It’s been over a year since I first met my friend Aaron Livingston. A little less since we first climbed together. Nine months since I watched as he soared through the air, skis hovering at eye level and completely perpendicular to the ground in an impressively (however unintentionally) wide spread eagle.
Note: this piece is published in Volume 25
Banner photo of Aaron by Spencer McKay
Six weeks since he relentlessly shoved until all the buy-ins at the poker table were his. Three weeks since I took them back from him. I was lucky that night. Despite a trademark smirk familiar to everyone who knew him, his poker face was sufficiently stony so that none of us could ever really guess what cards he was hiding.
In the final minutes of darkness just before dawn on September 5th, I learned that Aaron had fallen to his death the day prior, free soloing on Donner Summit’s Black Wall. It’s been thirty hours since I watched first light pour over the east shore of Lake Tahoe that morning, and I wondered how the sun could still rise without him. Twelve hours since four of his friends gathered on my porch and burned through hand-rolled spliffs and cigarettes, flooding our lungs between breaths spent on story swapping, remembrance, laughs, tears, and sighs amidst moments of silent reflection.
It’s been six hours since I woke up this morning and had to again face the fact that Aaron isn’t with us anymore. It’s been just a few minutes since tears last flooded my eyes and I wept for my friend.
Aaron Livingston. Photo: Spencer McKay
Aaron was one of the first people I connected with since moving to Tahoe. I was following a job offer without knowing a soul in the area, and we clicked during our first few days together working for Alpenglow Expeditions. He’d just wrapped a season guiding ice in Ouray, and though I quickly learned that he was a far stronger and more experienced climber than I, the true depth of his experience only became clear to me as more time went by. Months of friendship passed before he casually admitted to me that he’d climbed the Salathé Wall (35 pitches, 5.9 C2), an El Cap classic, alone, in a day. The only time he ever directed me to look him up online was to search for a video of him climbing a hard gear route in the desert. He wanted me to hear the high-pitched yelp he’d let out as he fell, blowing two pieces of protection before the third finally caught him. Self-deprecation was one of Aaron’s ways of reminding the rest of us that he was human.
Though Aaron wasn’t famous within the general public, you’d be hard pressed to find a well-known American climber he hadn’t shared a rope with, or a beer at the very least. He’d often refer to them in conversation by their first names, not because he was averse to name-dropping (though he was), but because, to him, they were just his friends. At times, it would become something of a game, trying to silently determine which of the incredibly accomplished mountain athletes in his broader community he was referring to. I believe that Aaron could have been much more famous if he’d wanted to be, but that wasn’t what he was in it for. Aaron was a climber because he loved climbing, and he was a guide because he loved opening the door and sharing his passion and wealth of knowledge with others. He was the first person I looked toward to help me prepare for my Single Pitch Instructor exam. He’d offered before I was even scheduled to take it.
Aside from this and an array of other smaller adventures, Aaron and I shared only one big day in the mountains together. Located just a few hours north of the Lake Tahoe Basin, Mt. Shasta tops out at 14,179 feet above sea level and boasts 7,000 vertical feet of climbing from base to summit. On just a few days’ notice, we agreed to take a shot at climbing and skiing it in a day. At the time, I was battling a high fever and a respiratory infection, and so I made sure he knew that my fitness was shot. Still, he was stoked. And while even now it pains me somewhat to admit it, I wanted to impress him.
Aaron (left) and the author. Photo: Robert Kyte
As he cruised the 6,000-odd vertical feet from Bunny Flat to the top of Avalanche Gulch, I struggled every step of the way. Having forgotten ski crampons, I was sliding and falling all over the place on the hardpack snow, miserably out of shape from my illness, running on an hour or two of sleep in the back of my car, and fueled by a few sips of water and maybe half an apple. I began to feel the altitude as low as 10,000 feet, and his misinformed assumption that I was crampon-savvy led him to sit and wait for thirty minutes as I spat out green-brown chunks of phlegm, clawing my way up the gulch.
“Dude, did you just front-point the entire way up here?” Aaron asked incredulously when I finally reached his rest spot and found him sitting cross-legged on a rock, casual as ever.
“Yeah, I did,” I replied between ragged breaths. “This is like the third time I’ve worn crampons. What was I supposed to do?”
“You haven’t heard of the French step?” he said, before the realization hit him. “Wait…did you front-point the whole time on Cotopaxi? And Orizaba?”
I nodded. His look of surprise quickly turned to a grin, and he laughed at my massive, albeit needless efforts while I lay on the ground next to him, sucking at lungfuls of thin air.
The next few hundred feet passed much more quickly thanks to Aaron’s guidance, but my slow pace ultimately cost us our summit bid. Nonetheless, there was no more skiing to be gained by continuing up. A thousand vertical feet of dirt and scree lay between us and the summit, and so we decided to start our descent from the top of the West Face. We commenced with a spicy entry chute and an unnecessary additional jump-turn I added solely for the sake of one-upping my friend. The pain and suffering of the ascent faded away as we carved and slid 6,000 feet back to the base in near-perfect conditions.
If he was disappointed about our failed summit attempt, it never showed. We both agreed, and discussed often in the time since, how it was one of the most fun days of skiing we’d ever had. By the simple act of being himself, Aaron took one of my most challenging days in the mountains and placed it firmly amongst my fondest memories. And while I used my last shred of energy to drive the nearly five hours back to my home in Tahoe, Aaron began prepping for another summit bid with clients slated for the next day.
In his absence, I suspect that Aaron will rarely be far from my mind each time I go to the mountains. The experience of losing a friend and mentor such as Aaron is much like driving toward a glass window: I didn’t know it was there, and then suddenly, it shattered. All those who knew and loved him are left now to pick up the pieces.
A hard man on the outside with a sharp wit and cowboy persona, Aaron was kindhearted, gentle, sweet, sincere, loyal, and as powerful in both body and spirit as anyone I have ever known. He loved hard and in return was loved with equal intensity.
It’s been over a year since I first met my friend Aaron Livingston. In that time, I witnessed him attract a circle of partners and friends held together by a shared love of showing up and trying hard. Though I will forever carry the weight of Aaron’s death and questions of what more I could have done to prevent it, I will continue to look to him as a beacon in times when I wonder why I’ve pursued this life. Aaron served as an indisputable example of how the unique combination of passion and presence of mind can fuel a life worth living.
Today, though the sun shines dimmer without him, the warm glow of Aaron’s memory leaves the world a brighter place. I will miss him.
A childhood spent climbing magnolia trees and brick walls in North Louisiana led Robert Kyte to eventually pursue peaks taller than Mt. Driskill, the state’s highest point at 535 feet above sea level. A final frozen push on all fours to the summit of Cotopaxi, three months living in a tent in Nepal, and a global pandemic that left few viable job options for a fresh college grad was enough to convince Robert to commit himself to full-time mountain life. He now lives in California on the north shore of Lake Tahoe, where he works as a writer, photographer, and marketing coordinator for Alpenglow Expeditions. Robert honors Aaron’s memory by showering less often and going all-in on the first hand of poker just to set the tone. You can see more of his work at alpenglowexpeditions.com/stories.
This piece is published in Volume 25 of The Climbing Zine. Score a copy here.
