the 70's one winter was Kiwi National team Alpine racer training for the Olympics.

Good people tough and just plain funny as sh!t.

Me and him walked home the 4 miles in blizzards many times drunk as sh!t back up to the mountain laughing our asses off all the way ......

Avery

climber

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 17, 2014 - 10:43pm PT

My most vivid memory of Denz came at a time when I was 16 years old and I was working for an outdoor equipment manufacturer.

We use to "help" Bill out with some gear from time to time.

He payed us a visit just days after his lengthy spell trying to solo Cerro Torre. I'm pretty sure Rob Hall was there

I'll never forget the wildness in his eyes (despite wearing glasses) and the way he held a cigarette tightly between his fingers. He spoke with a quite intensity.

I've never seen such trashed gear in all my life

This was sometime in 1980/81 (I think)

Big Mike

Trad climber

Sep 17, 2014 - 11:06pm PT

Sick thread Avery.

This is your gig. Stick to it.

Avery

climber

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 18, 2014 - 01:15am PT

The East Face of Kichatna Spire.

martygarrison

Trad climber

Washington DC

Sep 18, 2014 - 05:38am PT

Bill was leading the third pitch (A4 at the time) of NA and I was hanging in slings. Not knowing any better I was hip belaying. Bill was about twenty feet above me and he pops some stacked pins. He come hurling down past me, and goes some thirty feet. He was pissed as hell, he jugged back up to me (as I was holding him on my waist) and proceeds to get up and finish the pitch. He was like a mad bull.

k-man

Gym climber

SCruz

Sep 18, 2014 - 07:49am PT

Marty, when you told me that story, way back when I was a Freshman, I thought you were sick of mind. A true wall climber, holding a zipper on your hip as the bloke flies past the belay.

You told me the story calmly, as if it were no biggie, and you captured Denz's reaction in style. It impressed me, even to this day.

Bruce Morris

Social climber

Belmont, California

Sep 18, 2014 - 10:27am PT

I spent some time with Bill Denz in Santa Cruz in the 1978-79 time-frame that Zappa Dave describes in his Mescalito-Dawn article. I gave Bill a ride up from Santa Cruz to the Valley and noticed immediately his very non-spiritual existential approach to climbing that Zappa Dave compared to going to war. When everyone in Santa Cruz was into some higher-conscious metaphysical stuff, Bill's direct non-abstract approach to reality really stood out. Yet this quintessential hard man also seemed to have a very big heart.

guido

Trad climber

Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific

Sep 18, 2014 - 05:51pm PT

Some more tidbits of Living with Denz. Bill lived with us off and on in Santa Cruz for over a year, set himself up with a tent platform on the lower terrace and worked on a number of construction projects we were involved with from the early days of building the boat shop to some time on the boat and eventually some fun "finish" work. More on that later.

DENZ FACTOR AUSSI

This humor thing, the funny factor all started rather innocently one beautiful Spring day at Racho Bizzaro, aka the old Happy Valley Estate. I explained to Bill that in order to expand my ever growing cactus and succulent collection I needed to clear more land. As usual if it was physical and it was outdoors he was interested. Wee problem to deal with-the area was covered in poison oak and this was new to the lad from Down Under. Having been around it for years and building up a natural immunity I didn’t hesitate to dive in even though I was wearing shorts, tank top and an old pair of gloves for protection.

I did my very best to explain the inherent risk of actual contact with the deadly leaf and stems to Bill and the need to dress to the max, wear gloves and avoid touching the clothes after work. All was lost to deaf ears as he followed me into the bramble and rip and tear like a madman. Of course it was hot and we were sweating and it was hard not to wipe your face with your shirt. I nearly died when he stopped to take a leak and laughed when I admonished him for his lack of concern. “She’ll be allright mate” the here all and be all kiwi disdain for one’s concern.

Bill was living in a tent out on the terrace below the house. Next morning he was late for our normal cuppa and philosophical rantings to solve the world problems. So I ventured out to his tent and tried to wake him. The face that appeared was foreign to me and I was at a lost decipher the mumblings of an obviously distressed soul. Swollen beyond recognition, with wee slits where once there were bright inquisitive eyes was none other than the man himself. Humor took over sympathy and my “I told-you-so” warnings got the better of me and I couldn’t stop laughing. I said you think your eyes and face are bad, wait until you need to take a piss. You won’t even recognize it.

