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Ksolem
Trad climber
LA, Ca
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I met Yabo a couple times. Just superficially, at Stoney. But he was stunning in his fitness and presence. It is not very often that someone's passing means much when you didn't know them, but I was affected when Yabo left.
Lynn Hill's book is a great read and insightful. There's stuff in there about more folks than Yabo. Like Largo too.
(Anyone besides me think maybe she was a little hard on Dean?)
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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I didnt know yabo, just heard the stories. Deep sadness. Here is an excerpt I wrote about another friend who suffered the same fate. It was a story on UT climbers trying to describe and honor some of the past climbers of the Wasatch. Not trying to hijack the thread from yabo but this discussion is wandering and I think it can wonder in a direction that may help the living.
"I didn’t stay in touch with Lynn when I moved away from SLC. I heard he worked at BD in the early 90’s and most unfortunately, I heard that he took his own life. If you have ever been at a friends service, it all comes back to you, all the times you have shared, the times that you should have shared. All of the dead persons friends say nice things about the guy. These are things that you should have said when they were alive. I didn’t make it to Lynn’s service and I know I am many years late, “Wheels, I didn’t get to climb with you much buddy, but I enjoyed the times I did have, and you were a hell of a climber. I just wish I could have been a better friend.” Wheels routes are still up there. I think he even managed to put hangers on those bolts."
If you have ever been to a friends service, you always hear the great things that people say about that person and it is too late. We can do nothing for our fallen friends and loved ones. But we can do something about the living. Let us try and spread the love now, while it means something to those around you...
Sometimes, all it takes is a smile to warm the heart of a stranger. That stranger may be facing inner demons that are fighting within to end their own lives. Depression is a disease that kills, a thing that makes the person think they are wearing sh#t colored glasses. Smile and be nice folks....
Peace...Yabo, may your spirit live on...
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can't say
Social climber
Pasadena CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 8, 2005 - 10:44am PT
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Yabo's energy is out there surfing in his next life.
Photo by Bullwinkle
hey gneiss, I was talking to Mo yesterday, about this thread and the different posts, etc. and he wanted to know, if you were sleeping on that triangle ledge, why you never said a word? No "are you OK", no "do you need any help?" No nothing.
Care to comment?
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Trashman
Trad climber
SLC
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One more in the "pills aren't for everyone" camp. depresion sucks, but i wouldn't trade the motivation i've learned to gain from it for anything. I agree w/ the "spaced out" comments above, and feel that i've achieved a much more sustainable peace by traveling through this world un-aided.
that said, if they work for you, i have nothing against their use, just get tired of people toting it as a cure all.
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
Lake Oswego, Oregon
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Not to be cruel to Yabo, but last time I checked he was always on some form of psychotropic. Would ML exist if not for his "vision?" My point is, John under script would not be Yabo. Why not move this tangled thread to a better home... say www.howdrugssavedmysoul.com and leave this board clean to honor the man not the condition?
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Gotta add to Golsens hijack (more of a tangent really)
Lynn, Wheels, Wheeler was a good friend of mine. During the four years I lived in Salt Lake he was apt to be my main climbing partner at any given time.
I met him in Yosemite a few years earlier. We shared a site in ‘Sunnyside,’ for many weeks. It was at least three weeks before I met him, he was that reclusive, but when I ran into him in SLC we picked up where we’d left off.
He had climbed a Lot. He had an ecyclopedic knowledge of the desert and the wasatch. On an early foray (almost a decade before the first desert Rock book) to Indian Creek I asked him on the drive, if he would, to jot down any Indian Creek info he cared to share. At that time all I knew was how many cracks away from supercrack something was. He filled a notebook with Indian Creek, Desert tower, Zion and Wind rivers lists and Topos.
He had about the best foot work I’ve ever seen, when Fires came out we still couldn’t touch his EB moves.
A Machinist, he made the first over-sized cams I ever used.
He had a sense of humor that few really appreciated. Once, on an ascent of the Good Book as a party of Five, we sprawled round the top in a semi-comatose state, when Wheel’s woke us up with. “F*#k it, it let’s go for the Rim!” The first words he’d uttered all day.
another time, on Chouinard Herbert, he followed up to my belay below the Afro Cuban flake, his lead, muttering to himself, “redrum, redrum, redrum.”
A true friend, he went up to the Owl with me when he clearly would rather have been anywhere else. He climbed Blind Faith on the Rostrum with me as well, but he got to lead the 1,1/4” pitch so I didn’t feel too bad.
