Chaitanya Sathe | April 4, 1984–August 24, 2019

Group selfie on Mt. Hood.

by Maureen O'Hagan

At first, it seemed incongruous: a man, dressed mostly in white, sitting in the back of the Holman Auditorium, smiling. The rest of the crowd was grim-faced, here to remember their friend and fellow Mazama, Chaitanya Sathe, who had died in a hiking accident on Aug. 24. Yet this man in white was Chaitanya’s father. And here he was smiling as he sat through dozens of photos of his son on mountaintops. He smiled when mourners approached to say, “I’m so sorry you lost your son.”


For a moment, Ramesha Sathe would stop smiling. “Don’t be sorry!” he would exclaim. He gestured up towards the screen, at the slides showing Chaitanya smiling, too. Here’s Chaitanya smiling at the top of Mt. Hood. There he is smiling in Ouray. He’s smiling on Three Fingered Jack. And in the Grand Canyon. And on Broken Top, Mt. Adams, Mt. Rainier. The list goes on. As Ramesha Sathe could see, his son’s life in the mountains was a good one.

ICS Photo by Justin Colquhoun.

“I think he just felt really alive and felt like he belonged there,” Chaitanya’s girlfriend Kaitlin Rupert said. “For him, the mountains weren’t something to conquer. He would tell me he loved the mountains, he felt like they loved him, and they’d been very kind to him.”

It felt, in some ways, that these weekends in the mountains—weekend after weekend after weekend—were getting him closer to his spiritual goals, she said. He’d return from each climb and thank the mountain gods for letting his group pass.

He took BCEP in 2015 and applied to dozens of climbs afterwards, getting mostly rejections. He struggled, at first, to find climbing partners. Chaitanya was an introvert who confided in friends that he felt socially awkward. And yet to climb, you need partners. “He forced himself out of his own comfort zone,” said his friend and climbing partner, Ryan Gwillim.

He was both safety-conscious and studious. When Chaitanya joined his first Hood climb led by Rico Micallef, he was slow, but told Rico he dreamed of climbing Rainier. “I can tell you right now, that is not a Rainier pace,” Rico told him. “Chai took it to heart.”

He worked on strength, speed, skills. He was always asking questions: What can I do? What can I learn? What do you think of this? Why don’t we do it this way? By the time they climbed the Devil’s Kitchen Headwall last winter, Rico said, “he took great pleasure in smoking my ass to the top.”
He wasn’t just getting faster during this period; he also seemed to be growing more vibrant, Kaitlin and Ryan agreed.

Kaitlin Rupert and Chai.

Chaitanya was more than a climber, of course. He was a math nerd, a computer geek, a native of India who went to Illinois for a PhD and landed in 2014 at Intel, where he made many friends. He worked as an optical proximity correction engineer, a job that entails identifying patterns and compensating for image distortions that occur when printing elements of electronic circuits that are infinitesimally small.

In other words, he was smart as all get-out.  In his apartment, Ryan said, there must have been 1,500 books, mostly math and mountaineering. Chaitanya had a full-sized easel set up with paper to scribble on—Sanskrit, high-level math problems, stuff that no one else could understand. He’d work through a problem, tear off a sheet, crumble it up and toss it in the corner, moving onto the next problem and the next. “He’d do this for fun,” Ryan marveled.

Chaitanya wasn’t the sort of person who’d hide his true self to please others. There was an authenticity and honesty about him that drew people in. Even if, sometimes, it meant he told people things they didn’t necessarily want to hear.

Chai in his element on Mt. Hood.

His Hindu faith played a big role in his life. “His spiritual beliefs were such that he didn’t want to hurt anything,” Kaitlin said. “Part of that involved being as open and honest as possible because he felt it was hurtful to lie to somebody and not be authentic.” She valued this kind of honesty, and his willingness to share what he learned, too.

He would tell Kaitlin that we are not our bodies, that there is no permanence. She supposes now that’s what his father was thinking as he sat in the back of the auditorium, smiling at all his son had done in this life.

The morning he died, Chaitanya and Ryan were walking down to the Lower Gorge at Smith Rock. Ryan said he didn’t see his friend trip, didn’t hear a grunt or a yelp. Ryan said some people have wondered why they weren’t tied in, but if you’ve used this trail, you know it’s not a place where people commonly rope up.

