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mastadon
Trad climber
Tahoe
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jun 26, 2008 - 08:52am PT
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Yikes-I just had this emailed to me....
Mead Hargis 1948 ~ 2008 John "Mead" Hargis, superb climber, dad, and heroic heart, left this world June 18, 2008.Born Nov. 2, 1948 in Yakima, Washington to John Hargis and Ann Mead Hargis, Mead enjoyed growing up with his younger sisters where he played and worked in the family orchard. By his teen years, he was becoming an avid skier and mountaineer and started working as a summer mountain guide. In the late '60s, he was lured to the challenging Big Walls of Yosemite where he established a number of first ascents. His passion for climbing led to his work as a rescue ranger. After graduating from UC-Berkeley, he returned to Yosemite and served as a backcountry ranger, paramedic and law enforcement officer. He was a solid, safe climber and skier and a patient teacher to friends and colleagues. He was known as the cop who was so helpful that some speeders, told that their behavior endangered the park's wildlife, even thanked him for the tickets he wrote. Over the decades, he participated in hundreds of rescues. Many are the hikers and climbers who were grateful to see him ski out of a whiteout or rappel down a cliff to their aid. He loved to sew and was known for his innovative designs for back-packing gear and paramedic bags. Wildflowers and botany were also among his many self-developed areas of expertise. Later, when he had the choice to climb Mt. Everest or start a family, he and his wife Christina Devin chose to have a family and had two wonderful daughters, Heather (1985) and Laurel (1987). Once the girls were born, they were his compass and provided the heart and soul of his life. Before pursuing graduate education at Utah State University, Mead worked for the Mono Lake Committee in Lee Vining, California. From 1992 to 2005, he was a wilderness manager for the US Forest Service in Kamas, UT where he was known for his practical jokes, integrity, and collaborative work. Mead is survived by his daughters Heather Beitler (Paul) and Laurel Hargis of Arizona; sisters Helen Hargis and Mary Jean Taylor (Neil) of Washington; partner Connie Bullis of Utah; niece and nephews; and his precious grandchildren Chase, Joe, Aubrey, and the baby on the way. His parents and beloved nephew Scott preceded Mead in death. As much as he hated to leave his work, creative projects, skiing and climbing, friends, coke and chocolate chip cookies, he was especially sorry to leave his children and grandchildren. Even as illness took him from us, it was clear that, in his increasingly private world, he still helped his friends with building projects or skied the endless powder chutes, his generosity and joy in physical challenge undimmed by his confinement. Tho' much is taken, much abides: and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Tennyson, Ulysses A service will be held at a later date at Yosemite. In lieu of flowers, donations to the Yosemite Assoc., P.O. Box 230, El Portal, CA 95318 (209-379-2646) are encouraged.
Published in the Salt Lake Tribune on 6/22/2008.
Guest†Book ï Flowers ï Charities†
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Jun 26, 2008 - 10:07am PT
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That's bad news. Mead was still a young man.
My condolences to his family and friends.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 26, 2008 - 10:29am PT
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my sympathy goes out to family and friends,
Ulysses - Alfred Tennyson 1842
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle —
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me —
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 26, 2008 - 10:41am PT
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his Valley first ascent list
Chopper 5.10c FA 1971 Mead Hargis Rick Sylvester
Cristina 5.11b FA 1971 Mead Hargis Dave Davis FFA John Long
Peter Left 5.10c FA 1971 Mead Hargis Kim Schmitz
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Jun 26, 2008 - 10:50am PT
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Sh#t, this is bad news, he was always a nice bloke. RIP Mead
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L
climber
Eating sand on the shores of Malibu...
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Jun 26, 2008 - 11:38am PT
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What an amazing man Mead was. My sincerest condolences to his family and friends.
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nita
climber
chica from chico, I don't claim to be a daisy
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Jun 26, 2008 - 11:56am PT
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Steve Grossman's beautiful words - in a Previous post about Mead.
Those were the days......Mead was the first climber/ranger that I can recall interacting with in the early seventies. He was kind of like an older brother in charge of the kids. Camp 4 was a great amoeboid of boundary stakes and the individual campsites were completely funky and homespun. The sites came together as climbers scavenged tables, coffins and the other various doodads necessary to a proper home on the range! Arizona Avenue, complete with the street sign, was my home away from home for several seasons. Up the draw, first boulders on the right heading into camp.
Mead came around to collect the camping fees every morning at about 8:30. Usually, the place was a ghost town with only newcomers and those too wasted for easy evacuation being forced to pay. Everybody else hung out for the sweep and came back to bed. If Mead saw you a couple of hours later there was never any friction or BS with respect to his position or authority. He simply did his job gracefully.
The offset to looking the other way while fee collecting was the ready help that the denizens of Camp 4 would provide in the event of a rescue. We were all willing to help out and repay the favor when somebody was in trouble. This graceful rapport between NPS and the climbers had everything to do with Mead and his way of conducting his business. He really cared about everyone involved and it showed. Yosar would be a very different outfit without Mead's groundwork.