Were there signs?
Sure.
His painful shyness, uncomfortableness in crowds (like five people at a table in the caff) weren’t dead give aways. But I had to wonder when I was finishing sentances for him, and he was letting me, in public. He could be quite atrticulate when it was just the two of us. Other people noticed things.
I was sitting in Walt’s Van one morning, enjoying the Walt Show as he geared up to solo The NA wall. He was in full manic mode. Wheels walked by in an almost turrets-like state. “Your buddy is really twisting,” said Walt.
Wheels would sigh and moan at wierd times. Once when he was in a job placement program he began a rant out of the blue about, “Unemployed guys that kill themselves, f*#k those losers.” Where did that come from? I wondered.
I didn’t find out about his death, at his own hand, until months after it happened, I had moved to Phoenix and hadn’t climbed with him in almost a year. Will Gilmer told me while we were bouldering in Queen Creek.
It didn’t surprise me, but I really didn’t expect it.
We talked awhile and hoped that somewhere, Wheels and Yabo were giving each other a careful belay.
edit
OOps Left out a poignant, tale.
Late one afternoon in 82/83 Lynn showed up at the door to my apartment in SLC, I was running late to meet my wife for an Aerobics class, of all things.
"hey Wheels, what's up? I'm running a little behind ... "
He looked at the floor and adjusted his glasses.
"I turn thirty today."
Aerobics could wait. I brought him in and had him sit. All I had to offer was a can of Macadamia nuts and a mini bottle of rum (a gift from a relatives recent trip to Hawaii)
We ate nuts and took tiny sips of rum and made it last about an hour. I had to go after that, as I was my wife's ride. Wheels seemed happier and said he had somewhere to be but I nver knew if he really did.
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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jaybro,
I share your pain. I wrote a story about climbing with Lynn over at utahclimbers dot calm in a wasatch history thread.
I dont know about the rest of you, but when I have friends that pass away early, there seems to always be regret that I didnt say more to them. Tell those around you that you care about them....
Peace
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can't say
Social climber
Pasadena CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 8, 2005 - 04:26pm PT
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Lois, I'm not sure if I believe in re-incarnation or not, but it does present a mo-betta way of looking at what happens to us (or our energy) once we check out of this life IMO.
What I do know is we produce energy, some good, some bad, and that energy goes somewhere when we exit our corporeal form. I just like to believe that somewhere is a positive place.
YMMV of course
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Gramicci
Social climber
Ventura
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Today was first time I happened upon this thread being new to ST. it took quite a while to absorb the tales and fond memories and it stirred up mine. I only feel I can say this because John was a close friend and in my impulsive nature I can’t bite my tongue.
He knew he made a mistake in that last fleeting second. He had survived relationships before, he was really stronger than all this chemical deficiency theory. He just made quick decisions maybe you could say he was impulsive. Sometimes his decisions turned out good which lead to his greatness. When they turned out bad he was fortunate a friend was close buy. When a friend wasn’t there, he had the cool enough head to save himself. Once he rapped off the end of his rope on El Cap when he was with me, it was some damm quick reflexes that got him to grab the rope as the end went by… Thinking to turn for the tree failing to solo “Short Circuit” was the act of a level head. All of us standing there had to omit the episode was pretty funny. But seriously,
I’ll tell you all why he was smiling in that picture, its simple…A close friend caught him loving every minute of life.
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BeBe
Sport climber
Phoenix
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Nov 10, 2005 - 11:46am PT
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May the spirits of Yabo & John Waterman live on!
(As should all of us who go way too soon.)
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hooblie
climber
from where the anecdotes roam
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Sep 23, 2010 - 05:35am PT
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linkity bump
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1007918&msg=1009673#msg1009673
yabo had an easy cordiality with the revolving occupants in the valley. formalities were quickly dispatched, and the business at hand commenced straight away if you were primarily a mark. three or four times he managed to extract a loan or often a straight gimme, and he did it with a winning style, as if he was letting you in on an opportunity best kept on the down low.
as much as i wanted to write off whatever i was relieved of, in order to not feel perturbed, he would at some point pop out of the blue and make good on the deal. and that's when he really had you, it had been an opportunity ... to have sketchy faith rewarded does add a little leavening to the day
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
ne'er–do–well
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I happened to see Bachar and Yablonski leaving Degnan's deli together during the fire of 1990.
Sort of like the end of the dream.
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