“This was just a freak accident,” Rico said after he’d seen the place where Chaitanya fell. “We’ve all slipped on these kinds of trails, and 98 percent of the time, these slips are no big deal.”
To him, that makes the loss all the more upsetting. Sometimes, climbing accidents offer lessons. But what could be learned from this? Take 3rd and 4th class approaches even more seriously? That’s important, but it didn’t feel like enough.

Photo: Phil Lamb.

For Kaitlin, the fact that this was just a freak accident offers a bit of solace. There are no recriminations, there is no blame, no second-guessing, no what-if’s.

“It’s possible it was just a really beautiful day,” she said, “and he was looking up at the clouds.”

Susan Nelson-Jones | Feb. 6, 1933–Dec. 20, 2018

by Keith Mischke

Mazama Susan Jones-Nelson passed away Dec. 20, 2018 at the age of eighty-five. She was born on February 6, 1933, in Vancouver, Washington and passed away in Bend, Oregon after a short illness. Her 85 years was a life lived to the fullest! A defining event in her life occurred as a teenager when she was selected as a counselor at Camp Tamarack in the central Oregon Cascades. Being a city girl this was her first real exposure to the out-of-doors. She was immediately taken in by the beauty of the forests, mountains, and rivers. The rest of her life reflected this love.
Susan had four daughters: Shannon, Heather, Kelly, and Erin, in which she instilled the love of the beauty of nature. Susan was a teacher in the Portland area schools. She was a talented artist specializing in pottery, quilting, beading, and painting. Susan was an avid reader enjoying many subjects.

Susan joined the Mazamas in 1976 after climbing Mount St. Helens. With the Mazamas she served on the Banquet, Nordic Skiing, Whitewater and Outing committees and was elected to the Executive Council in 1984. She taught climbing, nordic skiing, and whitewater rafting. She was selected to be a climb leader when there were not many women leading climbs. She led many new members on their official membership climb. It was during this time that she met Mazama Lon Nelson. They were married on June 18, 1988.

After her climbing career was over she and Lon enjoyed traveling in the Southwest in their RV, taking cruises around the world, and admiring the views from their home on the Deschutes River. Her many Mazama friend’s lives were enriched by knowing this very capable lady.

Dr. Edward "Ed" McAninch | Nov. 9, 1925–Dec. 27, 2018

Ed McAninch, Dick Miller, and Jack Grauer at the
May 2018 Mazama Annual Celebration.

Longtime Mazama Dr. Edward “Ed” McAninch passed away on December 27, 2018. He was 93 years old. Known as an enthusiastic outdoorsman, Ed joined the Mazamas in 1966. Besides climbing, Ed hiked with the Osprey’s and was active with Boy Scout Troop 312. Fellow Mazama Ray Sheldon remembers meeting Ed on a climb of North and Middle Sister in the late 1960s. During the climb, a fellow mountaineer fell and broke his pelvis. Ed, a trained medical doctor, stayed with the man during the descent, providing care and camaraderie to a fellow climber. Ed earned his Guardian Peak award in 1966, his Seven Oregon Peaks award in 1970, and his 16 Northwest Peaks award in 1978. Ed and his wife of 66 years, Eddie, traveled the world extensively, with Ed’s adventures taking him to all seven continents over the course of his lifetime. In 1976 Ed stepped up to help lead a Mazama Outing to the Swiss Alps after the unexpected death of the outing leader in a car crash. Working with a foreign exchange student he knew, Ed was able to make the necessary arrangements and communicate with both the Swiss and the French.

Ed, undated.

Ed served on the Climbing Committee between 1971–1974. In the early 1980s, Ed helped revive the mountain rescue group that eventually became known as Portland Mountain Rescue. Ed was very proud to have helped save volunteer-based mountain rescue on Mount Hood. He served on the Mazama Executive Council between 1983 to 1985, serving as secretary in 1985. Ed was a staunch defender of the environment and participated actively in political demonstrations. While on the council, he helped facilitate the Ellis Trust. The trust awarded twelve thousand dollars that year to protect areas on the Sandy and Deschutes Rivers as well as buy the tract of land to preserve the Pillars of Hercules in the Columbia River Gorge. In 1988 he served as chair of the Bylaws Committee and was a member of the Nordic Committee. Ed remained active in the Mazamas, attending many Classic events and luncheons in recent years. In keeping with his love of the outdoors in general and the Pacific Northwest in particular, his family will host an outdoor celebration of life in the spring of 2019.

