The Story Behind the Charlie Porter Climate Science Fund
by P. Thom Davis, Thornton, NH
Charles Talbot Porter (1951-2014), known as Talby to his family and Charlie to everyone else, was a quiet force in climbing history, but he was also an incredible mover and doer in the evolving discipline of climate science. Within these two lanes, he has made an incredible mark on climbing and climbing landscapes, and his legacy underpins and inspires the Charlie Porter Climate Science Fund, the main funding source for the AAC’s Research Grant.
Who was Charlie the climber?
Charlie grew up along the border of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and as a teenager, he hitchhiked West to climb in the Washington Cascades. In late March of his junior year in prep school, Charlie participated in a rescue in Huntington’s Ravine on Mount Washington, saving the life of an ice climber and a would-be rescuer, after 3 climbers had been caught in an avalanche (Appalachia No. 147, December 1968). During his senior year of prep school, Charlie spent many weekends in Durham, New Hampshire, where he met climbing partners and his first wife, and was widely recognized for his heroics on Mount Washington the year before. He then learned to aid climb at Cannon Cliff and Cathedral Ledge. Upon graduation from prep school in spring 1969, Charlie moved to Camp 4 in Yosemite, where he became a force in pioneering big wall aid routes.
Charlie Porter’s list of first ascents in Yosemite is formidable: New Dawn (VI, 5.9, A4, 7 pitches, 11 days, solo, lost haul bag, 1972); a new route on Quarter Dome in Tenaya Canyon (two days, with Gary Bocarde, 1972); The Shield (VI, 5.9, then A5 with the infamous 35 consecutive RURP placements, multiple days, with Gary Bocarde, October 1972); Zodiac (VI, 5.7, A3, solo, November 1972); Tangerine Trip (VI, 5.9, A4/5, 10 days, with Jean-Paul de St. Croix, April 1973); Mescalito (VI, 5.9, A4, with Steve Sutton, Hugh Burton, and Chris Nelson, October 1973); Grape Race (VI, 5.9, A5, 7 days, with Bev Johnson, spring 1974); Horse Chute (VI, 5.9, A4, four days, with Hugh Burton, October 1974); and Excalibur (VI, 5.9, A5, multiple days, with Hugh Burton, 1975). Charlie also made the second ascent of Royal Robbins’ Tis-Sa-Ak route on Half Dome in 1972.
As Charlie’s big wall climbing in Yosemite was winding down, he moved on to attempt new routes in the Greater Ranges. In June 1974, he made the second ascent of Alaska’s Moose’s Tooth on its southwest wall of the West Summit (VI, 5.8, A4, 800-meter Moose Antler Route) in alpine style with Gary Bocarde, John Svenson, and Michael Clark (AAJ 1975). Then, during the winter of 1974/1975, he made the first ascent of Polar Circus (V, WI5), the classic, 500-m vertical, waterfall-ice route on Cirrus Mountain in Banff National Park, with Bugs McKeith and the Burgess twins, Alan and Adrian (AAJ, 1976).
In August/September 1975, Charlie made the first ascent of the northwest face of Mount Asgard on Baffin Island (VII, 5.10, A4, nine days) solo after climbing the first part with Rick Sylvester and Shari McVoy. It was 26 years before Cedar Wright and Jason ‘Singer’ Smith made their epic second ascent (AAC Cutting Edge podcast, 2002).
During May 1976, Charlie made the first solo ascent of Denali’s Cassin Route (Alaska grade 5, 5.8, AI4) on which he suffered pulmonary edema. On the summit, he addressed his dire medical situation by gobbling down a bagful of diuretics provided to him by his physician father, which not only cleared the fluids from his lungs but also his entire body (reported in AAJ 1977). In June 1976, Charlie made the first ascent of Middle Triple Peak’s west face in Alaska’s Kichatna Spires with Russell McLean over 10 days (AAJ 1977). And that is only the tip of the iceberg, an apt metaphor for Charlie and his later work.
Who was Charlie the climate scientist?
In 1979, after attempting to climb the east face of Cerro Fortleza in Torres del Paine with Russell Mclean, Charlie began several years of exploration of the Chilean fjords in a modified kayak with a sliding seat and rowing oars, where he collected botanical specimens (pressed properly for preservation and donated to the Harvard Herbarium), examined archeological sites where he collected charcoal for radiocarbon dating, traced over 6000-year-old portage routes, and met his third wife, the daughter of a Chilean navy ship captain. In 1979, Charlie also kayaked solo around Cape Horn and attempted to cross the Drake Passage to Antarctica with Ned Gillette in a covered rowboat, the Sea Tomato.
In 1984, Charlie established his non-profit Patagonia Research Foundation to conduct archeological, botanical, climatological, glacial geological, oceanographic, and seismological surveys while supporting academic scientists from around the world. Charlie was fond of describing his residence at the south end of Puerto Williams, Chile, as the southernmost habitation in the Western Hemisphere.
Charlie was the quintessential autodidact and, with only one metallurgy course taken at MIT, learned to forge his own climbing hardware, including specialized RURPs and ice axes, along with steel-hulled boats for travel in the iceberg-infested Southern Ocean, including Wild Pigeon, Gondwana, and Ocean Tramp. From these seacraft, Charlie helped set up automated weather stations in isolated locations like Puerto Eden and Cape Horn, collected lake sediment cores on South Georgia Island for radiocarbon dating and paleoenvironmental reconstruction, and mapped glacial moraines in the Cordillera Darwin.
Some of the academic institutions with whom Charlie collaborated include the Fundación CEQUA and the University of Magallanes in Punta Arenas, Chile, Lund University in Denmark, and the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, where he held a research affiliate appointment up to the time of his passing in 2014.
Learn More About Charlie Porter:
Despite Charlie’s reticence, displayed by never carrying a camera or seeking publicity by publishing his climbs, much of the above is known through reports written by his climbing partners when he was not climbing solo. Other resources to explore include a rare interview with Mark Chapman and George Bracksieck published in Rock and Ice magazine (#53, Jan./Feb, 1993, pages 22-29), a short eulogy titled ‘In memory of Charlie Porter’ by Greg Landreth, a longtime friend from Isla Navarino, Chile, published in Alpinist (No. 146, page 42, spring 2014), and a lengthy special collection of essays published in Alpinist (No. 147, pages 76-87, summer 2014), titled ‘Visions of Charlie Porter,’ with essays by Gary Bocarde, Sibylle Hechtel, Alan Burgess, Russell Mclean, and Stephen Venables.
