Being Early is the Same as Being Wrong
Charlie Fowler enjoys watching the author flail on an early Rifle 5.12.
I was headed to the San Juan’s for a ski tour in April 1989 when Charlie told me to meet him in Rifle. There was a new crag under development in a canyon just out of town and he wanted to check it out. Although we had climbed on the impeccable, freshly-bolted limestone in France the summer before, these routes in Rifle were steep, slippery and sequency. We both got spanked.
It was not a new experience for me, but it was for Charlie.
Charlie Fowler was the best mountain guide of my generation of Coloradans. Like me, he grew up in the South where he started climbing, and like me, he headed to Colorado after college. Also like me, he got his ass kicked on K2 but that didn’t keep him off the summit of at least three other 8000 meter peaks, including Everest.
Charlie was good at everything he did:
a talented traditional rock climber, he tallied first ascents and bold solos of classic routes throughout the West;
a premier alpinist, he was at the cutting edge on steep water ice;
a natural mountain guide, he was an early member of the AMGA and helped establish the instructor team that taught the IFMGA standard to a new generation;
a popular teacher in his hometown of Telluride, he started a high school climbing program that thrives today; and
Charlie guided movie stars and billionaires. He was smart and handsome with a dry wit that women adored.
But Charlie was always way ahead of his time and never got credit for his talent.
When Charlie soloed the Direct North Buttress of Middle Cathedral in 1977, we all thought he’d completely lost his marbles. When Alex Honnold soloed El Cap in 2017, it was a major media event.
In 1992, when Charlie and John Catto lugged their film cameras up the first ascent of Cerro Cathedral in Patagonia, the resulting movie “La Escoba de Dios” was seen by about 30 people, all of whom I know (it’s a classic, by the way). Today, the latest Conrad Anker epic premiers to millions around the globe on HBO.
When Charlie and his wife Christine disappeared on a climbing trip to China in 2006, I had to look at a map to find the Ge’nyen Massif of the Shaluli Mountains in the Sichuan province, an obscure range of unclimbed 6000 meter peaks. Charlie died there, but 30 years from now, it will probably be the Chinese version of Chamonix.
These days, if you go to Rifle on any nice fall weekend, the place is packed wall-to-wall with climbers, most of whom have the place ruthlessly dialed. 5.14 is no big deal at Rifle now and the 5.12s are warm-ups.
In climbing, just like in venture capital, being early is the same as being wrong.