Leo Grillmair, says mountain writer Chic Scott, is a master storyteller.
Arriving in Canada from post-war Austria as a 21-year-old in 1951, he and his life-long friend Hans Gmoser found their way to the Rockies. With Gmoser he climbed mountains and explored new routes on vertical rock faces, establishing such classic climbs as Grillmair Chimneys and Direttissima on Mount Yamnuska, and the first ascent of the formidable Wickersham Wall on Alaska’s Denali.
Together, they skied remote glaciers and fresh powder slopes, became professional mountain guides and co-founded, with others, the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. They also created and ran the pioneer helicopter skiing business Canadian Mountain Holidays.
A plumber by trade, Grillmair’s great taste for adventure also led him to embrace a three-week stint working for a mine on the Canada/U.S. border east of Juneau, Alaska, collecting molybdenum samples from steep cliffs. He followed that up with six weeks of collecting lead and zinc samples in Greenland.
On Sunday (Nov. 19), Scott will take the stage with Grillmair at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff for a live interview in the latest in Scott’s Fireside Chats series.
“Leo is a master storyteller and has a fabulous story to tell,” Scott said. “Leo was there for many of the most important events in mountaineering in the Rocky Mountains over the last 60 years – the first climb of Grillmair Chimneys, the first ascent of Direttissima, the first Canadian ascent of Mount Alberta, the founding of what would become Canadian Mountain Holidays and the founding of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides.”
Acquainted with Grillmair since 1960 when Scott assisted with carrying supplies into the Alpine Club of Canada’s Stanley Mitchell Hut in the Little Yoho Valley – during which Grillmair and Gmoser carried in a stupendously heavy woodstove – Scott said he learned much about Grillmair while writing his biography of Gmoser, Deep Powder and Steep Rock.
“One thing that I learned about Leo was his deep love for music,” Scott said. “Leo was raised in a musical family and was singing in public since he was a child. Hans Gmoser also had a deep love for music and this was something that kept them very close over the years.”
For his part, Scott said he deeply appreciates the opportunities to share others’ stories through his Fireside Chats live interviews.
“I love sharing these people with the wider audience of Banff/Canmore and Calgary,” Scott said. “I personally know many of these interesting people, but so many others in the community have not had a chance to meet them and hear their stories. With the Fireside Chats it is possible for several hundred people – and many more on the internet – to ‘meet’ these people and hear their stories.”
Scott’s Fireside Chat with Leo Grillmair takes place Nov. 19 at 3:30 p.m. Admission is $5 per person; free for Whyte Museum members. Seating is limited. Visit www.whyte.org/events to purchase tickets in advance or to RSVP.
