When I started climbing at Vertical World upon arrival in Seattle some eight years ago, I remember watching an old dude picking his way along the bouldering traverse. He was spidery, with white hair and a gentle voice. Later, he gave my girlfriend and me tips on an overhanging route. We muttered that the old dude could stick a dyno better than we could!
He was a regular at the climbing gym and drove a beater, a Saab, was it? Eventually I joined the gym staff and got to know Stim better. I ran into him at the local crags a few times. He was soloing with a stick clip, something I'm not likely to do. Photos of him climbing also appeared in a few local climbing guides. I admired him for being active into his 80s.
Not being from Seattle, it was a long time before I figured out he was from one of those old Seattle families, with wealth and posterity. I happened to catch The Bullitt Foundation name on our local NPR station one day when the lightbulb went off.
I read this morning in the local paper that Stim died this weekend at age 89. I haven't been climbing at the gym or the crags for a few years, so I'm not sure if Stim was still out there on the sharp end. There will probably be some shindig to remember him to which I won't be invited. That's OK. I'll savor my memory of Stim: that awesome old dude with a gentle voice who climbed into old age like a rock star.
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