"What being here tonight to me has meant is... here was a wonderful spectacular amazing person and hearing about him has made me want to be more like him. So I just wanted to share a very brief "how to be like Chris" story. About a year ago, I was fortunate enough to go down the Colorado river with him and some other friends. It was a long trip- the Colorado river is in this particular section about 230 miles. And so, to some, you might say from what you have heard you would say "to be like Chris I would stop what I was doing, which is maybe not exactly what I want to do, and go kayaking down the Colorado river." Now that would be a start to being like Chris, but to really be like Chris, you would have to go down a 230 mile trip down the Colorado river and on day 5 during dinner time for four hours, you'd have to get out of your boat, and hike it up the shore, and run the rapid while everyone else was cooking dinner, and kayak down, and carry your boat back up, and kayak down again, and carry your boat back, and kayak back down, and carry your boat back up, and kayak back down, and carry your boat back up, and kayak back down, on a 230 mile trip where you have EIGHTEEN DAYS of solid kayaking. That's how you be like Chris."
-- Kipchoge Spencer
Other ways to be like Chris:
-- Erick Matsen
"Chris was a man of action like few others. How many of us waste our
precious time, passing the hours in a million distractions, always waiting
to do and to become and to achieve and adventure, and just assuming that
"some day" when things are "just right" in a future that's always
receding, we can begin to live. How many of us are waiting to suck the
marrow out of life, only to look back to the tune of, if I woulda',
coulda', shoulda'? Chris's life refuted this! He was so different! When
Chris had an idea, he hatched a plan and went into action! Whether it was
climbing a hill, making an ice-axe, teaching with OEP and RMI, riding with
the cycling team, Chris got the job done, and as a result he packed more
life into twenty-one years than most people get out of a lifetime. Chris
was a man who saw possibilities in the world and acted on them with
boldness! He had the mettle of heroes - and a heart of gold. Isn't that
incredible? How good Chris made you feel? How that wild grin infected
your body and made you start to giggle when you thought of all the fun
things there were to do in the world? The fun things that Chris was
already doing - or willing to try? Yahoo! Fired-up!
...
Facts are few but possibilities are infinite, and I love Chris because
that's the way he thought and that's the way he acted. Storms come, but
you keep on climbing. When you have a dream, you never give up! You go
and you grow and laugh when it hurts. And when I think about Chris
Hooyman, this is what I think about."
-- John Lindsay
Here is a funny story about Chris instructing OEP--
"I taught in OEP with chris only one quarter, and one of my fondest memories is of a trip that Chris and I led together, and there are many of you in the audience tonight who were either instructors on that trip or were students on that trip... some of the people who were students have now become instructors, and I hope that you learned a lesson from this (laughing). It was the final trip of our mountaineering class, and we were climbing Mt. Siliman in Sequoia Nat'l Park and were hoping to use our skis, ice axes, and crampons, and all the other 50 lbs of gear that we brought and taught during the whole course. We got a little bit lost on the way up the mountain... we followed the wrong stream...or whatever happened I'm still not quite sure. We were planning to hike up a drainage on the way up to the peak where we were planning to camp, but instead of ending up in the drainage, we ended up on a very steep-sided ridge... one of the most beautiful campsites I've ever camped at, and one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen. But the next day we figured that we were going to climb this mountain, and the easiest way to get out after climbing the mountain would not to go down the way we had come... but rather to go down the drainage which was at the bottom of the cliff. So the only way that seemed logical to do it was to take all of our hundreds of pounds of gear, and climb up the mountain with our gear, and come down. But we probably wouldn't get any good skiing in, because you can't really ski with a 60 or 70 lb pack on very well. Well, Chris could.
Well, what we decided to do- I don't know if it was my idea or Chris' idea, we figured that if there was some way we could lower our gear down to the bottom of this cliff, into the drainage, we could go climb the mountain with no weight, and have a good time skiing down and pick up our gear at the bottom. So we found this chute heading down between the cliff bands. And we looked down and it looked pretty clear, and there was a little rock band partway down it, but we figured it wouldn't be a problem. So we had the students pack up all their gear, and they were kind of bewildered by this plan, but we took their packs and threw them down this chute. I think it became known as the "gear launch." So [official voice] "time for the gear launch, give me your pack... you'll see it in a few hours." So we threw all of our gear down this cliff, basically. We took what we needed, and we didn't quite make it to the top of the mountain, but that was ok, that happens a lot in mountaineering, and we had a great ski down, and we get down to where our gear is, and there is gear spread over about an acre of snow and rocks! And that little cliff band that we could see from above turned out to be about a 30 or 40 foot cliff, so our gear went down the chute and kind of launched off the cliff into the valley, scattered everywhere, and we decided that we probably won't try that again. For all I know my Therm-A-Rest is still out there!"
-- Bradley Materick
You may contact cPbL if you're interested in an audio recording of the Stanford memorial service. (But if you want to hear more STORIES, I'm sure any of the OEP instructors will be happy to provide them!)