Remembering Eddie Phay - The Stoke Engine

“Oh Eddie! I am so excited to try Pick Pocket today! The Gorge’s first route, by John Bachar no less!” 
I bubbled.

“You’re the stoke engine!” Eddie exclaimed. “Keep on fueling with stoke, sister.” 

He lifted his hand into the hang loose sign and tilted his head back and forth with his john lennon glasses. 
Eddie was of average height, around 6 foot, with shining, straight brown hair, pulled back into a ponytail. 
Not gangly nor bulky, he was of modest proportions for his size.

We walked down the narrow path, overgrown with shrubbery to Pick Pocket in Upper Gorge. A few stream 
crossings later, we arrived at the base of the route. This route was special to me. Done ground up, on lead by 
the infamous ironclad, Bachar, it spurred the development of our home crag, the Owen’s River Gorge in 
Bishop, CA. It was spring of 2014 and Eddie and I had been steady climbing partners for a month already.

I had just finished my undergraduate degree in an otherwise pointless major, Geophysics, from UC Berkeley. 
But my heart had left school long before and lived in a dream world of  big walls and mountains. My then 
boyfriend and I had bought a van and moved to Bishop to live as dirtbag climbers.

Eddie was in his early forties, and I, in my early twenties. An unlikely pairing, we took to each other instantly. 
I overheard a conversation he was having in the coffee shop. All I truly remember was that he was stoked, 
REALLY STOKED.

“Want to climb Tuesday? I’m new to town and my boyfriend works a lot, and I’m SUPER PSYCHED!” 
I said in one breath.

“Yeah, sister!” He replied. We shook hands and met in the Gorge a few days later. Over days and weeks, 
we became good friends. 

Eddie’s true passion was mixed climbing and development in Alaska. While my knowledge of this stuff is 
as good as biology, therefore completely lacking, I do know he kept a well documented webpage called 
CragAlaska, where he would divulge all of his experiences.
 
He drove down in his white 1998 Chevy van nicknamed ‘The Honey Badger.’ With his John Lennon 
peace-and-love energy, and a van named The Honey Badger, I was certain he was a weirdo. His furry 
companion was a black  legit-part-wolf dog, Morgan, who, he clearly stated, was not to be trusted. She 
had a temper and would bite and growl frequently. On our climbing days, she was sentenced to the van 
and while I see that now as some violation of dog rights, it didn’t seem weird at the time. Eddie had a 
fire inside of him, a deep well of passion and drive to live. His rest days were spent paragliding, drooling 
over his next climb, and occasionally doing some of his computer programming work.  

“So I’ve done twenty five 5.12’s since I got here two months ago.” Eddie said as he flipped through the 
guidebook, observing his ticks.

“This one is next.” He pointed to a beautiful, shallow left facing seam, Crybaby (12c).

“That looks nails! Psyched to belay you, crusher!”

Before every redpoint, he would take a few minutes to breath and quiet his mind, as if he already knew 
he was going to do it. This stillness carried through onto the route. A few warrior cries, and thrutchy 
boulder moves later, he was into easy terrain and quickly clipped the chains.

While he continued to what I now know as “base building,” I still clung on to my traditional beginnings, 
working my way through onsights of the grades. I observed Eddie and with his encouragement, tried 
more routes that I’d fall off of, just hard enough to quickly redpoint, but not too hard, while I was in my 
infancy as a climber.

Eddie came south in winters frequently to take a vacation from his heinous passion of mixed and alpine 
climbing to hang in the sun, get strong, and fly. He reasoned that sport climbing was the best training for 
mixed climbing in Alaska and his season of ticking the guidebook only prepared him for the real prized 
gems up north.

My winter was similarly paced. Having learned to climb in Yosemite the previous two years, I felt like I 
needed to sport climb and get strong for the big, iconic lines in the Valley. We giggled and laughed our 
way into the spring, enjoying the ease of try-hard and lack of suffering, and felt our forearms get ironed 
in the fire of pump.

