A Tribute to My Brother

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survival

Big Wall climber

Terrapin Station

Sep 25, 2014 - 09:59am PT

Cracko awesome epic bump!!!

kaholatingtong

Trad climber

Nevada City

Sep 25, 2014 - 10:31am PT

good share, nice epic final adventure, good tribute, condolences to you and yours.

Ezra Ellis

Trad climber

North wet, and Da souf

Sep 25, 2014 - 12:56pm PT

A beautiful tribute,
Awesome that you got in one last adventure !
This is Solid gold Cracko,

Sorry for your loss.

Steve's sister

Social climber

Las Vegas, NV

Sep 30, 2014 - 11:20am PT

So sorry for your loss. Brothers are unique. So happy for the memories you treasure, as these will make you smile, that bittersweet smile of loss and love. Wishing you peace and grace during your time of sorrow.

Festus

Social climber

Enron by the Sea

Sep 30, 2014 - 04:09pm PT

The most significant and memorable climbs of my life--okay, the only significant and memorable climbs of my life (with the exception of Mt. Langley last month with my young sons)--were with my two brothers. And brother Bob's tribute/TR is solid gold to me too.

Bob (Cracko) and Bruce (Jacko) were the climbers in the family, with only Bob rising to legitimate rope gun status. But my appreciation of, and interest in, climbing history came through them. What the three of us always had in common, among other things like sense of humor, was given to us by our parents through annual summer load-up-the-station-wagon-with-camping-gear-and-head-for-a-national-park-or-forest vacations: a love for wild, or at least wilder, places. We grew up in the Allied Gardens suburb of San Diego, a block from the San Diego River channel, and later a block from St. Therese Church. Middle brother Bob taught us the climbing basics, with a gold line tied around our waists, at Mission Gorge. My repeated failures on The Ramp have remained comedy gold for my brothers and our friends to this day. I remember more than a few days on that big rock/ledge below The Ramp, doing top-roped climbs left and right of that spot, as Bob introduced us and a bunch of our friends to climbing.

So that's how all three Porter brothers got to Supertopo, through an interest in, and appreciation for, climbing and climbing history. But, unlike Bob and Bruce, I'm not and never have been a climber, and only the chance to do a climb with them ever put me on a rope. I'm a backpacker, but a backpacker who got to do Whitney's east face, Symmetry Spire, and the Underhill Coluoir, with my brothers. I'll never, ever forget Bruce fist-pumping in spontaneous glee simply because of where we were--in the middle of the famed Whitney climb on the big sandy ledge you reach after climbing over from the washboard. Or sitting on the Palisades ridge enjoying the view with my brothers at the top of the Underhill with not enough daylight left to get up Thunderbolt (we, er, weren't the fastest three-man team, to say the least, especially with only Bob leading.) Or running out of daylight on Symmetry Spire and having to bivy on a ledge just over the summit with nothing but the clothes on our back (I told you we weren't that fast!). Those, and dozens of other back-country hikes and camping trips we got to do together, as kids and adults...and the ones on our bucket list to do in the future. We'll do some of those still, I have no doubt, and Bruce will still be with us, just like he'll always be on the fast-pitch diamond every time his long-time friends and team take the field for the next game, the next tournament.

My brother's TR/tribute here is right on the money, completely and totally honest, and a great and deserved tribute to a good man who always lived life the right way and made it better for everyone around him (which was a whole lot of people in his case). I'd only add that I think Bob was maybe too honest, because things definitely happened on that Conness descent that he and Bruce never, ever, ever would have done under any other circumstances.

Bruce knew he didn't have a lot of time left, the average is a few months with stage IV pancreatic cancer, and doctors talked only of buying him some time, no talk of a cure. Yet, in the months he had after that diagnosis he did a whole lot of living and truly enjoyed and appreciated the time he had left. And in that time he wanted to spend time with, and thank, everyone who had been important to him in his life (again, a whole lot of people)--that was his goal I think, a goal he accomplished to a degree I will always be in awe of. He made sure that given the all-too-tight time-line he was dealt, he didn't just thank everyone he loved, he somehow found the strength to get out there and have a great time, lots of great times, with us all. And not just doing what he loved doing, but doing what he knew we loved doing with him. What a gift!

As for the Conness descent, well--my opinion only here, but I think a valid one--what he did in splitting up with Bob was clearly irrational in any other circumstances, but understandable in this one. Without a whole lot of days left to him, his heightened concern for his friends and especially his family probably bordered on manic. And in coming off Conness facing the fact that his son was back at camp wondering where his dad was and when/if he'd return, well, Bruce's driving thought was probably that he had to get back to his son as fast as possible, no matter what. Yeah, it was irrational, with some not so great choices as a result, he just didn't want his son to spend a night thinking something bad might have happened to his dad. I only know that, having spent many (but never enough) nights out in high (and low) and wild places with my brothers, they weren't likely to ever be the cause of a search and rescue operation under any other circumstance but the one Bruce lived with so well right up to the end. And, I should add, no one was more appreciative of the entire search and rescue team and all they do, and did, than Bruce and Bob.

To the best little brothers a big brother ever had!

Steve Porter