Couple gallons of Calamine lotion, 5 days of the old Corticosteroid treatments and he was back to new. Alas it wasn’t beyond me to ask on a regular basis if he was up for anymore garden clearing. Chuckle chuckle. “You’ve got to get a lotion, a Calamine a lotion, you can look but you better not touch”……………….

Avery

climber

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 18, 2014 - 06:50pm PT

Hey Guido, that sounds like vintage Denz!

Thanks for the story.

martygarrison

Trad climber

Washington DC

Sep 20, 2014 - 06:28pm PT

Found a couple more pics - Not great

Lorenzo

Trad climber

Oregon

Sep 20, 2014 - 06:34pm PT

Brian Dyson, Al Haye and the partner that Bill had the accident on Tis-sa-ack with. I think his name was Tony.

Tony Rickert on the left.

DC -Seneca guy. Climbed quite a bit with him. Did the prow one summer with him right after he did Zodiac.

martygarrison

Trad climber

Washington DC

Sep 20, 2014 - 06:35pm PT

Bill was the only guy I climbed a wall with who insisted we carry a head of cabbage.

Avery

climber

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 20, 2014 - 08:14pm PT

Thanks Marty, don't worry about the quality, these pics are pure gold.

martygarrison

Trad climber

Washington DC

Sep 21, 2014 - 12:09pm PT

Avery

climber

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 21, 2014 - 02:41pm PT

Thanks Marty, for another great pic.

TrundleBum

Trad climber

Las Vegas

Sep 21, 2014 - 04:02pm PT

I knew him briefly from the Santa Cruz connection
(Mark Grant and the climbing shop)

Quite a character, plenty stories. Most not fit for print :)

I remember once somebody in S.C sitting around squishing a tied up condom.
Asking WTF they were doing I was told it was full of hash oil.
"Where did it come from?" I asked...

"Out of Denz's arse, with a bunch of others!" was the reply :0
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For a summer I lived (illegally) in an old beat up station wagon with Alaska plates. The vehicle was sold by Denz, to Deb Slevin who left for the summer. So I commandeered it, taped up all the windows with news paper and crashed in it for the summer.
(within view of the San Lorenzo river mouth/sand bar:)

Then the 'Slev was coming back to town so I tried to go to San Fran to get her at the airport. The frigg'n thing did it's last death throes on the 101 that afternoon :0

Avery

climber

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 21, 2014 - 04:29pm PT

Hey Trundlebum, can you remember who that someone was?

guido

Trad climber

Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific

Sep 21, 2014 - 05:10pm PT

Here is a wonderful slice into the life of Bill Denz from our very own "Life is a Bivouac."

"So, Joe Mckeown tells me he’s got an injured climber, a foreigner, recuperating at his house and I got’a meet him…
Bill was an amiable guy, stout, muscular, hairy, and thick, with a strong Kiwi accent and a devil’s glint in his eye… He could have very easily been a pirate or put in a white shirt, council to a U.N. Commonwealth’s envoy… he “clunked” around the decks at McKeown’s house on crutches telling us stories of his solo on the Caroline Face of Mt. Cook, clearly favoring his one leg, he gesticulates wildly, free hands forming ice slopes and seracs; he’d pulled off a good one, a plum, and put his name smack in the spot light of New Zealand’s top alpinists.

He wanted to impress us, naming off first ascents in New Zealand, as well his desired conquests in Yosemite, but his physical presence was impressive enough, his drive seemed really quite sincere. Now in the states he had time constraints, this accident put him off, he had to get back to Tis-sa- ack. Only just being stopped, thrown off schedule by a weighty flake that nearly guillotined his leg off whilst on the face of Half Dome. (I guess McKeown thought we’d make a good team)… We did have a lot in common, desire to explore the big mountains; it’s not often one meets an adept fellow traveler fluent in the techniques of big walls and big mountains. We were both unencumbered, but always on the lookout, ( though prowl may have been a better term…).

