An 88-year-old Bremerton alum nearly climbed Kilimanjaro
This Is a story about a guy born in Cleveland who made several stops in life as he moved around with his parents, wound up in Bremerton during the World War II years, then became financial successfully running a business his father started in Idaho. Seven years ago, he was a leaky heart valve away from becoming world famous.
You have heard of Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest free-standing mountain in the world. It’s located in the African country of Tanzania, and is 19,341 feet above sea level.
Well, Bob Vernon, now 93 and a 1947 graduate of Bremerton High School, got interested in making the climb in 2011 after he read an article on a guy from Walla Walla who had made the climb at 84, setting an age-related record. That got Vernon thinking about it and he began workouts to prepare himself physically.
“I exercised for about three years on a treadmill and lifted weights in preparation to do the climb,” Vernon said.
Vernon also went to St. Louis to visit a guy who had broken the age record to get his experience. But it was a chance meeting during a climb in California that really got him interested. It all came to a head in 2015 when he visited a daughter in Palm Desert, California, and he climbed into the San Jacinto Mountains.
“I was on a trail and stopping to take a swig of water and a rest when along came a lady,” said Vernon. “It is strange when you are dusty and sweat is running down your back and you stop and chat.
“She gave me her name and the type of business she and her husband were involved in. When I returned home I looked up the name of the business and was amazed at her credentials and past history. What is the saying, you can’t tell a book by its cover?”
The lady was Ruthanna C. Metzgar, a singer who holds a doctoral academic degree in voice from the University of Washington (she lives in Anacortes) and founded a charity foundation — SongShine — that helps people with illnesses recapture their voices through singing.
Vernon was impressed by Metzgar, but became especially interested when she talked about climbing Kilimanjaro to honor her late husband, Roy Metzgar, who climbed all the major peaks in the continental United States. Later, Vernon discovered Metzgar also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.
That got Vernon to thinking that if she could do it, why couldn’t he? He looked up the oldest person to climb Kilimanjaro in the Guinness Book of Records, and figured he could set a new record at age 88.
He contacted Guinness, telling them he was going to go for the age record. They wrote back his application was accepted for the “Oldest Man to Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.”
So it was on.
He just needed the equipment. He first tried Bass Pro, showing them his Guinness application. They agreed to donate equipment to him, but he ended up going with North Face, who sent the proper equipment, including a sleeping bag good for minus 40 degrees.
Vernon then made a test climb on Quandary Peak in Colorado's Rocky Mountains, elevation 14,272 feet. Everything went fine, but he needed a final physical before heading to Africa. That’s when his doctor discovered a heart murmur and warned Vernon against climbing in altitude.
Goodbye Kilimanjaro.
Vernon tried to give the donated equipment back to North Face, but they didn’t want it. So he sold them on eBay.
“I sold them for 40 cents on the dollar,” Vernon said. “I felt that somebody else could use the equipment.”
Vernon began high climbs in Highclimbers Club in high school, taught by Bob Scott. The club made regular climbs into the Olympics.
Vernon wasn’t interested in sports, although he was team manager for the Ken Wills-coached track team for four years, and remembers going to a track meet in Kirkland where the team took Metro buses from the ferry dock in Seattle down to the end of Madison Street in Seattle and then another ferry across Lake Washington.
Along the way he became close friends with Franky Schricker, whose father owned a florist, Don Christensen, whose father owned three shoe stores, one in downtown Bremerton, Don Olson, who became a longtime dentist in Bremerton, Don Schwartz, later an engineer for Mountain Bell who would be the best man at Vernon’s wedding in Idaho, and Bud Nelson, who became a Navy pilot.
“I’ve been blessed with good health, and all my friends are gone,” says Vernon, who has come back to Bremerton for every class reunion since the first one in 1957.
After graduating from Bremerton in 1947, Vernon moved with his parents to just outside of Boise, where his father established a heating and cooling business that wound up doing business all over the western states.
Vernon got involved with the Boy Scouts in Idaho and did backpacking with them and made climbs into the Sawtooth Mountains up to 10,000 feet.
What possesses Vernon to do it?
“To see what was on the other side of the mountain,” Vernon laughed. “We (he and wife Dorla) would go in backpacking for several days. We would pitch a tent alongside a lake.”
It was in 2003 he and Dorla moved to Missouri. Missouri doesn’t have mountains, but he still found ways to get some good exercise. He and Dorla make fast-paced one-mile walks four days a week, and when legendary athlete Gale Wade, the former football and baseball star at Bremerton who had a 15-year professional baseball career, would show up to visit the two of them would trek 12 miles from Wade’s old homestead to the nearest town. That went on for several years. Wade passed away early this year.
Vernon is disappointed he couldn’t climb Kilimanjaro. It would have been a wonderful adventure and give him satisfaction he did something not many do at that age.
He may not have been good at basketball, football or baseball, but he proved he could still be athletic.
“I guess I wanted a challenge,” says Vernon. “I was a little chubby and chubby really didn’t do well in track, or ball.”
Terry Mosher writes regular features for the Kitsap Sun about local sports personalities and history. Contact him at bigmosher@msn.com.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Bremerton alum Bob Vernon, age 93, quest to reach Kilimanjaro's peak
