In the 1960s, there came a time when AdAmAn Club mates felt terribly old. Walking through the snow above the Pikes Peak wooden line can leave that effect.
“I think the idea was: wouldn’t it be great if we had teenage human snowplows?” Remember Ted Lindeman.
The required age that was decided was 16 years old: the age of George Lindeman’s son, who had won membership in the historic club in 1961.
Clearly the young man proved worthy.
Ted Lindeman hopes to make his 50th ascent to AdAmAn on Monday, when the club begins its annual mission to fire up New Year’s Eve fireworks at the 14,115-meter summit.
Their climbs surpass any living or dead member. It has spanned more than half of the club’s existence (the 100th celebration will be in 2022).
“Fifty. It’s hard to imagine anyone ever repeating it, ”said the club’s ambassador, Donald Sanborn.
Lindeman was first a guest “snowplow” in 1967. Since then, the recently retired professor of chemistry at Colorado College has only missed three New Year’s trips: one when he taught in Vermont, another when he was preparing for his doctorate. . thesis, another when it was in full rupture.
He was a graduate student at Cornell University when he met his lifelong partner, Kathy. One of his first conversations was about the New Year’s Eve engagement.
“So I had no other idea,” he says now. “I got into this without expecting anything else.”
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What was your commitment to the club? Make your rise from 73, the first as an official member. He took a bus home from college, got stuck at a Kansas gas station for a day, and slept on a pile of tires before the snow-covered highways reopened. When he headed for Barr Trail, he was sadly ill.
“It simply came to our notice then. It really wasn’t, “says Lindeman.” I love climbing with these bastards. They’re just good company. “
And they love having him by their side. “It’s a walking encyclopedia,” says Sanborn, who moves between historical, cultural, geological, and astronomical topics.
“My first hike was full moon,” says Dan Stuart, president of AdAmAn. “People wanted to know when the blue moon would be next December 31. So of course they turned to Ted. He did some calculations and gave an answer that was at least plausible.”
Carl Lindeman remembers being four years old when his older brother, an amateur chemist already, gave him instructions on explosive dust.
“My dad appreciated Ted’s fledgling intelligence,” says Carl, a member of AdAmAn after Ted. “I remember hearing conversations at the dinner table that I didn’t understand. They were just talking about things scientifically mostly. But mountaineering and climbing were just as important. ”
As a Colorado college student in the 1940s, George Lindeman was known to take classes on Mondays after a weekend in the hills. He studied to be a doctor, but he also had a passion for bright, strong fire lights.
The story the Lindeman boys heard was that their father was looking out of the large window of his bedroom, facing west, at midnight on January 1, 1958, and saw the bombs explode. He turned to his wife and said, “I’ll be up there next New Year’s Eve.”
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The man would take his children on week-long trips to the desert, making them resist their future tradition at Pikes Peak. The Lindemans have experienced many winter and windy climbs, sometimes crawling up the alpine to the top of the mountain.
Like all AdAmAn members, George Lindeman’s body eventually prevented him from facing the elements, confining him to the city for New Year’s Eve. He died in 1992.
The adventure “was really what Dad was going through,” says Ted Lindeman. “It was super for him.”
As with Ted, he feels his knees weaker. But for the climb no. 50, is ready as always.
“I definitely intend to savor this one,” he says.