Obituary: Charles Frederick "Chuck" Kroger (1946 ? 2007)
By Amy LevekIt’s at transitions, the cracks in time, right before dawn, as the sun slips below the peaks, that you see things you never noticed before. You realize truths. Death is one of those moments when we understand how much love we share with other beings.
How can you not love someone whose philosophy of art embraces the joy of movement, the sound of laughter shared with friends, mixing it all with heavy doses of adventure? This was Chuck Kroger. If he wasn’t moving through the landscape or making something whir and spin, the world was not in balance.
His death due to pancreatic cancer on Christmas Day ‘07 leaves a huge hole in Telluride and gaping chasms in the far-flung cadre of climbers and adventurers. Chuck’s escapades spanned many continents and were shared with friends worldwide.
A lifelong builder, artisan and tinkerer, at six years old, living in Kalispell, Montana, Kroger refused to go to kindergarten so he could help his dad build their house. But it was in the mountains that he really thrived. Whether spidering his way up Yosemite’s sheer pitches or picking along a steep trail through the blackness in a 100-mile mountain race, Kroger moved with grace and determination. Blonde hair spiking out in the signature ‘do, multi-day beard and piercing blue eyes staring intently, Chuck brought his quiet intensity and understated humor to everything he tackled.
At Stanford University, majoring in geophysics, he found ways to delve more completely into his lifelong passion for rock climbing, bouldering and mountaineering.?When he graduated in 1969, one of his professors remarked that Chuck spent more time climbing rocks than studying them.
His climbing career exploded, quietly. In the late-‘60s, he was the first person to climb four routes on Yosemite’s El Capitan in a single season and also did the first ascent of the Heart Route. His climbing took him all over the world, including Alaska, the Alps, the Soviet Union and South America. His feats were chronicled in several climbing books, where he and his friends were dubbed the first of the “college boy weekend climbers,” whose climbing rivaled full-time Camp 4 climbers.
A slight problem with authority led to a string of dubious accomplishments. While at Stanford, he and friends pioneered the sport of “buildering”: traversing a chapel ledge, several ascents of the Golden Gate Bridge and arduous trips through vents linking campus buildings. He was also part of Telluride’s “Valley Floor Seven,” a group of cross-country skiers prosecuted for trespassing after community relations with that land’s owner soured and access to the valley floor was yanked. He got off with probation.
He and his wife/adventure partner, Kathy Green, kept a beat up school bus, the Yellow Pig, in Chile. The Pig could handle Chile’s rough roads, but the battery sometimes popped its caps. Kroger solved the problem by plying his companions with Chile’s fine wines, opened more for the corks that neatly plugged the battery holes than for socializing.
He crafted a line of innovative rail-bikes, conventional bikes converted to run on railroad tracks. With friends, he would seek out (mostly) abandoned rail lines for stealth rides. He converted old snowboards into a line of “butt boards.” When the Dolores River froze over, he took friends ice-biking. He also shaped practical architectural elements for the homes he built, and created metal artwork, often rusty, donated to nonprofit groups for fundraising. Unique pieces like “The Puker”, a spinning playground installation, and “Very Sharp Chairs,” started intense bidding wars. Filled with movement, they embodied his wry sense of humor.
Kroger’s craggy face was well-known in mountain distance running as well. A six-time finisher in the Hardrock 100, he also conquered the Get High Race, the Imogene Pass Run and other mountain sprints. He never missed the opportunity for exploring wild places with friends, family (especially his father) and anyone who could endure his grueling twenty-mile dayhikes. And if a trail needed fixing, he didn’t ask permission. His San Juan legacy includes some beloved, occasionally scary, outlaw trails.
Of course I loved this man, just like everyone else blessed to swap stories over a beer or two with Chuck Kroger. It was impossible not to.