Wrapped bandages, girting his thigh, hid the many layers of stitches the Doc’s in Yosemite installed to keep his leg together, muscle layer to muscle layer, as the contusion went to the bone. Bill did mention he had tried to “date” one of the Docs, as she was very pretty, but circumstances over rode his attempt… It was the height of summer on the central coast of California in Santa Cruz, and women are drawn to the sun, surf and sand of the Cruz; Bill’s gauzed leg opened many a pick- up line that led to nights of drink, drugs, and debauchery. Alas, we were not high rollers and could not compete with the cocaine offered up by guys with real jobs and cash flow; he and I hit more on the athletic out door girl. He told me he had “gone out” with Miss New Zealand back at home and preferred the lusty busty wench type over the skinny coked out lounge lizards…

His leg got stronger, the crutches gone now. Hiking along the coast built back the connectivity of muscle, as well, sessions of bouldering on the Santa Cruz campus. He was of course very competitive, bouldering included, but I could out reach him, and his leg still gimp, so he rarely had a chance… We had a lot of fun together, we were becoming good “mates”…

When talk came around to climbing Bill was always dead serious, his desire to climb the big faces of major mountains was the theme he loved… the Super coulouir on the Fitzroy was even then on his mind; but the Tis-sa-ack had put him on his butt, so he and I focused on that. Tis-sa-ack was a Robbins route, cutting edge of the time; ours was to be the seventh ascent.

The climb was hard, it went in three bivies; the weather changed while we were on the wall to early winter like conditions; and it was early September. It snowed at our elevation the night of our first bivy, and since the sun only hits the face at about 3:00 pm, we suffered a bit… Bill’s drive was apparent from the start of the climb: As we hauled our gear up and through the approach slabs, the haul line started to fray. (A barrowed rope). After hauling the first pitch, the sheath deformed, and the core was thinly veiled. We needed two good ropes to continue… Bill was pissed and hyper.
So we rapped down a single line and he coiled the frayed thing and started down the approach slabs to go back to Camp 4 to barrow yet another line from friends… That was late afternoon on our approach day; he was back the next morning by 9 am.

The cold slowed us down and the route tricky, such that, as the sun went down on our third day we were less than 300 feet from the top. It was Bill’s pitch, a shallow dihedral, before he’d gone 30 or 40 feet it was dark, and we of course did not have headlamps with us… with the darkness, the cold intensified. He used an old trick of grazing the rock with his hammer to produce sparks and with this faint lighting finished his pitch about midnight atop a saddle like horn. I cleaned the pitch in similar manor; we froze our butts in the darkness, torturing each other with dreams of the hot sunny beaches of the Cruz… With the dawn, we saw verglas coating the summit overhangs, a short pitch, just 100 feet to the promising sun light. Somehow I managed to nail those last obstacles clipping into fairly new bolts right over the edge of the dome… We were both happy men.

After this climb Bill stayed in the valley, El Cap in his sights, and I returned to Santa Cruz. My plans were to go to Chile the next year with Charlie Porter to climb a face on the Fortress in the Parc Paine. Bill returned to Santa Cruz with similar goals up in the Fitzroy area of the Patagonia. We had been working as carpenters for Peter Haan through this time and Bills demeanor had changed; from my point of view, he was harder and harder to talk with, be with. Perhaps his successes in Yosemite coupled with his new goal of soloing the Super coulouir on the Fitzroy pumped his ego into a less than perfect sphere. Of course a healthy ego, even a large healthy ego is required to contemplate and execute extreme climbs. I feel he went fully into competition mode with every one around him… Often talks about gear or food preferences on a climb turned to arguments, which city had the most beautiful women, heated disagreement, perhaps he had just out grown me as a friend… Or I him…

Years later I was living in Bishop. I’d just gone to the Post office to get my mail, and was standing in the late afternoon sun on Line St., when I read he had died on Makalu in an unfortunate accident. It was a slab avalanche that swept him over an edge, easy ground, walking… sort of like Buhl…"