MY LUCK & MY TEACHER
Good luck is my powerful companion. Mead Hargis was what luck turned up for me, a wannabe Ranger newly in love with a lady called Beauty that can be found in alpine meadows, salt & pepper granite, and booming thunderclouds throughout the Sierra Nevada. Mead smoothed out some of the challenges I faced as a kid trying to chase down world-class climbers in Camp 4 in order to get their 25¢ per night fees. He explained to me what “aid” climbing was so I didn’t seem quite as naïve to the men and women I wanted to emulate on the walls of
I filled in for Mead at Camp 4 for a couple of months in 1973, and learned a lot about Beauty from him. While I rounded out his beginnings in me through an entire career managing trail systems, wilderness areas, and working in protected areas around the globe, I was a lot further along for having known and learned from him at the start. I was fortunate that luck had brought me a powerful teacher. I was as lucky as the many people who crossed paths with him.
Michael Olwyler