No commitment—not even the one to your SO—is as binding as that of the belay. When you hold the rope, your partner’s life is in your hands. Screw up this marriage and you give new meaning to the vow “till death do us part.”

Every couple of years, my son Tim, Jr. and I take a climbing trip together. Usually we pick one of my “dream climbs”—those classic routes that you always hear about, but seem too difficult to consider seriously. But my son encourages me to climb harder than I think I can, and together we have done The Scenic Cruise, The Naked Edge, Primrose Dihedrals and most recently Lotus Flower Tower. It is especially cool for me both to tick a lifetime goal and climb with my son.

Recounting the first ascent of the Bachar-Yerian.

That Charlie Fowler would meet his end while doing what he loved is no huge surprise given the sheer volume of his climbing. At age 52, he'd racked up three and a half decades of it, and had carried his quiet air of a seasoned survivor from hard rock to the high-risk games of alpine climbing and soloing.

Scarpa Phantom Guide mountaineering, ice and alpine boot field tested by the climbing magazine Rock and Ice.