8 minute read
The Next Taste - Holiday Edition 2021
by Robert Mills
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Photos by Robert Mills
“ Wake up”, my father shouted toward my bedroom, “we have to get going so we can get to the top before the snow gets too deep.” It was early on a Saturday in mid-winter in Morganton, North Carolina, and I was in the second grade. Thus, began my mountaineering career, now spanning 65 years and counting. My father instilled in me a deep love of the outdoors and nature, taking me nearly every weekend to climb in the mountains of North Carolina. I have since climbed hundreds of inspiring peaks in North and South America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, including 56 of the 57 Ultra Prominent Peaks in the Continental U.S. These so-called “Ultras” are not the highest peaks above sea level, but the “biggest” mountains, measured from base to summit, the true measure of a mountain. People ask, “Doesn’t it get old, climbing all those peaks year after year? Don’t you eventually get, well, bored?” No! Every time I reach a summit, after hours, or days, of sometimes arduous climbing, and step up onto that highest point for many miles in all directions, and look out upon a vast landscape of nature, I get a deep thrill and experience a sense of connection with the universe and the grandeur of nature.
This year, I soloed five of California’s 14,000foot peaks. I prefer to climb with partners, especially my son, and cherish the deep and rewarding conversations I have with my partners in tents, on trails, and by the campfire at night. But given how often I climb (being retired), and how busy many of my younger climbing partners are with careers and families, I often end up going it alone.
Today’s technology has made mountaineering much safer. Devices the size of a cigarette lighter, which utilize satellites -- no cell coverage is needed -- and relay to rescuers your exact location, enable climbers to simply push a button to initiate an immediate helicopter rescue. My device, called an InReach (by Garmin), also provides the latest weather forecasts.
I use my InReach to text love notes to my wife while lying in my sleeping bag in my tent far into the wilderness. We sometimes chat into the night. I sign all the summit registers “Robert Loves Miriam”, upward now of 200 such summit signatures.
An experienced team invited me to join them climbing Mt. Cleveland, an Ultra in Glacier National Park. The route involves a 1.75 milelong horizontal ledge, less than 8 inches wide in places, known as “The Traverse of Death” because climbers who slip fall thousands of feet to the White Crow Glacier below. “What is the, er, plan for the Traverse?” I asked, hoping, given their immense experience, they had a way to make this safe.
“We have it all figured out!”, they said. “Whew!” I thought to myself, relieved. “How?” Long pause for effect. “Just don’t fall!” they shouted in unison, then broke into uncontrollable laughter at my expense. In their defense, they were extremely helpful and solicitous of me on the climb, even using their bare hands to brace my feet on the vertical sections. We made it.
After graduating from law school in San Francisco I set up a law firm with two friends in a Gold Rush era building on San Francisco Bay. After several years, I took some career detours, first trying my hand at restoring derelict Victorian office and apartment buildings to their former glamour and splendor. I then had a run at operating a securities and investment firm which grew to 350 registered reps. There, I oversaw the financial planning for thousands of San Francisco Bay Area families. I also pioneered a new trading platform for secondary market limited partnership securities which became the largest in the world (not saying much, given how tiny THAT world was).
Eventually, I returned to my true love, law.
Since my graduation from the University of California at Berkeley, my passion had always been to use my law background to help people. To further this ambition, I set up a consumer class action law firm, which I operated for 30 years, and at its peak employed 17 lawyers. We represented employees, investors, consumers, and just regular folks who were the victims of fraud, corporate mistreatment, or malfeasance.
To get our team to court hearings all over California, I got a pilot’s license and bought a pressurized 6-seat airplane. (This was before we had awareness of the climate crisis.) I used the plane, a Piper Malibu Mirage, to fly to meet witnesses, clients, and attend hearings. I could get six lawyers to multiple hearings in court houses all over California, and back home in a single day. We all had a LOT more fun traveling this way, chattering to each other on our headsets while sharing our experiences coming and going.
