Dad (Dee Molenaar) would be 106 today. He lived an amazing life here. He was born at the end of WWI – born before “talking” pictures, televisions, interstate highways, cassette tapes, CDs, DVDs, computers, “streaming” and cellphones. Born before commercial airlines and born 51 years before man landed on the moon. HIs first car was a Model-T Ford. He served as a “Coastie” in the Pacific in WWII, climbed on some of the highest mountains in the world, published three books (including the award-winning Challenge of Rainier), created maps, painted the highest painting ever painted (at 25,000′ on K2), and traveled to six of the seven continents.

I don’t know how many times he appeared in National Geographic, but I remember randomly opening a National Geographic at a thrift store and seeing Dad dressed in a national park ranger uniform, checking a climber’s gear on Mount Rainier. I know he was also in National Geographic for the 1953 K2 climb and the Mount Saint Elias climb and the Mount Kennedy climb.

He led me up Pinnacle Peak when I was four, and got me to the summits of Hood, Baker, Rainier, and Adams. He taught me how to ride a bike and hit a baseball. He built a high jump for me in our backyard, and showed me how to scissor-leg over it, and, when I broke my arm high-jumping in our back yard, he passed out in the hospital when the doctor cracked my arm back together – this brave man who’d rescued climbers, retrieved bodies from the mountains, served in WWII, and faced death on K2, passed out when he saw his child in pain.

He was one of my favorite hiking buddies, one of my biggest advocates, and I miss him.