Every year we travel to Downieville to watch the Banff Mountain Film Festival movies as part of their annual tour. Downieville might be their smallest stop in the world, with a theater that seats about 200 good friends. It’s an hour drive on windy roads from where I live in Nevada City, but once we’re there it’s always a fun party, including the annual intermission frisbee-fest.
This year my favorite film was The Sufferfest, featuring Alex Honnold and Cedar Wright. You might remember Alex from all of movies and articles about the crazy free solo climbs he’s done, but Sufferfest is a different kind of adventure – he and Cedar climb all of the California 14ers, biking between the peaks.
What made it extra cool was that Schmed & I climbed these same peaks 20+ years ago, as part of a goal to summit them by the time we turned 30. And we also biked part of the way up White Mountain on our way to Barcroft right before Schmed’s knee surgery.
During the film they showed a shot of the register box on the top of Polemonium Peak, which I’d hauled up and installed in 1991. The register has a sad back-story. In 1988 Robin Ingraham was climbing with his friend Mark Hoffman at Devil’s Crag #8. A talus chute slid during their descent, and Mark went over a cliff. He was still alive, so Robin made an epic hike to get help (from back country ranger Randy Morgensen, see The Last Season) , but Mark didn’t survive the night. As a tribute to Mark, Robin started making summit registers, and I wound up getting a box from him for Polemonium.
Here’s me installing it back in 1991…
And proof that it’s still there, from The Sufferfest movie…
Good to see it’s still in place, as many of these registered have been vandalized, removed by rangers, or stolen over the years. There’s an article written by Robin Ingraham in 2008 about the history of registers in the Sierra Nevada, for those interested. What’s interesting to me is that Robin is strongly opposed to any mention of registers online, as he feels this gives would-be thieves more information about what to steal, and how. My views on this have evolved into treating registers more like prayer flags, which are left in place to fade as the years pass – I think historical records should be copied, but the originals left on the tops of peaks. If they get stolen, or water-damaged, or struck by lightening…that’s part of their story too, and someone will have to start a new register.
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You seem to understand the outcome of leaving the register on the summit forever, “if they get stolen or water-damaged, or struck by lightening….that’s part of their story too.” I fail to see how that is treating the historic document with the reverence akin to a religious experience. Candidly, it boarders on being selfish, putting a personal experience above protecting an original artifact. I clearly cover all points in my research to which you seem familiar and you are entitled to you opinion, though I believe your opinion to be flawed.