Update: Wendy Roberts

Wendy with dinosaur (footprint only)

Bozeman, Montana

20 April 2011

Hey everybody,

I miss Kathy and Hope and had a good cry on the anniversary of their death. Glad you are all getting together, and sorry I am missing the gathering! I’ve been living in Bozeman, Montana for 16 years since I finished my PhD in biology at Berkeley.

After Kathy and Hope departed this realm I turned to Zen Buddhist practice in my grief, and the practice stuck. I started a small Zen group in Bozeman, and in May I will travel to Zen Mountain Monastery in the Big Sur mountains for a week retreat with two of my dharma sisters from Bozeman.

I’m now in my seventh year as a consulting biologist, a surprisingly ‘real job’ that I seem to have settled into. I mostly manage a lot of projects while chained to my desk – largely by choice as I don’t want to travel much while raising kids. I do a little field work, including a trip to southern California this spring to look for habitat for the barefoot banded gecko. I’ve also worked the last year-and-a-half helping a small hydroelectric project in Nepal get through environmental compliance so it can be funded be the Asian Development Bank. So far no trip to Nepal, but a girl can dream.

 

My daughter Eleanor is 12 and currently surviving the gauntlet of seventh grade. She has a love of gymnastics, and also focuses on passions in singing, art, fashion, speed texting, make up and hairstyles. Lately we’ve even seen a spark for academic topics. She has no end of suggestions that she thinks would make her mother “look more like normal women” as she puts it.

Scott is 10 and loves school, especially math, although all things word-related appeal to him also. The other day at the ski lodge he did the Fibonacci Series in M&Ms. His teacher nominated him to spend a week in Washington, DC this summer in a program learning about American history.  He’s incredibly excited to travel on his own.

While Scott goes to Washington, Eleanor is going to a week-long residential camp for gymnastics, and Tom and I will have – ta da – five days by ourselves! This is the first time we’ll be alone in twelve years!

Tom is writing software part-time for a friend he used to work with in California, and holding down many duties as a househusband.

The thing I am most looking forward to this year: remodeling the house. Living as a family of four in essentially a 1000 sq. ft. house has gotten old, very old.

The thing I am least looking forward to this year: ankle surgery. In the fall I’ll have surgery for nasty arthritis in my ankle that is making me limp. I’m able to ski, bike, raft, and canoe; however walking again would be a plus.

BTW I miss you all and the Bozone is a great place to recreate.  Everyone should consider themselves to have an open invitation to come here and play. Also, I am very interested in joining folks for winter ski adventures if anyone is up for it!

Wendy

If you can't make the gathering

The gathering to remember Kathy and Hope is being held Friday, April 22, 2011, at Suze Woolf's home. If you can’t make the event, we hope you’ll share your stories or memories here. We’re using this blog to bring the event to you, too.

We’ll be sharing photos and slide at the event. During the party there’ll be time for anyone who is so moved to share their thoughts in person. We plan to have a camera and a digital recorder on hand. Kristen will compile those stories (tellers willing) in this space. There will also be time during the evening, and in this blog, to tell each other what we’ve been doing during the past 20 years.

If you have stories or memories you'd like to share, whether or not you can join us in person, write them up and send them to us, in any (preferably electronic) form! Send them, along with images past and present, to Kristen Laine to get them posted on the Dr. Barnes and Miss Dish blog.

We  have information about several scholarships that have been set up over the years in honor of Hope and Kathy. We plan to both pass the hat and brainstorm additional activities we could do to support these. Look for more information on those scholarships in this space.

We’re very glad you’re here.

Remembering Hope Barnes and Kathy Phibbs

From the introduction to the 1992 Women Climbers calendar.

On January 28, 1991, Kathy Phibbs, 33, and Hope Barnes, 32, were killed in a fall from Triple Couloir, an ice climb in the Washington Cascades. Their deaths have been especially hard for their communities to accept because, though both women had already contributed greatly, Hope and Kathy had much more yet to give.

Kathy was well known as a climber, guide and local character; Hope was known nationally as a two-time Olympic rower and locally as a serious ski mountaineer and climber. Both women lived intensely. When phones began ringing with the news of their deaths, we began to realize how much we had lost. These two women carried much of what we all strive for: enthusiasm, joy, perseverance, competence, integrity, and passion.

Kathy Phibbs was born August 21, 1957 in Washington, D.C. She graduated from Pomona College in 1980 and formed the Cucamonga Rambling Company to apply for a Vera Watson-Alison Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz grant. The resulting 1981 expedition made several first female ascents in Peru and Bolivia, including the West Ridge of Huayna Potosi (Bolivia). In 1983, Kathy organized the first meeting of Women Climbers Northwest. She worked as a messenger, window-washer, chimney sweep and part-time climbing guide until 1985, when she opened the Northwest office of Woodswomen. As its director, Kathy developed numerous rock climbing, mountaineering, and skiing trips and led trips to Ecuador and Denali. In 1989, she was a member of a successful all-women expedition on the Southwest Ridge of Pumori in the Nepal Himalaya. In 1990, she led 33 women to the top of Mt. Rainier to commemorate the centennial of its first ascent by a woman, Tacoma schoolteacher Fay Fuller.

It seems impossible to confine Kathy Phibbs to the boundaries of a page; in life, the mountains alone were big enough to hold her. Over 18 years, Kathy slowly discovered a place where she could dream up and live out adventures, giving shape to her fierce will and imagination. But what is extraordinary is how much she wanted to share her world with other women, and how generously she did. She taught, she gave slide shows, she climbed with friends, she listened to others' dreams. Looking back, it amounts to a sustained act of faith in herself and in other women.

Kathy took pleasure in the smallest details of climbing: after negotiating a tough move, she'd rehash it, working her hands the whole time as if she were still on the rock. She'd sit on a summit as if she belonged there, ruler of all she surveyed, a box of ginger-snaps in one hand, the other stabbing the air, naming peak after peak after peak. The self-proclaimed “old goat” loved snowy ranges all over the world, but called the Cascades her “Beloveds.” Now her Beloveds have welcomed her home.

Hope Barnes was born December 5, 1958, in Boston, Massachusetts. She entered the University of Washington in 1976 and joined the women's crew team. In 1978, she transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where she captained an undefeated crew team. Hope earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic team in 1980 and won a silver medal in the World Rowing Championships in 1981. She met Sprague Ackley on a ski trip in 1982. In 1984, she was captain of the crew at the Los Angeles Olympics. Hope entered graduate school in medicinal chemistry in 1985. In 1985-86, she chaired the Women's Olympic Rowing Committee. She skied from the summit of Nevado Copa in Peru in 1987; in 1988, she was awarded a University-wide fellowship for "scholastic excellence and general merit." In 1989, Hope and Sprague skied the receding glaciers of Irian Jaya in Indonesia. She was awarded her doctoral degree posthumously on February 8, 1991.

Hope Barnes was clear of head and clear of heart. Hope was remarkably able to know what she wanted—a berth on a rowing team, a degree, a summit—and make that knowledge come to life. She also had the knack of sharing her quiet passion for life with many people. Hope took what she learned as a scientist (persistence, thoroughness) and as a world-class athlete (focus, teamwork), and she added to them her own fierce independence and integrity.

She was a supremely competent scholar and athlete, yet always willing to take a novice climbing or listen to another idea. She wore her numerous successes and achievements lightly, giving the impression she found equally impressive accomplishments possible in all of us. Hope was a truly rare element; we have been honored to have her in our midst.