Michael practicing direct aid technique at Devils Lake photo:PG
Michael leading at Devils Lake photo:
MICHAEL FAIN Michael was a
cofounder of UCMC. He was already a proficient
climber when I joined UCMC, but patiently honed his skills through the
years, always thinking ahead. For example, in the first photo above,
Michael is practicing direct aid technique (while I lazily put it off).
Likewise Michael led the way in mastering the art of safe and efficient
belaying, rappelling, Jumaring / Prussicking, dynamic belays, alpine
self-arrest, ... , in sum: the art of climbing.
Michael was the
person you turned to when you were learning how, and
had some questions. He was also our best all-around climbing leader.
Then John Gill
showed up, and blew us all away. And shortly after John,
the Second Wave: Rich Goldstone, Steve Derenzo, ... ; and then the
Third Wave: Pete Cleveland, John Stannard, ... . And so it was, that
the Ancients soon began to have difficulty following the Upstarts'
leads.
Which is exactly
as it should be.
In Michael's own
words:
Michael Fain
Shortly
after entering the University of Chicago in 1952 I met classmates Ron
Hedl and
Bill Bryant, returning Korean War veterans.
Ron had just gotten interested in climbing, and Bill, I believe,
had
climbed on Mt. Fuji. Never having done
much that was physical I was intrigued by Ron’s enthusiasm for climbing
and
joined him and others on a foray to a quarry southwest of the city. Besides a resulting rash from a sitting
belay in the midst of poison oak, I was hooked on climbing. We read everything that we could find about
climbing, and started going to Devil’s Lake for practice.
Around 1954, in order to find more climbers,
we organized the U of C Mountaineering club, with Bob Adams as our
faculty
advisor. The first mountain outing for
the UCMC was in 1955 to southwest Colorado where we climbed in the
Crestones,
Needle, and San Juan mountains. After
that I climbed in the Selkirks and Bugaboos, the Tetons, and Colorado,
with numerous
trips to Devil’s Lake in between. My
last serious mountain climb was with John Ohrenschall in 1963 when we
climbed
Crestone Needle.
Because
of a student job in a university research laboratory, I got interested
in
mechanical and optical engineering, and went on to work for an
aerospace company
in Colorado, returned to the U of C’s Hydro Lab in the mid 60s, worked
for high
tech companies in Maryland, and started an electro-optical company in
Canada in
1971. Following a divorce, I
returned
to Chicago in 1977, and soon met my current wife, Judith Barnard. Judy and I collaborated on writing magazine
articles, and we soon expanded to writing novels, beginning the first
in
1980. Since then, writing as “Judith
Michael,” we have written eleven best selling novels.
We moved to Aspen in 1986, but continue to return to Chicago for
the spring and fall. I am a
passionate
skier (started skiing with some of the U of C climbing group in 1956),
and a
fair biker and day hiker around Aspen when the snow is gone. For the last five years I’ve been spending
an increasing amount of time, in addition to various non-profit work,
at
digital imaging; see: www.michael-fain.com And, if that isn’t enough, Judy and I have
three kids and five grandkids in California and Illinois.
"Recollections
of an almost boulderer ... ", by Michael Fain
Comment from Master of Rock, John Gill:
EMAIL: Mzf25@aol.com