BEND, Ore. — Lean and fit, John Mowat scaled the climbing wall with a purpose and vigor that would have been impressive for somebody half his age.
Mowat, 94 and a 10-year Bend resident, is a regular at the Bend Rock Gym, continuing to hone his climbing skills after a lifetime spent on vertical rock faces and on top of mountains.
“I think it’s great exercise as you get older,” Mowat said of rock climbing. “It’s pretty gentle, low-impact, compared to other sports.”
Mowat is a role model for seniors looking to get into rock climbing.
“He’s an inspiration to all of us old guys,” said Bend Rock Gym owner Jim Stone, who at 68 is 26 years younger than Mowat.
Historic climb
But Mowat is also likely an inspiration to rock climbers of all ages, as he was part of a historic climb in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park more than 70 years ago.
Mowat is the last surviving member of a group of four climbers that made the first ascent of the Second Tower — a 150-foot-high pyramid about 800 feet below the 13,775-foot summit of Grand Teton — on July 18, 1951.
More than 100 feet of the tower’s west side crumbled and broke off after a rockfall last September.
“Part of me was appalled and part of me said, ‘Well, that’s just what happens,’” Mowat said. “It was a more beautiful feature, but now it’s a more dramatic feature on the east ridge. If that half of it could fall off, it wouldn’t surprise me if the whole thing fell off.”
Mowat’s climb of the Second Tower along with Leigh Ortenburger, Nick Clinch and Richard Irvin is described in detail by Angus M. Thuermer Jr. in his article “First ascent, Second Tower, last man” on wyofile.com.
After climbing at the Bend Rock Gym on a recent Monday, Mowat recalled that historic day.
The four climbers were on the Grand Teton’s east ridge, which passes the Second Tower on the way to the summit. At the base of the Second Tower, it was too icy to continue along the planned route. Instead, Irving led them up the tower.
“He climbed it, and we went up, and we had lost a lot of time, so we didn’t get to the summit until 8:30 in the evening,” Mowat recalled. “We weren’t going to go where the ice was. So this ended up being quite a delay.”
Mowat said he did not know then that it was the first ascent of the Second Tower. He is unsure if the other three climbers knew or not.
“I can’t speak for them, but the Tetons were heavily climbed, so I assumed somebody was bound to have climbed that,” Mowat said.
According to Thuermer’s article, none of the 24 parties that had climbed the East Ridge by 1951 had scaled the Second Tower.
Mowat, who was raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, attended Stanford University and was a swimmer there. But after three years, he quit the swim team and joined the Stanford Alpine Club. He climbed in the Tetons and Canadian Rockies and at Yosemite National Park.
“When you’re young and in shape, the Tetons are a great place to climb,” Mowat said, “because the climbing is fairly easy there, and fairly exposed. It’s great to be up high on a mountain on a cliff, looking out at the world.”
Ortenburger, Clinch and Irvin went on to become well-renowned climbers, and Ortenburger wrote “A Climber’s Guide to the Teton Range.” He died in 1991, Irvin in 2001 and Clinch in 2016.
‘Age is a quality of mind’
Mowat is thriving in Central Oregon, scaling routes at the Bend Rock Gym with ease.
“He’s always seemed ageless to me,” said Susan Sullivan, Mowat’s second wife, with whom he’s spent the past 25 years. “He’s never been one to dwell on the past or live in the past, and I think to some extent he’s embarrassed by all this attention. He just does what he’s capable of doing. I don’t really think of him as being very old, because he isn’t. Age is a quality of mind, and his mind is young.”
Mowat holds a doctorate in physics and was a professor at Auburn University in Alabama and the University of Kentucky. He moved to Eugene in the 1970s and has two grown children and three grandchildren with his first wife. He met Sullivan, 70, in Eugene more than 25 years ago through their shared passion for Nordic skiing. The two are avid downhill and cross-country skiers and moved to Bend in 2013 for that reason.
“We were in the same outdoor activities with the same friends,” Sullivan said of meeting Mowat. “I had no idea how old he was. He expressed an interest in perhaps something more than friendship, and he mentioned the age difference. I looked at him and went, ‘Age difference?’ I didn’t even know. I was 46 and I thought maybe he was 60. He said, ‘I’m 70.’ He’s always been younger than his years.”
Mowat and Sullivan still climb at Smith Rock State Park occasionally. The couple climbed to above 20,000 feet in the Himalayas a few years ago. Sullivan is an accomplished mountaineer as well, climbing 22,837-foot Aconcagua in Argentina and 21,122-foot Illimani in Bolivia.
Mowat and Sullivan still meet up with members of the Stanford Alpine Club.
“It’s quite the collection of people, many of whom became famous climbers,” Sullivan said. “They’re still a pretty active bunch, and we’re planning to get together with them this October. It’s been a joy to me to get to know all these famous climbers through him. And I think some of them are a little bit in awe of him because he’s the one among them who still is climbing.”
Stone said he has a regular group of seniors that come to the Bend Rock Gym to climb, usually in the mornings. He hopes that Mowat’s story will encourage more seniors to try climbing.
“I hope I’m that good when I’m 80,” Stone said of Mowat.
