L-R: Bill Bryant, Mike Fain, Bob Schluter on summit of Peak 4 overlooking No Name Basin, San Juan Needles, Weminuche Wilderness Area. L-R:  Windom, Sunlight, Needle Ridge, Peak 11, Thumbs, Glacier Point.                                  Photo: PG


L-R: Bob Schluter, Pete Gardiner. Summit of Humbolt Pk. in the Crestones on a cold and windy day.                                                                       photo:MF


Bob Schluter was a physicist at U.C. when he climbed with us. I believe he also climbed with the CMC in the USA, and extensively in Canada with the ACC. Here is the most recent letter from Bob:

  

Mike Fain, Pete Gardiner, and all,  

I have enjoyed bringing back into mind the Colorado trip of 1955.   We probably tried to do too much, three large mountaineering regions in a week or two. 

During the summer of 55 I was on my way to the faculty of MIT, a great teaching institution. from where I carried out elementary particle physics experiments at Brookhaven and Berkeley.  Then (62) to Northwestern, using the accelerators at FNAL and Argonne.  The huge high energy particle experiments involve scores of researchers and years until a result.  About the time i retired in 1992 I shifted to hydrodynamics with a collaborator, George Bankoff, in the engineering school.  We had a NASA grant supporting experimental research on the excitations of flowing mercury films in vacuum and in presence of high electric fields (this had to do with space vehicle cooling).  In experimental hydrodynamics we could get a result in a few months.  Three reasonably useful Ph D theses.   Not at the fundamental frontier of physics, of course, but

Took some satisfaction in cheering on and advising for some years the independent student paper at Northwestern, the Chronicle and the Review.

As for mountaineering, I continued to go to most ACC camps and also with ACC members on smaller expeditions:  Howson Range in the Coastal range of BC with Alex Faberge and Rex Gibson, and interior ranges of BC, first ascent of Mt. Chapman, with Alex.  As Mike Fain must recall, Alex was a perfectionist, somewhat fanatical in his pursuit of wilderness skills.  I recall that at the ACC Ice River camp Alex and I spent some hours trying to rig a floating log guided by ropes to achieve crossing of a formidable small river by getting a rope across; couldn't make it work.  My son Jon went along on most of the later ACC camps.  I also have done some climbing in Europe, most memorably, led a climb up and down the Zmutt ridge of the Matterhorn.

I sent by postal mail to Pete in Fanwood, NJ, a cd of photos from 1955.

Warmest regards,

Bob Schluter