Kenny White sent me a remembrance from Alan Arnopole and one of Ken’s own, which got my memory going some more. Some real “David” moments and adventures came to mind which may mean something to you also.

As I mentioned, I roomed with David at UC Davis. It was our senior year 1969-1970. It was a god-awful one bedroom place but it was home to two pretty wild and free college students.

David and I shared the bedroom. I remember with humor his sleeping arrangement, which was so typical of him. He slept on his single bed but always in his blue down mountaineering bag. He never bothered to put sheets on the bed --- just crawled into his bag. His shoes (which were actually light hiking boots) were always untied and he never combed his hair. His one jacket was the blue down mountaineering jacket. Thus the sight of David coming down the street was one of the bright blue puffed-out down jacket, his skinny legs in corduroy pants, and his bootlaces trailing along behind him. All of this was topped off with the large shock of brown hair exploding from his head. Quite a sight! Sort of like the Michelin man on acid.

There were many other outdoor adventures that David led me to (with Magruder’s help) that came to my mind:

David and Bill started disappearing each weekend and I was very curious about where they would go. When I asked, David told me they went “rock-climbing in Yosemite”. Since that seemed fun I asked if I could go on the next trip. So when the next trip came around I was with them in David’s ’65 VW microbus, headed for Yosemite. What I found out when we got to our destination was that “rock climbing in Yosemite” meant climbing the high walls of the valley using ropes and all of the other gear needed to scale these cliffs! What I thought would be a hiking excursion turned out to be a climb of the valley wall near Bridalveil Falls. I had never done anything like that and had no climbing experience at all, but David and Bill took me up. Our climb took all day and eventually we did reach the top of the climb… a beautiful sight looking at the stream feeding the falls and the at backside of the cataract as it plunged over the edge on its world-famous trip to the valley floor. We didn’t get down from that first climb until midnight. I went on many other Yosemite climbing trips with David and Bill and each one was as outrageous as the next. Both David and Bill were never happier than when hanging hundreds of feet over the Valley floor, perilously perched on some minuscule foothold. I did this for a year with them but finally it just got too much for my nerves and I stopped going. I was too scared all the time to have any fun!

David also was responsible for organizing and going on high-Sierra backpacking trips. There were two memorable trips (of course with he and Bill) from Tuolumne Meadows… one north to McCabe Lakes and Mt. Conness and one south down Lyell Canyon following the south forth of the Tuolumne River.
David was an avid photographer and Ansel Adams was his idol. One of Adams’ favorite outdoor cameras was a large “view” camera. David had to own one. It was large and bulky --- this wasn’t any pocket camera and in fact wouldn’t even fit into David’s backpack. He had to strap it on top of the pack. It also required a tripod, sheets of flat film on film holders, a black hood and other accessories so he had to pack these also. David carried this camera and its parts all over the Sierras on his back, in addition to the regular backpack with food, sleeping mat and bag, and other necessities of the trail. It probably added 20 pounds or more to his load but he didn’t care. We’d hike all day and I’d drop to the ground at our campsite hungry and craving rest, but David would put together his camera gear and head off to get shots of the breathtaking country we had hiked into.

Another memorable adventure was river running with David and Bill. They asked me if I wanted to run the Tuolumne River with them and I thought it would be nice to do a sunny rafting trip down a river, maybe with a little white water for adventure. As it turned out what they were running was the wild Tuolumne from the Lumsden Bridge campground in Yosemite to the Ward’s Ferry Bridge… 17 miles right out of a whitewater nightmare. These days now that same run is famous as a world class Class IV-V rapids run done by professionals who guide teams of rafters. David and Bill weren’t planning to use rafts… their plan was to float the entire seventeen miles clutching an inner tube, wearing wet suits and swim fins! Human corks! I foolishly went along with this plan, even when it turned out they didn’t have a full wetsuit for me and no fins. We were in that river for almost 12 hours. The water was confirmed as being in the 40 degree range… snowmelt water from the high Sierras being released in high volume from Hetch Hetchy dam. I was never so tired as I was at the end of the trip but I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything. I was so scared, yet elated, by this journey of madness through 17 miles of whitewater hell that when David and Bill went up to do it again the next year… I went with them.

