Kim Schmitz remembered for resilience and brightness in the mountains and in life

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(Alpinist) Kim Schmitz was more than a climbing legend. He was a man who managed a smile no matter what life put him through. Bone-breaking falls in the mountains, avalanches, addiction, cancer and chronic pain–he overcome all the setbacks and accomplished the impossible, from bringing Yosemite big-wall tactics to Great Trango Tower (6286m) and Uli Biaho (6109m) in the late 1970s, to continuing to gym climb in more recent years when he sometimes needed two canes to walk.

The mountains continued to be an integral part of his life at his recent home in Jackson, Wyoming. On September 19, he’d just gotten off a raft trip down the Salmon River in Idaho and was driving to Spokane, Washington, when his car went off the road and hit a boulder. Continue story on Alpinist