ALVIN E. PETERSON

1903-1978

Alvin was “Pete” to his many friends and companions of the hills. Educated at Berkeley as an electrical engineer, he was a handyman by proclivity. The design of a high-voltage system or the building of a cabin were both easy tasks. I remember his repairing my flailing sole, far from civilization, with a jack-knife and a little wire from a cavernous pack. A pair of crutches, made from young aspens, to allow him to hobble on a cracked fibula, almost served as pogo sticks.

Pete came to Washington in the late ’20s and soon was working on the still embryonic Appalachian Trail. He was the main-spring in the building of three cabins, and in 1938 became the head of the PATC Shelter Committee. These activities were continuing ones as were all his enthusiams that multiplied rather than trailed off with the years.

The call to the high hills came to Pete while still a student. It was not until after the war work on the proximity fuse was over in 1945, however, that the call could be fully answered. He then joined our Washington group on its forays into remote mountains of British Columbia. Pete’s interest was more in the scenes unfolding on the climbs rather than in the climbing itself. He never quailed at the bush, the heavy packs, or the weather, in attaining the promised rewards of the alp-lands. The following seasons saw him eager to go again, suitably forgetful about parts of the past ones.

Pete’s photographs touched the commonplace with an added meaning and caught the evasive subtlety of the changing scene. Several of them won first awards in the ACC yearly competitions and others illustrated the climbing articles. He carried three cameras as a rule, even though no allowance was made for them (officially!) when weight was distributed. Long hours in the dark-room were never begrudged.

The hazard of lightning in the mountains united Pete’s dichotomy of engineering and mountaineering. He worked on the fundamentals and what was best to do about the hazards.* Many hours were spent around campfires in arguing out our questions on salient points. I hope that Pete’s work still warns the climber not to lean against the rocks and invite the ground-current to be the body-current as the storm passes over.

Sterling B. Hendricks

* No article ever published in the American Alpine Journal has been reprinted in as many other mountaineering journals as Alvin Peterson’s “Lightning Hazards to Mountaineers” in A.A.J., 1962, pages 143 to 154.—Editor.