Big Golden Heart

On this day I raise a horn to honor and remember

It feels like this happened a long time ago. It also feels like yesterday. And I feel it strongly every day. Sometimes the feeling overwhelms; when I hike past the Gold Heart altar, when I catch the photograph of Trav flipping off the camera that sits on my desk, urging me to try harder, all of the days when we shared a closet, when ever I use a tool that was his to work on the house that he built, and every time that I hold Blair and feel his heart beating with ours.

Six years ago I received this note from her: "Hi Mark, I have a very unfortunate favor to ask you. The mountains moved this weekend and Travis, my love, did not survive the rockfall. He has been on SAR for 17 years and they wanted to make shirts, to be thoughtful and help in their own ways. They asked to include his favorite quote on the back, ‘when the going gets tough the tough turn up the volume.’ - mft. He said this on lots of SAR calls he went on and it’s on our home gym marker board, has always been there since we made it. I know you have faced too much death and quotes are used so often. But, I wanted to ask first before they went ahead with this because I think that matters. And, I completely understand either way. Thank you. Love, B"

Of course, I said yes. And it started a cascade of feeling — of great growth and change — that has been with me ever since. With us.  

In a longer letter, Blair wrote, "When Trav was 18 he left the small community he’d grown up in, he didn’t always fit in and was ready to explore. He worked. He climbed. He read. He slept in his car at the climbing gym. He found your words. At 18, 'Twitching' became his anthem. They were words to help him not feel alone in his perspectives and pursuits. Five years later, I got to meet him. His business grown. Owned a condo. Still reading. Still climbing. Always pushing. His second gift to me was 'Kiss or Kill'. He read and reread your books. For the 10 years I got to be beside Trav, he told me that your words made him feel less alone in the world."

Her package contained the letter, the program for Trav's service, and the memorial t-shirt. That envelope was a totem to love, life and death, the meaning we give to the words and the experiences — shared and otherwise — and how those words weave into the fabric of our lives, worn and faded and cared for and sometimes cut too short.

I replied to her that I had, “spent most of the day thinking and writing (in a notebook) about words, their impact, the responsibility that goes with them, and how we never know who will read or hear or do something with those words. They were my own lifeline, my own way of howling to see if anyone out there howled in reply ... to try to understand whether or not I was alone. Thank you for hearing, and for howling back. To be understood is perhaps the strongest source of comfort in an oft-questioned existence."

We started sharing words, and photographs. Two months later we met. And talked and talked. She gave me permission to tell the story of her and Trav, of his accident, of my influence on his beautiful trajectory across the lives of the many he inspired, the lives he changed, and the ones he saved. Trav taught people to believe in themselves, he gave them tools they might need to chase the dreams they dared not until he pushed them and gave them permission, showed them it was possible.

The caveat that came with Blair's permission to share their story was simple, "Make them feel". And I did. I told it at the Banff Mountain Book Festival to introduce my talk about the power of words, their weight, and how we affect and are impacted by others. At the time I believed I had successfully navigated my final descent to the valley, and that the enjoyment and meaning I might find there would be enough. I built a monument to that journey, a book titled 'REFUGE', which I spoke about at that event.  

Shortly after the presentation I received a note that read, in part, "At times there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. You were successful in making people feel." Surrounded by the aura of achievement and overcoming, and reflecting on what I had learned and gained from climbing, I thought it important to talk about what those mountains have taken from me, from us, what it means to wake up night-sweating in a too-big bed next to an empty pillow where your husband's head used to rest. And how words that inspire and move might also save us from our own hand. I ended my shows in the 90s by projecting a list of dead friends and climbing partners. Some viewers were shocked, some counted their own friends among those listed and sat in silence, reminiscing. I have always understood the cost and never shied away from the loss that shaped us, just as surely as our accomplishments did. Surviving meant remembering, and honoring.

A year and a half after our first encounter Blair and I met again. She was stranded, waiting on a mechanic in St George to replace her truck's transmission. I drove down and we journeyed into the desert with our cameras, food, water, and no plans or expectations. We chased light and pinpoints on the map. We left the map and followed our noses. We collided, through circumstance, shared insight, experience ... our souls met and knew each other instantly. A big raven caw-cawed in the tree overhead after our first night out there together and it felt like Trav was giving us his blessing. I have felt his spirit a lot of times; he pushes, orients me in a different direction, reminds me to take care of her, sometimes admonishes, chuckles when I try but fall short, slaps my back and howls when I get it right, and thanks me for taking care of what he made and loving who he loves. Travis is gone from this plane but he (still) saves and guides daily with the example he set, and how fiercely he loved. The wake trailing his extraordinary spirit washes over us, and travels, crashing against distant, seen and unseen shores.

So on this day I raise a horn to his big, golden heart of kindness and rage.

Blair's Words to/for/about Trav

Trav's Memorial Service