I also used the plane to fly on all sorts of adventures. My wife, Miriam, and I once joined three other couples, each in their own plane, on a 21,000-mile adventure around South America. We rendezvoused in Panama and then flew together in a little swarm, exploring and seeing the sights on guided tours, like in Quito, Ecuador, where we all posed together straddling the actual equator, with one foot in each hemisphere.
We worked our way down to Ushuaia, Argentine, the southernmost city in the world, at the tip of Patagonia, then flew up the east coast, touring the great cities, including Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. Next, we headed over the vast Amazon wilderness toward Manaus, Brazil. There we were caught up inside a dark, ferocious thunderstorm where marble-sized hail smashed against the plane with a deafening roar amidst blinding flashes of lightening. Brutal turbulence nearly flipped the plane upside down again and again. Just when I thought all was lost we were unceremoniously spit out of the side of a towering thunderhead into blinding sunlight. We flew on to Venezuela, where we visited Angel Falls, the highest in the world, then hopped up the Caribbean islands to Florida and home. What adventures we had!
Early on, I joined Angel Flight, a nationwide organization of thousands of pilots who volunteer their time and aircraft to fly indigent patients for free from rural airports near their homes to airports near urban medical centers and back. Angel Flight flies over 5000 such missions a year, mostly for impoverished cancer patients. I flew Angel Flight missions for over 22 years, an extremely rewarding experience.
For a time, the US military would not fly wounded soldiers from their military bases to their homes, so Angel Flight stepped in and flew these injured warriors back and forth to see their families. I joined that operation and once flew a marine stationed at Camp Pendleton, who had sustained a serious eye wound in Iraq, home to see his family in Saratoga, Wyoming. My son, also in the military, went along and the two young soldiers bonded immediately. As we approached the tiny Saratoga airport in the wilds of Wyoming, it was dark and had begun to snow. I turned on my landing lights and squinted into the darkness trying to see the unlit runway in the blizzard of snowflakes. Suddenly, the entire runway was flooded with light as dozens and dozens of cars parked alongside the runway all turned on their headlights at once.
The whole tiny town had turned out to welcome their young warrior home. I taxied to a stop at the ramp in the now swirling blizzard as a wall of people ran toward the airplane. I quickly shut off the engine just we were engulfed by an enormous crowd of
neighbors with flowers, balloons, and signs welcoming the young injured soldier. I opened the cabin door to flashing cameras, wild cheers and then long heartfelt hugs of the soldier from his family and friends. My son and I were guests of the town for dinner and lodging for the night.
There were many rewarding Angel Flights over the years. The flights with small children with cancer were always moving, but sometimes heart-wrenching.
Miriam loves exotic foreign adventures, and we have visited over 50 foreign countries together. She has an interest in people still living traditional lives outside the modern world, with no cell phones or motorcycles. We have had many fascinating and moving visits with such tribal people in extremely remote villages in Namibia and Myanmar. We have visited many others who utilize a few modern conveniences, but who still live largely outside the modern world in Cambodia, Bolivia, Bhutan, Ecuador, and Tanzania.
Always an enthusiast of the history and lore of San Francisco, I joined City Guides, a non-profit sponsored by the City of San Francisco, with 300 plus volunteer guides who lead over 60 different free walking tours, covering many fascinating aspects of this amazing City. See sfcityguides.org. I lead several different walking tours and serve on the Management Board.
In response to climate change, my wife and I installed rooftop solar panels which enables the sun to power our electric cars. I also serve on the Board of the Solar Rights Alliance, representing 1.2 million Californians with solar power, seeking to meet the challenges ahead by lobbying in Sacramento for renewable energy solutions. My wife and I have been involved in volunteer activities serving our community, but none has been more enriching than mentoring two “Little Sisters” as part of Big Brothers Big Sisters, the nation’s oldest mentoring program. Our Little Sisters became cherished members of our family.
When Miriam was named Big Sister of the Year for the U.S. in 2008, then President George Bush, long a champion of this program, invited her and her then Little Sister to the White House to celebrate with him. I tagged along, and we all had a heartwarming and inspiring Oval Office visit, including a private tour of the Rose Garden by the President. We are proud of the amazing persons our Little Sisters have become and look forward to many more years of sharing our lives and love with these inspiring young women.
