BON VOYAGE

Just a little more than a year ago, we wrote of two remarkable characters and the meaningful work they initiated with respect to wilderness and wildness (HUPC Lynx, 6/07 (Cliff) (Mead)). Mead Hargis, still a young man in his late 50s, and confined to a smaller and smaller world as a result of Alzheimer's disease, and Clif Merritt, approaching his ninth decade, have both passed through this time. Mead died back in June; Clif early in August.

Mead’s ashes are high in the Sierra Nevada where he was an accomplished climber and resource manager in Yosemite, and later on the High Uintas with the Kamas Ranger District. Clif’s spirit rests in hundreds- no, thousands- of wilderness activists, many like me learning from him directly, others taking his indomitable wild spirit with them into wild places and innumerable wilderness discussions!

Dick Carter