Another adventure that typified David’s attitude as “just do it!” (I think Nike must have gotten their famous slogan from watching him) was my one and only scuba trip--- which occurred with David and Bill. I had always wanted to go scuba diving. I loved the ocean but had never done anything but body surf the waves at Santa Cruz and swim in the Pacific at various other locations. However scuba diving was another sport David and Bill were doing so I convinced them to take me along with them on their next trip. Their next trip found me bouncing along in the back of the microbus with the scuba gear headed for the beautiful 17 Mile Drive south of Monterey and the placid Pacific ocean that literally laps the shore at places there.

We arrived about 10:00 pm at night and were anxious to just pull over and get a night’s sleep before diving the next day. In character with our trips we never stayed in motels. We always slept under the stars or in the bus. This night we were going to sleep in the bus and pulled over at a likely turn-out next to the ocean on the 17 Mile Drive. We were all just drifting off to sleep when the loudest sound I had ever heard blasted us awake and about a foot off the floor of the bus! Unbeknownst to us we had parked right in front of a fog horn! In that area the fog horns are set on the ground by the road because the road is almost at ocean level. The inviting looking turn-out we had chosen was the clear area in front of the fog-horn! We beat a hasty retreat and ended up staying the night in Bill’s younger brother Clark’s dorm room at UC Santa Cruz.

The next morning we went back to oceanside and I got my quick lesson from David on scuba diving. He told me… “This is the mouthpiece that comes from the tank on your back. Put it in your mouth and breath through it while you’re underwater.” That was it. With all of a few seconds training I was on my way to my first ever scuba experience and it was going to be in the ocean. Fortunately it was a very calm day, with no waves at seaside and the water was very clear.

I dove for about _ hour… using up an hour’s worth of air in about 30 minutes as most rookie divers do by breathing too often and too deeply. The dive was stupendous and I was enchanted by the underwater sights of fish, anemones, crabs, kelp and many other undersea forms of life. I was sad when I had to surface. That was my one and only time with a scuba tank on my back.

A further adventure that illustrates David’s craving for the outlandish occurred that very night… because the total calm of our day was the “calm before the storm” of one of the most vicious storms to hit that area that year. By nightfall the wind was pounding high surf ashore everywhere and a driving rain was drenching everything with its torrential attack. However this weather was just what piqued David’s interest and we spent the evening driving around in the this magnificent storm, watching cliff-sides collapse in Aptos. David wanted to go out on the Santa Cruz pier at the height of the storm, so out we went. The waves were so big they were crashing over the end of the pier and David wanted to get as close as possible. There we were --- 3 madmen risking being swept away so we could watch the waves break over the pier.

David was majoring in and got a degree in Geology at UC Davis. Whenever we went on a trip (which was frequently) David would explain the geological origin of the countryside. I actually learned to read the history of an area from David by reading the geological record evident if one knew what to look for. David was the one that introduced me to, and explained “monadnocks on the peneplain” (you’ll have to look that one up).

Another memory of David that so typified his independence and insistence on “do it yourself” was when he put a new engine in his microbus with absolutely no previous engine mechanic’s experience. He used “The VW Owners Guide for the Compleat Idiot”, a hippie’s guide to VW maintenance and repair. David was determined to change out the engine himself and using the book and faithfully following the instructions he did it successfully.

As I wrote these remembrances I realized that there are many, many fond memories of my college youth that would never be if it weren’t for David’s spirit of adventure and “run it to the limit, then see if you can get beyond that” attitude. If you want to get to know someone very well, and know what they’re really like, spend a week backpacking with them in the high country. I got to know David very well on our many trips and what I came to know was that he was a gentle spirit ---generous, adventurous, tremendously intelligent & witty, sarcastic, and a true lover of all things outdoors. I thank him for the substantial difference he made in my life and I hadn’t really realized the extent of that until I remembered my times with him.

With respect and admiration,
Dennis Negley San Rafael, CA 18 March 2007