Dick’s ‘Hot Air’ Begins His Climbing
One of the camps that the team set up on the Denali expedition.
If you can force you heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold one when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
Managing the construction and operations at Snowbird during the late 1970s and, in particular, managing his debts with the banks took much of Dick’s time. Despite these obligations, Dick never would pass on an opportunity for an adventure.
A young woman named Marty Hoey worked for Snowbird in the resort’s early days in the 1970s as a ski safety patroller. In addition to her role at Snowbird, Marty also guided expeditions to climb Mount McKinley (Denali) in Alaska. During a social gathering of Snowbird employees, including Marty and Dick, and Dick learned that Marty was the only female guide for expeditions on McKinley. As usual, Dick needed to show off his loud mouth and told Marty that he wanted her to be his guide on the mountain. Dick was almost 50 years old at the time, and Marty believed he was full of undeserved arrogance (aka “BS”). She told Dick: “Bass, your hot air won’t get you up that mountain.” As soon as he heard these patronizing words, Dick’s temper fired up. He became determined to prove Marty wrong and forced her hand to allow him to join the trip.
“Bass, your hot air won’t get you up that mountain.”
–Marty Hoey, Dick’s guide on Mount McKinley
Marty Hoey on an expedition at Mount Aconcagua in South America.
Dick not only followed through on his plans but he brought his children along with him (including my mom, Bonnie), joining several key Snowbird employees. As the trip approached, Dick did zero planned physical conditioning or exercise to prepare. All he did was ski and talk a lot. Dick remained confident he could achieve this bold feat.
Bonnie Bass (now Bonnie Smith, a.k.a. my Mom) on the Denali Climb
On the first day, the group was about to head out with their eighty-pound backpacks and heavy sleds, which hooked onto their belts and dragged behind the climbers. Frustrated, Dick struggled to lift the towering pack onto his back. When he finally finished the tiring task, he was already exhausted, and he heard his new enemy, Marty, yelling at him. Of course, Dick responded by yelling right back because he did not understand what she was saying. After he cooled down, Marty quietly told him that he had not attached his sled. Dick had to repeat the entire getting ready process all over again.
When the group eventually got under way, Dick struggled from the very beginning. After only a short time hiking slowly up the slope, Dick felt like he could hardly keep moving, and he looked up to the skies, remembering:
“You don’t ever ask God to do things for you, but instead, you ask for directions.” –Dick Bass
That directive is exactly what Dick did. During this time of struggle, he asked God for directions. At that moment, Dick swears God came down and touched him, and without even thinking, he started reciting Kipling’s “If” one word at a time:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster,
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force you heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold one when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
At the end of the third stanza, as Dick said the words “Hold on!”, he claimed that he felt a divine intervention, filling him with the energy to complete the entire journey to the summit.
Mount McKinley (Denali), the tallest mountain on North America, and Dick’s first of the ‘Summits’
This story gives you a glimpse of Dick’s romantic spin that he infused in his life’s adventures. The idealistic narrative may be hard to believe, but it illustrates his contagious energy that inspired others to join him on risky, creative endeavors like building Snowbird and mountain climbing sagas.
Marty Hoey tragically passed away on an expedition to climb Mount Everest in 1982; Dick also was a member of that climbing team. Marty nearly reached the summit and would have been the first woman to summit the highest peak on earth. Dick honored Marty’s influence on him by continuing to climb the Seven Summits. He never would have been motivated to take on that goal if Marty had not doubted, challenged, and inspired him.
A memorial honoring Marty that the team created below Mount Everest