Neal Keefer, 1947–2018

Longtime Mazama Neal Keefer passed away suddenly on December 5, 2018, while on a bike ride. He was 71 years old. Born in Portland, he attended Sunset High School, Portland State University, and earned an Engineering Degree from Portland Community College. He made a career in design and management working for area shipping and manufacturing companies.

Neal joined the Mazamas in 1982 after completing a Mazamas Basic School climb of Mount Hood. Over the next thirty years, Neal was active across the organization. In 1988 he joined the Lodge Committee, where he served until 1993. In 1991 Neal started leading hikes for the Mazamas, he led twenty-six hikes over the next twenty-one years. In 1995, Neal became a Mazama climb leader and over the next ten years he led, or assisted on, climbs up peaks across the Northwest.

In 1994 Neal joined the Conservation Committee. As chairman, he tackled a diverse array of issues ranging from testifying against the expansion of the urban growth boundary, protesting the Forest Services timber sale at Enola Hill, supporting the Oregon Clean Streams Initiative, and combatting the expansion of Mt. Hood Meadows ski area. Neal’s efforts on the Conservation Committee earned him great respect among the Mazamas and they showed their appreciation by awarding him the Montague Conservation Award in 1997. He later rejoined the Conservation Committee in 2004 and helped co-organize and run the Melting Mountains Conference in 2007, which first brought awareness of Global Warming issues on glaciers and mountains to the Mazamas.

In 2008 Neal joined the Outings Committee, served on the Mazama Mountaineering Center’s Solar Panel Task Force and was an instructor for the Nordic Ski School. Neal also served on the Bylaws Committee in 2011 and the Governing Documents Committee in 2012. He will be deeply missed by the Mazamas community.

There will be a memorial service for Neal on December 29th at 4:00 pm at the Milwaukie Community Club, 10666 SE 42nd, Milwaukie (SE 42nd and Jackson). His family asks that any remembrances be given in the form of funds or elbow grease to environmental preservation causes. 

Lewis McArthur | May 22, 1917–Aug. 29, 2018

by Craig Chisholm, Mazama Lifetime Member

The Oregonian had a well-written article, worth reading, describing the accomplishments of this remarkable, good, honest and honorable man: historian, compiler of Oregon Geographic Names, mountaineer, and more. I wish to add for our particular audience a description of what I saw of his life as a mountaineer.

Lewis McArthur and my father, Colin Chisholm, a fellow member and a past president of the Mazamas, were the best of friends. From my earliest days, I can recall my father speaking of “an outing with Lew this weekend if the weather permits.” Those two mountaineers led myself and others on wonderful adventures into the hills, climbing, hiking, and camping. These were always of some effort, sometimes wet and cold character builders, and ever lessons on the skills of mountaineering and of conversation. It was during that “second golden age of mountaineering,” when the first ascents were being made of the last great peaks when permits and passes were unknown, and the height of conservation was to burn your trash and bury your cans.

I can recall many stories told by Lew and his friends of the “greatest generation” about their times in the war, particularly of Lew’s days as an army intelligence officer in the wind-swept Aleutians, awaiting a landing from the Japanese grand fleet. History, politics, and poetry, of which Lew had a great store from memory, as well as manners, climates, fire-building, and governments were among the topics. All the while there was the teaching of the ways of the mountains: routes, considerations of equipment--mostly WWII surplus, the weather, technique, and the conditions of the mountains. Sometimes, after safely down to the timber after an unsuccessful attempt but sulking in our tents, he would philosophize that “the mountain will still be there.” These were happy times, filled with the best of memories.

