Avoiding the Sudden Stop: Guiding Rainier, and other Northwest mountain adventures in the 1960s - Tapa blanda

Grab your wooden ice axe and coarse nylon ropes, because you’re about to embark on a 1960s-style mountain climbing adventure—and there’s sure to be plenty of fun, fear, and excitement along the way. At just seven years old, George Zell Heuston was a full-fledged mountaineer—climbing and guiding up picturesque Mount Rainier as one of the youngest climbers in the Pacific Northwest. Now, decades later, he shares his most unique experiences in Avoiding the Sudden Stop, a collection of memories, reflections, and chronicles from a youth and young adulthood spent among the region’s rugged peaks. Written from his own perspective as a younger man, Heuston’s book captures a different era of mountain climbing, when men braved the elements with wool clothing, cold leather boots, and other antiquated gear. But above all, it is a coming-of-age story that explores not only a lifelong appreciation for the sport of climbing but also relationships with friends and colleagues, changing life perspectives, and how journeying into the mountains changed everything for this passionate young mountaineer.

George Zell Heuston is a graduate of the University of Puget Sound and Seattle University Law School. After receiving a BA in history in 1970, he went on to earn a Juris Doctor degree and become a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. During his time with the FBI, he specialized in foreign counterintelligence and computer-based intellectual property crimes, retiring after twenty-two years. He wrote a column about cyber issues for the local paper in Hillsboro, Oregon, also publishing those columns online at OregonLive.com. Currently, Heuston lives in the Portland, Oregon, area with his wife, Paula.