Montana Adventurer

I picked up Olin Martin early on Saturday morning, and we headed for Mill Creek’s North Rim.

As you all know, my friends Dane Scott and Ken Turley have been developing sport climbs at the North Rim for the better part of the year. They’ve been gracious enough to allow me to join forces with them, and I have been working on new routes through the spring and early summer. I have had help from excellent partners along the way, from my daughter Kate to my friend Tim Karst, who shares credit with me for two routes.

On Saturday, I aimed to add Olin’s name to the list of those working in Mill Creek. Tim and I had sussed out the moves on a new line right of No Dick Tick, a 5.8 climb Kate and I developed and Brett Klaassen Van Orschot helped me bolt. Tim and I had most of the bolt placements marked for the new route, but I still felt like it needed to be climbed a few more times before we put the drill to rock.

Olin drilling the last bolt on Ticktastic, 5.10b/c, North Rim Mill Creek

My usual partners were busy on Saturday, but I’d run into Olin in the climbing gym a few days before and he was up for  adventure and anxious to learn how to set a new route.

I met Olin more than a year ago, when a friend of his was dying from brain cancer. Noah Ginnings, something of a legend at the University of Montana, was 26 when he died, and his family graced me with permission to write about his final months. During that time, I met Olin and a handful of Noah’s other close friends.

This was an incredibly emotional time, obviously for Noah and his family, but also for his friends and, ultimately, for me. By the time Noah died, I had fashioned a friendship with Noah’s friends that endures to this day. Brett and Olin, because they are climbers, are the most obvious symbols of this friendship, but there are a handful of excellent young men I am honored to know.

Olin now works as a contract mental-health counselor for the military, and he just spent several months in Turkey, talking to our soldiers on a daily basis and helping them keep their heads straight. What we owe to our soldiers we also owe to Olin.

Olin is 22 years my junior, but he is wise beyond his years, and our conversations throughout the day touched on war, soldiers, family, parenting, fellowship, love, friendship. And oh yes, climbing.

We climbed a handful of routes at Mill, and we also climbed and bolted the new climb, Ticktastic, 5.10b/c. It’s a great line and we had an absolute blast opening it up. My heart was full, of eagles, creeks, towering rock walls and a good friend. Climbing has always been graced by the brother/sisterhood of the rope; it’s an unspoken bond between partners and it is alive and visible in the mountains and rivers that grace our pursuits.

We lived it Saturday, and after a day of work and play, Olin and I entered yet another new chapter in that brotherhood. I came away feeling that a friendship first forged in grief had been transformed into joy.

Michael Moore