Remembering Lloyd Balsam 1925-2010

Lloyd Balsam, a valued, long-term member of the Sierra Club, passed away on May 6 of this year at the age of eighty-five. He led his first Sierra Club outing, a climb of Telescope Peak, sponsored by the Desert Peaks Section, in May of 1948. Over the years that followed, besides the Desert Peaks Section, he went on to lead outings for the Local Hikes Committee, the Camping Committee, and the Ski Mountaineers Section. Lloyd also served the Angeles Chapter in many administrative functions: his name appeared on no less than eleven chapter entities. These included the Schedule Committee, Southern Sierran Committee, San Antonio Hut, Membership Committee, Conservation Committee, Education Committee, the West Los Angeles Group, Chapter Nominating Committee, and of course his favorites, the Desert Peaks Section (which he chaired in 1953) and the Ski Mountaineers Section (which he chaired in 1953-54). The Desert Peaks Section (DPS) was launched as a concept by Chester Versteeg in 1941, but languished in the hiatus of World War II until formalized as a Section in 1946. Only a year later we find Lloyd obtaining Emblem Status by virtue of climbing all seven of the new Section's Emblem Peaks.

In addition to chairing the DPS, Lloyd served the Section in other important capacities: Treasurer, Secretary, Vice Chair, and in arranging banquets, revising by-laws, and of course as a leader extraordinaire. In 1952 he led one of the initial DPS forays into the Sierra Nevada, a climb of The Thumb, thus participating as a ‘midwife' in the delivery of a newborn climbing entity, the Sierra Peaks Section just three years later in 1955.

Lloyd also ‘discovered' 11,160-foot Glass Mountain in northern Inyo County, being the first Desert Peaker to schedule a climb of this beautiful mountain of volcanic obsidian glass. So popular had Lloyd's outings become that he attracted 55 participants on his exploratory climb of that peak over Labor Day Weekend of 1954.

Another life-long passion of Lloyd's was skiing, as evidenced by his participation in the Angeles Chapter's Ski Mountaineers Section (SMS), an organization he chaired in 1953-54.He further assisted the SMS by serving on the San Antonio Ski Hut Committee from 1948 through 1954, acting as Ski Hut Manager for five of those seven years.

Lloyd's Sierra Club career, at least on paper, became subsumed in the mid-1950s by the responsibilities of raising a family and by his demanding vocation as a systems engineer for Northrop, however he never lost interest in his Sierra Club roots. According to Mark Goebel, 'During 1979 and 1980, a period of difficult transition and change for the SMS, Lloyd stepped briefly back into active service for the Section. He stood up for proposed changes to the way Section elections were held, and outings planned. He served on an elections committee, and greatly assisted in re-writing of the Section's bylaws and obtaining approval from the Chapter. For that period of time he was a guiding light that enabled the SMS to continue forward with new energy.'

In his later years Lloyd reflected back on his glory days as a pioneering Desert Peaker, recalling that, 'We developed and honed our desert competence and, better yet, firmed lasting friendships which are active and rewarding to this day.'