Rest in Peace *Mead*...my sincerest condolences to his family and friends.
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Shaft
Boulder climber
SL,UT
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Jun 26, 2008 - 12:26pm PT
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I was asked by a friend to give advice on purchasing a starter rack and she had found a Craigslist post advertising some gear. Upon arriving we learned that the seller was Meads friend and was selling the used but well-cared-for gear on Meads behalf.
I find it somewhat fitting that we placed the gear on some routes in Squamish in the days preceding Mead's death and on a route (Diedre) that Mead had undoubtedly climbed in the past.
I did not have the privilege of meeting Mead Hargis, it sounds like the loss is mine. My condolences to his friends and family.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Jun 26, 2008 - 12:33pm PT
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Mead came to the Valley right at the beginning of the 70s when we were all in that awkward age around 20, trying to make sense of our lives and being pulled every which way by the explosive energy of Camp 4. We all grew up together, and in that time with so many different possibilities, Mead seems to have made all the right choices for a full life. My condolences to Mead's family.
Sincerely, Roger Breedlove
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pakmat
climber
ca
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Jun 26, 2008 - 12:42pm PT
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Now this is the Yosemite community I have always dreamed of, Mead I am truly sorry I didn't get my act together and dirtbag long enough to meet you.
These are the post's that make me realize how tight a scene climbing can be. Impressive how well you all know each other. Along with the impressive individuals.
condolences,
peace
matt
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 26, 2008 - 01:07pm PT
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I'm very sorry to hear of Mead's death, and my condolences to his family and friends.
As with so many others, I knew him slightly in Camp 4 in the 1970s. He did a fine job of looking after something of a monkey house.
He also contributed to the evolution of climbing at Squamish, with the first ascent of the Black Dike in February 1970.
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Carolyn C
Trad climber
the long, long trailer
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Jun 26, 2008 - 02:16pm PT
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Very sad news. My condolences to his family and friends.
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nita
climber
chica from chico, I don't claim to be a daisy
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Jun 26, 2008 - 08:21pm PT
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bump
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Scared Silly
Trad climber
UT
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Jun 26, 2008 - 10:51pm PT
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My path crossed with Mead's later in life, when he was working on the Logan Ranger District here in Utah. We worked together on the climbing management plan for the City of Rocks. It was a great to meet Mead cause you see he happen to do a few routes over in North Eastern Oregon in the 70s which is where I did some of my early climbing. When we realized this we had a nice chat about these little known climbs and the fun we had on them. Like others have said Mead's genteelness shined through above everything else.
Walk peacefully through the wilderness Mead.
Allen
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Anne-Marie Rizzi
climber
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Jun 26, 2008 - 11:15pm PT
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Condolences to all friends and family.
Anne-Marie
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georgiegirl
Social climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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Jun 30, 2008 - 12:14am PT
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Thank you all for writing about my dad, he was a great man and I will miss him more than I can say. If anyone is interested, you can visit his website at http://meadhargis.last-memories.com to view pictures and post memories. It would mean alot to me and my family if you have any other stories about him. There will also be a memorial service held for him in August near Mono lake.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Nov 16, 2008 - 09:56pm PT
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Simple yet beautifully written.
Thank you.
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Jim Pettigrew
Social climber
Crowley Lake, CA
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Nov 17, 2008 - 12:25am PT
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It is with great sadness to hear of Mead's untimely passing! I like many knew Mead from the early seventies until I lost contact with most of my friends upon moving to a permanent lifestyle in Mammoth Lakes. So surprised am I to hear this news and especially saddened that one so capable, caring, and talented was taken from us by this really disturbing disease.
My condolences to Mead's family.
Sincerely,
Jim Pettigrew
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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Nov 17, 2008 - 02:36am PT
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My condolences to family and friends.
I talked with him in Camp 4, but never climbed with him. As the California assistant editor of the AAJ back in the 70s, I edited most of his first ascent reports.
Sad indeed.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Nov 17, 2008 - 03:01am PT
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Mead was not simply a "solid" climber as the initial bio says, he was a phenomenal climber. One day Mead and I climbed the Meat Grinder. In no way do I exaggerate when I say he walked up the crux, on lead, putting maybe one or two pieces in for protection, not even raising a drop of sweat, as best I could tell. The best climbers in the Valley, and I climbed with them all, couldn't have done better. He was a skinny guy but really tough. He had practiced a bit of karate and one day in Camp 4, needing a dummy to practce on, demonstrated a side-thrust kick to my shin. It was all harmless play, but I got a sense of the power in this seemingly very light, fragile-looking sort of guy. He wasn't fragile but strong. I have thought of him often and will continue to remember this dear friend, one of the really good souls of that land of eternal youth, Yosemite. I say "eternal," because the members of our climbing family don't really ever die. They stay with us, in our thoughts, in our hearts, forever.
Pat Ament
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