On one of our last climbing days in the Gorge, I belayed Eddie on his redpoint of Yellow Streak (13a). 
While I tried my best to not let grades dictate my motivation, rather the aesthetics of the line, 13a was 
a benchmark in progression, a level where the elite hovered. In my humble state, it seemed as distant as 
Mongolia. Eddie was my first steady climbing mentor and watching him peak on his hardest redpoint 
that season was nearly as emotional for me as it was for him.

He tried hard, really hard. Through a succession of small crimps and dynamic movement, he yelled his 
way to the chains.

“How was the climbing!” I asked.

“Well, it’s some pathetic crimps to a dyno for a jug out left! It’s fucking savage… but it was FUN, 
REALLY FUN!”

In a few seconds his expression re-lived his moment of focus and then cracked into a joyful laugh. His 
unbridled and genuine psyche for climbing was so contagious. It’s like watching Peter Croft talk about 
climbing; the energy of a person like that commands attention.

Eddie left shortly after that ascent of Yellow Streak, ready for some rest and a change of pace after a 
paragliding accident, but we had made plans to climb in the Valley together in May. He had warned me 
that his crack climbing skills were lacking, so I was to be his guide there.

He arrived near the end of  my season in the Valley. I had already blown my onsight of Astroman, cried 
my way up my first Nose in a day, and slept on top of Watkins. I was content. I was tired. Eddie had hardly 
climbed since the Gorge and was ready to move north so we had one day to climb together.

Though he was a goliath in strength to me, I knew I understood the subtleties of granite a bit better. We 
decided to climb the Voyager (11c), a new at the time in 2014, Dan McDevitt route. With a splattering of 
bolts and gear, it seemed best suited for our skills. He would lead any bolted pitches and I would sew up 
the cracks.

Eddie climbed well, but his endurance for all day climbing was lacking. He fell on both crux pitches and 
was gassed by the time we reached the last pitch - a thin hands splitter that started on a chair sized ledge. 
Without much thought, Eddie started climbing the pitch and after a few moves, fell out of the crack and 
thankfully landed on the ledge. His spectacles were crooked and dehydration foam crusted the corners of 
his mouth.

“Eddie… what the fuck? You really don’t know how to crack climb.” I laughed.
 
He was laughing and smiling and cursing at the same time. “Yeah, Alix… I’m beat.”
 
“Why didn’t you place a piece dude?”

That was the last of his energy. Since my hands were smaller, I shouldered the rack and got the rope up the 
last pitch. I finally felt like I taught Eddie a thing or two on that climb, like how to place a piece off the belay… 
or set up a two bolt anchor in under 5 minutes. Those months in the dusty gorge, when he inspired me with 
epic tales and a warrior mindset, instilled a sense of belief in me and my climbing, and led by example in 
his own pursuits.

Sadly, Eddie died in 2015 due to ALS. I had just returned to the Gorge since our season down there and 
was deeply saddened to hear my quirky Alaskan friend had died.

Last week, I redpointed Yellow Streak, following in Eddie’s footsteps. I had tried this route in the fall to no 
avail, left and went bouldering, and came back this spring to give it another crack. I channeled his try-hard 
on every go and nearly peeled off on the exiting moves to the anchor like he did. Nothing like a little extra 
screaming! Yellow Streak was my second 13a, after the Westie Face in Yosemite in 2017. And it was fun, 
REALLY FUN.

I had my doubts with climbing in the past few years, especially with nebulous health issues, but I am so 
happy and grateful I had friends and mentors like Eddie who believe (d) in me during the darkness.

Eddie once wrote this in his blog and it’s so telling of his personality: 

“The what and who we are, are shown perhaps by the games we play. As long as we pay attention, our waking 
like sleeping dream has this creative-like power to reflect what one is. It's a simple fact, we require a physical 
body to exist here on this planet and it's this body that allows us to learn so much about ourselves. It makes no 
sense to me to not explore this planet's elements. This planet is fricken’ epic people!” 

Someone recently asked me what I’m most proud of in my life, and the first answer that came to mind was my 
friends. I’m so proud and grateful to have friends that live with integrity, are honest and trustworthy, passionate 
in their pursuits, and selfless in giving. Maybe my life’s greatest achievement is my ability to choose good 
company. Eddie was no different. He was the true stoke engine.