Passages/Remembering Ron Young

Ron Young on his 70th birthday, November 3, 2004 Photo Credit: Mary McMannes

The three climbing sections of HPS, DPS, and SPS, bid a fond farewell to an all around good and mellow guy, and one who had many quips and one-liners, Ron Young. Ron passed away on Sunday, September 27th, after losing the battle with non-smoker's lung cancer. He was a favorite M-rated leader who led many up desert and Sierra peaks mainly in the 1980s (and often with friend, Jackie Van Dalsem.) Not only did he lead some peak ascents, but he was a BMTC assistant leader for four years (the parent of WTC, mountaineering training course.) Ron was most proud to have finished the Hundred Peaks List in 1982, and later shared a Desert Peaks List Finish with George Toby on Waucoba in 1995.

When I hear Aaron Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man, I think of people like Ron who came from good and hearty Midwestern stock. His childhood was rough with the loss of his mother when he was nine; and later as a teenager, he found himself cast out and homeless. The Air Force saved him and later sent him to UCLA where he received a degree in accounting. Ron remarked that his real life began when he joined the Sierra Club. Known as Ron Ron, he had a penchant for being mischievous and puffed out his cheeks (to our great annoyance) when he'd see us girls eating desserts or second helpings at the lavish DPS potlucks. It was a climb on Cloud's Rest where Ron sat on the summit puffing out his cheeks anytime a hefty round figured person came over the top. He wasn't being mean, but it was one of his jokes to get a rise out of the rest of us. If anyone used an unusually big vocabulary word or a phrase in French or Spanish, he'd quip, And if you do, you'll clean it up. Whenever departing a climb, a dinner, or a hike, his signature line was, And don't forget to write.

There are several stories about good ole Ron Ron, but Edna Erspamer captured his one act of heroism in saving Edna and Renee Spargur after a harrowing, freezing and sleety day on Mt. Goddard (in the High Sierra.) The three returned to a wet tent and equally wet sleeping bags, where Renee was definitely in the first stages of hypothermia. Ron managed to get himself and the girls wrapped into the driest sleeping bag, and they cuddled all night thus saving Renee's life. During Ron's last two months of his terminal illness, his one bright and shining moment was seeing that story in print, on p. 69, in Edna's tell-all book, Getting High In the Mountains. Ron was proud of many things that a poor boy from Beaver Falls, Pa., had accomplished, but they were minor compared to being known as a climber, a peak bagger, and a mountaineer. Eivor Nilsson led several peaks with Ron and acknowledged that he was an excellent route finder and dependable in bringing people to the summits and back to their cars, safe and sound.

Sad to say, his ashes won't be scattered on his favorite peak, Mt. Baldy, but maybe we'll take his floppy hat and old lug soled boots up there for one last hike.

He'll be interred back in the family cemetery in Beaver Falls, where good folks will visit him often. Ron returned to his high school reunion, year after year, looking eternally young but more proud of the fact that he was a California mountaineer and had climbed some of the big ones. I hope his family will inscribe on his tombstone, Ronald Young, Going to the Mountains Is Going Home. He'd like that, and John Muir would have surely enjoyed knowing a good man like Ron who loved the mountains and his mountain family. For all who knew Ron, A funny, nice, unpretentious guy is a joy, forever.

Rest in peace, Ron, and by the way, don't forget to write. -Mary McMannes