90 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 09/10.19
Whatever issues Jess grappled with as a
teenager about climbing with his dad, they
had developed a cherished partnership.
They teamed up for many climbs after Ever-
est as Jess built his own life as an alpinist.
“He always called John to ask advice about
routes,” Alli told me. “They were constantly
talking about those things.”
“When Jess was younger, I never pushed
him,” John said. “I really didn’t want to en-
courage him to be a climber just because I
was a climber. My philosophy was that he
needed to find his own way.”
SO MANY PEOPLE showed up for the
memorial, held at a large theater in downtown
Spokane, that the organizers directed the
overflow to a ballroom in a nearby hotel
where they live-streamed the proceedings.
The stage was filled with flowers and draped
with Tibetan prayer flags. Timothy Tate, the
grief counselor, was the emcee. Jess’s elder
sister, Dawn, who lives in Reno, Nevada,
sang a duet with Jordan of Fleetwood Mac’s
“Landslide” that left many in the audience
weeping. Anker reminded us that Jess’s life
was about humility and humor. Alli bravely
recounted their too brief time together,
ending with a favorite Jess-ism. “Nighty
night,” she said through tears, pointing at
Erdmann, who was sitting in the front row
and clasped his hands over his heart. “Keep
your butthole tight!” A raucous after-party
ensued, stretching late into the night.
The parents of both Auer and Lama had
released statements on social media, not-
ing the love and passion both men had for
climbing, but remained out of contact with
the public.
The week after the memorial, Alli and I
had lunch at the Flying Goat, a tavern a few
blocks from her and Jess’s home. On the
menu, the owners had renamed one of the
couple’s favorite items—a deep-fried dough
ball containing sausage, jalapeño, and goat
cheese—the Roskelley Dumpling.
Alli and Jess had met when Jordan set
them up on a blind date in 2013. Jess wore a
T-shirt and his usual ball cap, and he had a
flight of wine waiting for Alli. “Whoa, you’re
even prettier in real life,” he said when she
sat down. In her twenties, Alli had lost a
previous partner in an automobile accident,
and she understood the brevity of human
life. She and Jess were engaged eight months
later, and they married in 2015.
Alli didn’t grow up a climber—Jess led her
into it. She is strong and fit, rode horses as
a kid, and became an expert downhill skier.
But climbing steep, wild mountains was
a new kind of experience. She immersed
herself in a three-month program with the
Spokane Mountaineers. “I had become part
of this climbing family, and I wanted to be
able to speak the same language,” she said.
After lunch we walked through the house,
a craftsman bungalow perched near a bluff
in a leafy neighborhood northwest of town.
Mugs the bulldog came wiggling up to me
so enthusiastically that I wondered if he
thought I might be someone else. “One thing
you have to know about Jess is how much he
loved being at home,” Alli said. It would take
him a couple of weeks to transition back to
domestic life after a trip—he could be aloof
and unsociable—but soon he’d be painting
the house and shopping at Costco. They had
so many plans: buying a van, traveling, set-
tling down and starting a family.
Alli led me out to the garage in back, where
Jess had recently installed a Treadwall—
a rolling apparatus studded with plastic
holds—to help him train. The space was
stuffed with gear and apparel. Mugs fol-
lowed us and curled up by the door. “That’shis spot now,” Alli said. “He’s always there,
waiting for Jess.”
The recovery team from Parks Canada had
told her a few more details about what they
believed happened on Howse. The climb-
ers had fallen a long way, carried by the
slide. They found a rope, frayed and nearly
snapped in half. “I’m hoping it would have
been quick,” Alli said. “It wasn’t like they
were buried under the snow and suffering.
I’m holding it in my heart that Jess maybe
looked up and was like, ‘Oh fuck,’ but that
would’ve been it.”
I asked her if they talked much about the
risks involved in Jess’s line of work.
“Oh yes, we talked about it,” she said. “I
was aware from the very beginning. I fully
accepted the possibility that this could
happen. But you can’t really prepare for it.
There’s this belief that it’s not going to hap-
pen to you.”THAT AFTERNOON, on my way back to my
dad’s house, I stopped at the small crag where
I learned to climb with the Mountaineersmore than two decades ago. No one was
around. I remembered it as pristine, but now
it looked scruffy, with graffiti on the rocks
and broken bottles in the weeds.
My heart ached for the Roskelleys and
their friends. I never knew Jess, but the grief
of all those who did had been intense and
unrelenting, and the past few weeks left me
deeply unsettled. I walked up to the base of
the rock where I’d wrestled through my first
climb, a short, simple route called Open
Book. I’d spent many hours at the crag but
climbed it only once, as a neophyte, when it
seemed terrifying and impossibly difficult,
even on top rope.
I’d never gone very far with climbing. My
tolerance for exposure, risk, and danger was
always wimpy compared with those who
took the sport seriously. But I loved being in
the mountains, and I’ve hiked, climbed, and
skied all over the world. These were relatively
low-grade adventures, but I’d dodged a close
call or two. It struck me
that you never really
know how lucky you are
until your luck runs out.
A few moments later, I
was scrambling up Open
Book in my running
shoes. It wasn’t hard,
but it wasn’t easy, either.
You wouldn’t want to
fall. After about ten min-
utes I was sitting at the
top, 40 feet off the deck,
heart racing, lungs heav-
ing, legs dangling over
the edge. It was a dumb
move, but it was over now, and it was a low-
angle walk off the back. I returned to my car
and sped down the road, both hands on the
wheel, jittery with adrenaline. I couldn’t re-
member the sky there ever looking so blue,
or the air being quite so clear and redolent
with pine. I drove right past my dad’s place.
I kept driving for a long time. OCONTRIBUTING EDITOR NICK HEIL
( @NICKHEIL) PROFILED KILIAN
JORNET IN JULY 2018.Volume XLIV, Number 6. OUTSIDE (ISSN 0278-1433) is
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THE RECOVERY TEAM TOLD ALLI A
FEW MORE DETAILS ABOUT WHAT
THEY BELIEVED HAPPENED. THE
CLIMBERS HAD FALLEN A LONG
WAY, CARRIED BY THE SLIDE. THEY
FOUND A ROPE, FRAYED AND NEARLY
SNAPPED IN HALF.