A Mountain In Our Memories: Remembering Aaron Martens

MY PHONE SPRANG to life in the dark as a blue bubble illuminated the screen. “Look for my name at the top, bro.” The message was from Aaron Martens, and it came to me 12,000 feet above sea level on the slopes of Mount Whitney.

Martens, of course, had been there before. He summited the highest peak in the Lower 48 around 1980 at age 7. Whitney is an alien place, a surreal landscape of evergreen forests crossed by crystalline streams near its base. In their shallow waters, the splash of hiking boots startles unwary golden trout largely unmolested by our brethren toting fly rods. Up top, Whitney’s snow-pocked peaks are an alpine moonscape of bleached-white boulder fields, windswept and barren save the occasional wildflower or bristlecone pine. It is a breathtaking, bewildering and sometimes dangerous place to hike — small wonder its slopes held tight in Martens’ mind.

At the time, I was 20 years older than Martens