You can read the full tribute to Climbers We Lost in 2024 here.

David Rearick, 92, August 21

David “Dave” Rearick climbed across the western United States, but there was no mountain that captured his imagination more than Longs Peak (14,255ft) in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Rearick, who was born in Illinois and raised in the flatlands of Florida, didn’t taste the mountains until he was a teenager, when he attended summer camp at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park. “Dave used to tell this story, about how he and a friend snuck out of the camp, and hiked to the summit of Longs via the Cables Route,” recalled longtime friend Bill Briggs. The two boys found their way back in the wee hours of the morning, after the whole camp had mobilized to search for them. But whatever punishment he received, Rearick clearly thought it was worth it. Later that summer, he snuck out again with a buddy and climbed the 1,000-foot Alexander’s Chimney (5.5), with “just a few pitons, fifty feet of rope, and a hatchet,” said Briggs.

After graduating from college at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Rearick later earned a PhD in mathematics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Like TM Herbert, he was a prominent member of the “Golden Age” of climbing in the American West, putting up hard lines with homemade gear on big walls throughout the late 1950s and ’60s.

Among Rearick’s early noted efforts was the first ascent of Sykes’ Sickle on Rocky Mountain National Park’s Spearhead (12,575ft) in 1957, accompanied by a crack team of Richard Sykes, David Isles, and John Wharton. Two years later, Rearick and Royal Robbins made the first ascent of The Vampire (5.11a) at Tahquitz. Though the men aided the 5.11 sequences (the route’s first free ascent didn’t occur until 1973), the 400-foot route did require 5.10 free climbing, which in 1959 was at the cutting edge. The following year, Rearick and Robbins teamed up for the East Chimney of Rixon’s Pinnacle. Rearick and Robbins, in their classically understated style, called the 350-foot feature 5.9. (Today it’s graded 5.10a and is considered Yosemite Valley’s first 5.10.)

That August, a decade or so after his teenage scrambles on Longs, Rearick made the proudest ascent of his career, partnering with Bob Kamps for the first ascent of the Diamond, the mountain’s legendary 1,000-foot East Face. At over 13,000 feet above sea level, the Diamond is by far the highest, steepest wall of its size in the contiguous United States. In 1960, it was the hardest unclimbed wall in America. Kamps and Rearick’s success, which took them three days, received national acclaim. A gaggle of reporters met them on the summit, and the effort was covered in newspapers coast-to-coast. The men were given banquets and a personal parade around Estes Park, sitting in the back of a convertible like returning war heroes.

This direct route up the Diamond, today called D1, didn’t just net Rearick climbing fame, it also landed him a job. The dean of the University of Colorado in Boulder had been following the ascent, and offered Rearick a position teaching mathematics there in 1961. Rearick accepted, and remained a member of UC Boulder’s faculty for the rest of his career.

Briggs, whose father also taught at UC Boulder, met Rearick at a faculty event shortly after the D1 ascent. “He was pretty shy, and he was eager to just stand over in the corner and talk to me about climbing,” Briggs recalled. “I was maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, so being able to sit and talk to Rearick was really special.”

Briggs went on to climb with Rearick on many occasions. He fondly recalled a romp on Lumpy Ridge, with Rearick making use of homemade wooden chockstones and camming devices. “He was putting these hand-carved wooden things in those cracks, I couldn’t believe it,” Briggs said. “But he trusted them, so I did, too.”

Never afraid to attempt bold climbs, Rearick operated with a sense of composure and sangfroid that kept his partners at ease even in hairy situations. “He was always quiet, reserved,” said Briggs, “but extremely methodical, and thoughtful. He didn’t move fast on the wall, but everything was planned and under control.” Rearick was “a meticulous man who had good manners,” recalled Pat Ament for Boulder Weekly in 2019. “He was professional, with a clean appearance and high character.”

Rearick remained in Colorado for the rest of his life, putting up routes around the West, but notably in Rocky Mountain National Park and the Eldorado Canyon area, where he established, among other early 5.11s, the route Beagle’s Ear (5.11a) with George Hurley in 1966. He also frequently collaborated with Bob Kamps, his trusted partner on the Diamond. The pair made the first ascent of the West Face (5.11a) on Dark Angel in Arches National Park, Pearly Gate (5.10b) on Tahquitz, the Original Route (5.10b) on the Sore Thumb in the Needles, and the first ascent of the Cathedral Rock Mace with Herbert, among a slew of other stout efforts with little protection. In 1965, Rearick and Bob Culp also ticked the first free ascent of the infamous Layton Kor/Gerry Roach line T-2 (5.11a R), in Eldorado Canyon.

Beyond climbing and math, Rearick was a talented woodworker, a classical guitarist, and, in his later years, an avid cyclist. He was one of the first people to complete the Longs Peak Duathlon, cycling 40 miles from Boulder to Longs Peak, climbing the mountain, and cycling back to town. On a Mountain Project memorial thread, friend (and fellow mathematician) John Gill told a story of Rearick cycling all the way to the Canadian border. Briggs said he’d heard Rearick may have ridden his bicycle all the way to Florida once, as well.

After a stroke in his early 80s, Rearick lost much of the use of one arm and leg, and moved into an assisted living facility. But even as his physical health declined, he maintained a keen intellect, and was remarkably cogent even in his last years. “He could tell you stories about climbs he did back in the late 1950s with incredible detail,” Briggs said. “His mind was so sharp, it was unbelievable.” Ament echoed this. “He and I talk[ed] often on the phone, and he [had the] same amazing memory for detail. He can say the exact date of almost any event in his life.”

Briggs said what he remembers most about his late friend and mentor was his humility. Despite putting up many of the hardest climbs in America at the time, Rearick kept a low profile. Few of the students he taught during his decades at UC Boulder seemed to be aware their professor was a legendary rock climber. Rearick was soft-spoken and low-key, said Briggs, and never boasted or bragged about D1 or any other ascent. “I remember visiting him in the last years and hearing his stories of old climbs, and they were always good,” said Briggs. “He was just this approachable, modest guy. One of the most humble people I knew.” Dave Rearick died on August 21, aged 92. He is survived by his sister, Dorothy, as well as four nieces and nephews.

In Rearick’s report on D1 for the American Alpine Journal, he wrote that he believed “climbing the Diamond will always be a serious undertaking. I doubt if there will ever come a time when climbers will cease to be impressed by this great wall.” Today, over half a century later, his words still ring true.

You can read the full tribute to Climbers We Lost in 2024 here.