GUNDELBERG in the TWIN SISTERS RANGE

So, what will I choose for the initial Gundelberg adventure?

Logically I should select the first time that G/K (Bob) and I went hiking in the North Cascades, but I can’t remember when or where that was.  Quite by accident we (the Becks) had purchased a house adjacent to the Keller compound, on N. Forest St., just below the university.  Our children – all girls – quickly became fast friends, as did our wives.  Even our pets fraternized; I believe it was my male dog that presented the Kellers with a litter of puppies.  Or maybe it was the other way around.  Anyway, we were close.

Bob and I maintained what is sometimes referred to, annoyingly, as a “fraught” relationship.  We often walked to work together.  Sometimes it was almost a race.  Bob was lean, long-legged, and had hiked the Cascade trails almost from infancy.  I was stubby (“compact and muscular” was the preferred phrase), and short legged.  However, I, too, had hiked most of my life, and loved it.  Bob once confessed to me that he liked little in life more than walking Californians into the ground.  I was a transplanted Californian.  No way was Bob or anybody else going to walk me into the ground!  So, we walked fast.

In the mountains we also walked fast.  Fate had dealt me a straight flush by brushing me up against Bob.  I wanted to explore the mountains, and I wanted to have someone to do it with.  And there, living right next door, was Bob Keller.

So what I am going to tell you now is the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jeremiah Gundelberg, high in the mountain wilderness known as the Twin Sisters range. 

Bob had been hiking together for several years by that time and knew one another well.

A (very uncharacteristic) chunk of dunite

The Twin Sisters range is composed of an unusual, interesting kind of rock, and sometime in the early 1970s I obtained some government money to study a little of its geology.  Some of that money was designated for helicopter transport.  (That was a big deal at the time.)  I had several graduate students who were eager to do the work (consisting of sampling, using a drill) entirely for nothing, just for the helicopter ride!  So I selected three “base camps” from the available mapping, and put parties of students on the less interesting two.  The best – scenic as well as scientific – I preserved for myself.

Well, after the “kids” had spent three or four days in the mountains and had been extracted healthy and whole, with a proud collection of samples and many adventure stories, I sat down to check the budget – and, hallelujah, there was plenty of money left over for my trip – and then some!  So I organized what might be termed the Twin Sisters luxury gourmet scientific expedition, featuring all those things you have ever wanted in the mountains but were unable to carry.  Steak.  Wine.  Bacon.  Beer. Eggs.  Berry pie.  Real coffee.  Salad stuff.  Good bread.  Butter.  And even a stove to cook it on!  Later on in my career I would have saved that money for my next project but, heck, at that point I couldn’t be sure if there would BE a next project.  So we had a very good time in the mountains.

To assist me in this bacchanalia/field trip I selected another hiking friend, Dr. Jim Duemmel – and, of course, Bob Keller.

Well, of course, it was wonderful.  I believe we were there for four days.  Each morning we would have bacon, eggs, toast and coffee for breakfast – pancakes, too, at least once – and then grab the equipment and set to work.  Well, sort of.  Instead of participating in the drilling (boring, dirty work), Bob would assign himself to “reconnaissance”, meaning hiking all over the place and climbing every little summit – ostensibly looking for good places to drill (to be fair, he did find a few).   

Then, in the evening we would assemble at base camp.  While Jim and I attempted to wash the day’s accumulation of drilling mud off our bodies, Bob – fresh and exhilarated by a day of scrambling about in the mountains – would assemble dinner.  Wine always was on offer, but as neither Bob nor Jim was much of a drinker, it fell to me to empty the bottle.  Inevitably, one evening I crashed through a thin snow bank and cut a nasty gouge in my ankle.  As we were leaving the next morning I just let the thing bleed into my boot.  Later the blood-cemented sock had to be cut off my foot.  I still have the scar.  Sorry, that’s disgusting.

During his rambles Bob found a small flat patch of grass precisely on the summit ridge, big enough for a few sleeping bags.  So, one evening after dinner we drug some gear up there, and spent the night.  It was an experience one doesn’t forget.  The weather was perfect; clear and cold, with the Milky Way so close you wanted to reach up and touch it.  To the east Mt. Baker was a dim, glowing blob, and to the west the lights of Bellingham and Victoria reminded us that, no matter how great things were at that moment, reality awaited below.  And then, as it turned truly dark – the northern lights put on a show!  That night may be as close as I ever get to a religious experience.

Twin Sisters range, Baker in background

Well, eventually we were duly extracted.  The remaining perishable supplies were divvied up between the three of us and the chopper pilot, the equipment went into storage in my lab, and I settled down to face months of ineffably boring lab work.  And then Jeremiah Gundelberg struck!

Several days after returning to the lab I received a “copy” of a report to the Office of Scientific Malfeasance of the National Science Foundation, detailing observations made by Special Clandestine Investigator Dr. Jeremiah Gundelberg.  Gundelberg recommended that I be stripped of any federal funds remaining, declared ineligible for future support and, if I recall correctly, drafted into the army and sent to Korea!  My sins included leaving the drill out on the rain (it was completely dry the whole time), conducting a bacchanalia instead of a scientific expedition, choosing a scenic place to work and, in general, enjoying myself.  Gundelberg even complained about my unskilled, inappropriate assistants: a math professor and a Clandestine Investigator pretending to be a historian!  

Needless to say, I struck back.  With the help of Duemmel I cancelled Bob’s pending Sabbatical Leave on the grounds that he had been involved, somehow, in rumored, highly scandalous NSF activity.  The letter, signed by Dr. Jeremiah Gundelberg, Assistant Director for Leaves and Grants, was constructed by Jim; it looked totally authentic, so much so, in fact, that when Bob showed it to his wife it sent the poor woman into hysterics!   

And so it went.  Gundelberg ping-ponged back and forth between us for years, growing more preposterous all the while.  This is how it started.