When last we spoke Lew was delighted to recall those memories in the mountains. He smiled as they crossed his mind. He didn’t have a favorite peak he said, each climb was remarkable in its own way. He also gave the advice that if you climb without haste, plan well, and take care to every step you can pretty much go anywhere. In all our adventures he would follow Edmund Whymper’s sage words, from the first golden age of mountaineering:

“Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.”

One climb, which I most indelibly recall, toward the end of Lew’s climbing career, was a glorious climb of Hungabee, above Lake Louise. In perfect weather, he led us across the mountain’s face on narrow ledges that dropped off to eternity. Approaching the summit, we both mistook the route and ended up at a strikingly steep pitch. To my immense relief, Lew thought better of it, we retraced our steps and successfully tried a more cunning and prudent approach. In all our years, though sometimes cold and damp, we never had a serious accident nor a cross word. Lew was a good companion in our close community of mountaineers. He had a remarkable intellect and was a reliable, steady climber.
The times we had together in the mountains were one of the greatest of life’s gifts. But all created things change. We may grow old, even too old, but still remain the pleasant memories of the days in the hills.

Lewis L. McArthur joined the Mazamas in 1964 and was a member until 1987. In 1991 wrote an article titled “Silcox Hut: then and now” for the 1991 Mazama Annual. Many will remember him as the featured speaker at the Mazamas Centennial Celebration in 1994. Besides the Mazamas, Lewis was also a member of the Alpine Club of Canada and the American Alpine Club.

Jim Craig | 1921–Oct. 25, 2017

Longtime Mazama Jim Craig passed away at the age of 96 on October 25, 2017. Mountain climbing and downhill skiing were Jim's passions. Jim joined the Mazamas in 1954. He received many Mazama climbing and leadership awards including the Guardian Peaks in 1955, the Oregon Cascades in 1957, and the 16 Major Northwest Peaks in 1959. 

Jim was a lecturer and instructor for the Mazama Basic Climbing School between 1959 and 1972. With his good friends, Don Eastman, Clint and Dorothy Harrington, and his children, he climbed well over 150 peaks and skied at over 140 areas in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The First Baptist Church in McMinnville will hold a memorial service at 3 p.m. Friday, November 17, 2017. Memorial donations are suggested to the church or scholarships for kids through the McMinnville Kiwanis Club. To leave condolences, please visit www.macyandson.com.   

Lonay “Lon” Nelson | Dec. 29, 1930–Oct. 11, 2017

Lonay “Lon” M. Nelson, age 86, of Redmond, Oregon, passed away on October 11, 2017, after an unexpected illness. Son of Arthur and Bernice (Weiler) Nelson, he was born and raised in Forreston, Illinois.

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin Madison with a BS in mechanical engineering, he served as a Second Lieutenant in the Army Engineering Corps, stationed in Germany. After discharge, he spent his working life as a mechanical engineer and manager of production facilities in Scotland, Belgium and the United States, ultimately retiring to his playground in Central Oregon.

He was a seeker of adventure, spending his free time in the mountains and on the rivers of the Northwest. Lon was a lifelong Mazama member, having joined the Mazamas in 1971. He was an active climb leader from 1977 to 1992. He earned the Guardian Peaks Award in 1976, the Oregon Peaks award in 1977, and the 16 Major NW Peaks award in 1977. He was awarded the 5-point leadership award in 1979, and the 15-point leadership award in 1989. He served on the Mazama Executive Council from 1983 to 1985, was Mazama Treasurer in 1984 and 1985. He also served one year on both the Whitewater (1987) and Financial Affairs (1987) Committees. He was the coordinator of the Intermediate Climbing School in 1977. 

In addition to climbing all 16 major NW peaks, he rafted most of the NW rivers, taking many along with him and regaling others with tales of his travels. He completed his bucket list by circumnavigating the globe, with a side trip to Antarctica. Other passions included music, wilderness conservation, snow skiing, canyons of the Southwest and his beloved 1966 Sunbeam Tiger.

He is survived by his children, Brent, Blair, Lauren, Sander, Miel; his wife, Susan; and her children, Shannon, Kelly, Heather, Erin; his first wife, Priscilla Nelson; brother, Canden Nelson; sisters, Darlene Demetrick and Caroline Kilgore. Brother, “Bud” Nelson, predeceases him.