Goodbye To A Friend

It is with great sadness that I find myself making another post about the passing of another friend of mine. I just found out this morning that my steady climbing partner from the LA days, Joe Christy passed away a couple of weeks ago. I found out about it while scanning through some updates on Facebook of all places. I called a mutual friend of Joe's and mine and found out that Joe had taken his own life. Conjecture is that the ghosts of Vietnam finally caught up with Joe. Joe and I talked of many things during our climbing days at Malibu Creek State Park but one thing we never spoke of was his time serving in Vietnam. It turns out that Joe was a tailgunner in an attack helicopter. One can only imagine the things that Joe saw during his time serving his country and it seems as if those personal demons finally got the best of him.

I will always remember Joe as someone who never turned down the chance to meet up for a day of cragging. I had the great fortune of meeting Joe and John Long one afternoon at Malibu Creek and had the even greater fortune of becoming a regular climbing partner with both of them. The routes that Joe wanted to do were always "whatever you want to do". His positive energy was infectious and I became a better climber because of it. Joe belayed me on many attempts on my very first 12A project and was holding the rope when I finally completed the redpoint of the Drifter. Joe had an encyclopedic recollection of every move on every route in Malibu Creek. One of my fondest memories was an afternoon climbing with Joe back in the Ghetto. We were doing some laps when Joe noticed the water had risen...a lot. He suddenly realized that the rangers had opened the dam upstream and if we did not hightail it out of there we would be swimming home. Classic.

The very last route that I climbed in Malibu Creek came on a trip back to LA after I had moved to Seattle. I had never completed Malibu's classic standard "Urban Struggle", a four star 12 a/b before moving away. I put it on my to do list when I knew I was coming back to LA for a wedding. I called up Joe and he was more than happy to meet up with me in the parking lot for the walk back past the Apes Wall, and the water traverse back to the Ghetto area. Joe and I were prepared for a siege that day as I was not feeling all that great. I redpointed it on my first try. A day full of great conversation, a lot of laughs and a successful redpoint of our local crag's classic standard. Those are my last memories of Joe Christy.

So long Joe, you will be missed. I am going to the climbing gym today to do some laps in your honor.