Dear friends, it is my deepest regret, with tears in my eyes, to tell you all that Bruce Bindner (aka 'Brutus Of Wyde') has passed from this life and onto the next. Bruce was on his way tonight to meet me to climb Castle Rock Spire in Sequoia National Park when his car went off the road and was killed instantly. As I sit here emotionally exhausted, I find it hard to put into words the order they need to be. Having a good friend taken from you so quickly feels outright unfair and unexplainable. Bruce was the kind of guy who would quite literally give the shirt of his back and give it to you if you needed.....then offer his trousers! Bruce's heart was always filled with compassion, a giving attitude and the wit that went beyond human comprehension. If you were down and out, he would cast miles of smiles and humorous 'one-liners' to pull you out of a downward spiral. In the time that I got to know him, he never once asked for anything back in return, always defining this as "the way we do it at the Old Climbers Home". He has touched so many lives along the way and left his mark within this community, leaving a deep imprint with those he shared his life. My heart goes out to some specific folks tonight......Em (aka 'Nurse Ratchet') and Craig (aka 'Dingus'), knowing the pain they must feel from such a loss. I certainly miss him too! But I also celebrate his life and honor a man of men, a steward of this community and the heart and soul of obscurities. Brutus......rest peacefully, my brother.

I only knew Brutus through the virtual world of the internet, but his writings made a real life impact in how I climb and in the pleasure I found in reading about his experiences.

My sincere condolences to his friends and family.

Dingus, be strong and let us strengthen one another. We support you in our thoughts at this time of sorrow.

Rob.calm

I'll add one more story Shocka...

I camped in a high mountain meadow with two dear friends of mine, Brutus and Nurse Ratchet. We were there to climb a mountain spire and that's in fact what we did.

In our little camp we found an ancient tatter of webbing, on a lower pitch of our FA we found a bolt. Fred Beckey? Warren Harding? Quien Sabe? The place has no formal documentation, we could find no reference ANYWHERE to the place, to the spire, to the climb.

We haven't found one bit more about the place since either.

Before us ranchers frequented the meadow. The petrified cow paddies attested to that. Before them? Basque sheepherders, the elaborate carvings in the aspen groves on the approach attested to that?

Before them? Paiute. Shoshonie. Others. How do we know this?

Idling in camp one day Brutus roamed around, inquisitive as is his endlessly restless nature. I paid him no mind, instead focusing on nursing the burning red coal in my pipe bowl.

After a bit Brutus walked up to me with a twinkle in his eye, hand outstretched. Therein were shards of obsidian arrowheads, several of them.

"Found em in just 20 minutes," he announced with satisfaction and pleasure. They were things of beauty!

Black glass.... isn't available in those parts. The nearest place to find it is around the Mono Lake area, many, MANY miles away to the (north,south,east,west). Mono Lake was the land of the Fly Eaters.

They were called the Fly Eaters by the Yosemite indians because they ate a sweet concoction made of fly larve that grew on the salty brine of the lake. Sweets are hard to come by in the basin and range country and they were highly sought after.

They traded Fly Eater sweets and obsidian glass for arrowheads with the Yosemite paiutes, who in turbn had to offer acorn mash, bread and pine nuts. This transSierra trade went on right up to Chief Tenaya's day, when the White Man over ran the valley and the Mariposa "Battalion" drove out the last of the indians with cannons.

John Walker had benefitted from the hospitality of the Fly Eaters, so too had Fremont and Kit Carson. Those indians traded their obsidian gleaned from the Mono craters up and down the Californias.

And here, many miles and a couple hundred years apart, Brutus produced the shards of their handiwork.

He searched some more and found some more, soon we joined in and shortly we had a dozen or more arrowheads in hand. We lined them up and admired them.

I can't speak for my friends, but I silently imagined what it had been like in that same meadow 200 years gone by, before western europeans had changed everything. I imagined it wasn't so different really, not at the human level.

I imagine those arrowhead traders were men and women just like us, with hopes and dreams and aspirations. They wanted the best for thir kids. They pined for the soft touch of a woman, the comfort of home, the sated feeling of a full belly, the stern but wise leadership of a man.

They appreciated the beauty of the alpine glow the same as you or I might, the smell of pine and juniper on the air and as arrowhead shards on the highest peaks attest, they climbed too, surely for the pure joy of it as well as the views.

They're all gone now, every last one of them. They live on in memory alone and that day in the meadow they lived on in mine. I tipped my stream-cold beer to their memory and felt a connection, despite my western ways, mild buzz and the sordid history that seperated us. I felt very close to them, because of those shards, coupled with my knowledge of their history. For that hstorical knowledge I am indebted to others wise enough to save it, brave enough to fight for it, kind enough to share it. Its right here on the web now!

A bit later in the afternoon, satisified he'd found all there was to be found, Brutus gathered up those arrowheads, some intact, most of them broken - a magnificent collection really, gained with an hour's or so work.

He walked out into the clearing and one by one, and in random directions, he gently tossed them back from whence they came. It was like he was tossing ashes into the wind.

Himilayan prayer flags adorned out camp (they really did) and they fluttered in the wind as he performed his ritual. I just sat there, silent witness, in awe, with his power, with his imagination, with his respect. It still brings a tear to my eye to think about it. RESPECT....

Brutus walked back into camp, noticed me watching him. He nodded - "that way someone else will get to experience this," he offered as an explanation, without smile, without guile, and he walked off to find Nurse Ratchet. Dinner time was approaching and the two of them are wilderness gourmets - there were chores to be done.

That little scene - it was real man. It was real and among the most poignant, the most imacting, the more REVERENTIAL of my whole life.

Imagine instead, crushing those shards under boot in the haste to get to another climb...

DMT