1989 Honorary Member Profile : Dave Bunch

Great traditions start with a person. And in the case of the Mountaineers' monthly general membership meetings, Dave Bunch guaranteed success by investing his own time and energy virtually every 3rd Thursday over 13 years.

The idea, though, Dave credits to energetic Bob Hanson, vice-president during Dave's 1978-1980 presidency. Bob died in a non-Club climbing fall in 1979. (Dave's voice fills with sadness as he recalls, "We had such great plans...") The first session was December 21, 1978.

"I hope and think the meetings have been a unifying factor...a place where anyone of any interest could come and learn and enjoy," Dave says. Countless members remember the always-present Dave at the Rockwood Clinic meeting place, where he spent his working hours, too, as Dr. Bunch.

He modestly explains. "I knew where the stuff was, and how to get in and out." Dave provided--and often operated--not only the Clinic's but his own audiovisual equipment. "Sometimes I escaped in December when there was a Christmas party instead," he recalls.

Dave was disappointed, however, at his final "escape" this year when the attitudes and policies of a new CEO forced the Club out of the Rockwood Clinic.

"Not a physical person," is how Dave describes his years prior to 1973 when he realized he was out of shape and began regular gym workouts. "I was raised in a matriarchal Mississippi village," he explains, with no organized sports either there--or in a larger town where high school was "an intellectual exercise." Leisure time was spent strolling woods, skinny dipping, or catching crawfish. He "felt so good," he asked former Club officer and climbing chairman (and fellow Rockwood Clinic physician) Bob Wilson about a Rainier climb.

Turning back on Rainier's Disappointment Cleaver in 1975 inspired 52-year-old Dave to become a Mountaineer and take the climbing course. Twice. He recalls his first Club trip: Sherman Peak, where October snow prompted Christmas carols on the 7008-foot summit. By 1977, when elected vice-president, Dave was a veteran assistant leader on climbs, hikes, and cross-country ski trips. And so it has continued...through almost every facet of Club activity.

Combining his medicine and mountaineering, Dave found himself a medical lecturer for Eastern Washington University and state, national, and international search and rescue training courses. He and wife Nancy--an ardent and unfailingly cheerful participant in so many of Dave's endeavors--took courses in winter survival, cross-country skiing, etc. He practiced what he preached, relinquishing a summit on Mt. Shasta to care for a young male climber stricken with altitude sickness.

Two adventures stand out. In the early 1980's Dave did a 3-1/2-week first traverse of the Yukon's St. Elias Range, a "classic adventure following the route of the Duke of Abruzzi when he first climbed St. Elias." Dave well remembers the 40-pound backpack and 40-pound sled as he and 12 others traversed the magnificent, 95 percent-glacier route.

Four years later he was back--with Nancy this time--for an 11-day circle float of southeast Alaska's Tatsheni-Alsek rivers, where they reveled in views of huge glaciers and ice bergs.

Military service took Dave far from rural Mississippi. At 23, he walked off the stage at Ole Miss with his medical diploma and a Lt. J.G. commission. After clinical work at New Orleans' LSU and an internship in Kansas City, he spent 6 months on a Navy tender based at Tsing Tao, China, where "they made some of the best beer in the world."

The Korean War pulled Dave away from residency in internal medicine at Henry Ford Hospital and Clinic for two years service on a transport and then a summer in Thule, Greenland.

He was chief medical resident at Henry Ford in 1955 when a former Navy associate called to see if he knew anyone interested in an appointment at Spokane's Rockwood Clinic. "Yeah, me!" said Dave, driven by his Zane Grey-inspired "idealistic view" of the West. "I spent the next 18 years in Spokane developing my practice and my family." Memorable from those years were a 50-mile Boy Scout hike and a family campout where he put the poles on the wrong side of the tent.

Since retirement as a partner in the Rockwood Clinic in 1990, Dave has focused on St. John's Cathedral where he spends more than 20 hours weekly as "chief" of 30 guides and archives cataloger/photographer. He and Nancy have squeezed in a few trips too--Oslo to Spain by car, down the Rhine by boat, plays in London, Africa with the kids, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, China...

Where to next? "It would be nice to be a doctor on a trip to Antarctica," he says hopefully.

Here's how Dave sums up his feelings about the Club today. "I believe the Spokane Mountaineers is a superb organization that keeps its light under a bushel basket, and that may be good... It's an extremely valuable resource in learning body management and safety in the outdoors... I have much appreciation for the guidance, training, and pleasure the Mountaineers have given me."

Lorna Ream