Athlete Profile: Don Mellor

Lifelong Connections Between People and the Environment

by Jeff Edwards

It is easy to highlight Don Mellor’s accomplishments as the Adirondack climber. His list of climbs completed throughout the Adirondack Park over the past 30 years is exhaustive. As a pioneer of more than a hundred first ascents, Don’s regional knowledge of cliff and crag remains unparalleled. No one in the Adirondacks has climbed more routes at a greater variety of locations.

Continuing in the long tradition of Adirondack mountain guiding, Don was the first to make technical rock and ice the focus of a guiding business. He also assumed the mantle of Adirondack climbing historian when he took over the authorship of the Adirondack guidebook to rock and ice climbing in the early 1980s. He went on to write three editions, two of them published by the Adirondack Mountain Club. Most recently, Don completed three years of information gathering for a separate ice climbing guidebook, which now features more than 350 routes. He has since passed on to others the responsibility of writing the next updated rock climbing guide, deeming the organization of climbing areas scattered over six million acres unmanageable. It is difficult to imagine that anyone else could even conceive of starting such a project from scratch.

Don began rock climbing while a student at the University of New Hampshire in the early 1970s. He learned the craft on the granite of New Hampshire, following closely the footsteps of that area’s world famous pioneers such as Henry Barber. A post-college road trip to the western United States solidified his passion for climbing. He scaled such giants as El Capitan and Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. The journey served as the starting point for the ideas that eventually became American Rock (2001), Don’s regional examination of climbing geology and culture. Research for the book involved two summer’s worth of climbing trips all over the United States.

Even though Don has climbed throughout the continental U.S., he remains decidedly Adirondack in his focus. Never driven to pursue the big alpine peaks, he is instead content to wander the local hills in search of new cliffs or waterfalls. More than most technical climbers of the modern era, he finds joy in hiking or scrambling up the slides of the High Peaks. Most satisfying to Don is a trip to Wallface, the Adirondacks’ highest rock face at nearly 800 feet. He knows the terrain there better than anyone and it will be a long time before anyone even considers matching the over 40 ascents Don has made in that remote location.

Adventure sports have certainly grabbed the public’s attention in recent years, but Don remains pure to his New England roots. He is generally indifferent to the modern tools and techniques of climbing. Instead, he is comfortable with the same equipment and techniques he has utilized for decades. He climbs with the old school attitude that falling is sacrilegious. Don has experienced his share of close calls over the years, but it hasn’t prevented him from pursuing the sport he loves on the terms that he decides. Even Don’s instructional book, Rock Climbing: A Trailside Guide (1997), is structured with the low-key traditional attitude representative of his Adirondack adventure spirit.

Summers have always provided the time for Don to pursue his climbing objectives. He has taught English at Northwood School in Lake Placid for 27 years. Introducing teenagers to the nuances of English grammar is his passion, but he carries the same enthusiasm into the afternoon sports period as the school’s wilderness skills director. Each day, Don brings the students hiking, climbing, paddling or orienteering. He’s proud to reel off the list of former students who have gone on to become proficient climbers or successful guides. This past April, Don took some of those Northwood students on an adventure eco-tour to Costa Rica.

Each Wednesday afternoon, Don takes kids from the Lake Placid Outing Club out climbing. Part of his role at Northwood involves student counseling and he has been a Samaritan Family Counseling Center board member for many years. Don has forged a long-term relationship with the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation to monitor the progress of peregrine falcon recovery. He has also been the first person anyone calls in the case of a lost or stranded climber. As a result, Don was instrumental in forming the volunteer technical rescue group.

The simplicity of the Adirondack existence shapes Don’s life. He and his wife Janet and daughter Elise are passing on the beauty of this life by hosting a child from The Fresh Air Fund this summer. The mutually beneficial experience is typical of the way Don sees the connections between people and the environment. Climbing is merely an extension of his everyday philosophical approach and essential to his relationship with the Adirondack forest he loves.

Jeff Edwards teaches English and environmental science at Northwood School in Lake Placid. He is also a rock and ice climbing guide, and race director for the inaugural 2005 Lake Placid Marathon.