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Bouldering Companions
Rich Borgman
:
(Richard Borgman) This photo was taken in 1969
near Rotary Park. When I first arrived
in Ft. Collins in the late summer
of 1967 and discovered the potential
sandstone playground at Horsetooth
Reservoir, I began searching for a bouldering
companion. I asked the men’s gymnastics
coach if he knew any gymnasts who were
also climbers, for there didn’t appear
to be any boulderers in the community. He said
“You should talk to Rich Borgman - he’s
one of my pommel horse specialists and he can
climb all over the inside of this gym!” I met
Rich and described the sort of climbing I had in mind
for Horsetooth and his eyes began to sparkle.
He had never heard of bouldering, but it
sounded like just the kind of climbing he’d like to
do.
Reach Overhang 1967
He had recently taken an unroped fall
off the east face of Longs Peak in the middle of
the winter, and had survived several hundred feet
of bouncing off blocks and sliding nearly to Chasm
Lake because he was so light and was wearing a couple
of down jackets. He was through with mountaineering.
For the next
two and a half years Rich and I
and occasionally others explored
and climbed rocks all around the reservoir
- challenging and supporting each other
- establishing one of the great bouldering
areas of America. Here's a shot of
Rich
toproping
below the Torture Chamber in 1969. During
this time Rich was a graduate student
in the microbiology program at CSU,
and was married, with two small children.
He and his family lived in a small trailor
park for students, just off campus. He
had boundless energy, rising at 4:00 am
to do an early morning stint as cook at the Village
Inn, then to classes and work as a lab assistant,
and in the late afternoon, out to Horsetooth.
I don’t know how he did it.
In 1970 or 1971,
about the time I left CSU, he
and his family became missionaries,
and he spent many years in Africa
- Abidjan, I believe - working with
prison inmates and others. He worked
with Chuck Colson, one of Nixon’s Watergate
conspirators, in setting up rehabilitation
programs in prisons. Years later
he and his family - the children grown
- moved to France and began missionary work
there. I talked with him for a few minutes on the
phone on the occasion of his 60th birthday
a year or so ago, and he confided that he still has
fond memories of our adventures in Colorado and
thinks of them often.
Within the past couple of years Rich and his family became Roman
Catholics, and Rich now works as a lay person for the Church. My hat is
off to my old friend: one of the top boulderers of
his generation and a man of deep spiritual commitment.
(There is much more to life than blouldering) (2004)