1964 Honorary Member Profile : Elwood Ryker

The story of Elwood A. Ryker is the saga of a ski tow. "I can build one of those," Elwood mused as he gazed at a Baker Meadows chair lift after a 1961 summer outing climb of Mt. Shuksan. And so he could.

"Complete the tow before the snow" the summer 1961 Kinnikinnick urged, announcing one of many Mt. Spokane work weekends. "Elwood has worked many nights and weekends assembling and making the works, and Earl Ferrier has devoted several days of vacation time to the reconditioning of the motor."

The fall Kinnikinnick reported progress. "[U]pper terminal-virtually complete. REA power poles and power-ready. Five intermediate poles and cross-arms-erected. Lower terminal-ground broken! Sheaves, plates, misc. Hardware drilled, painted and ready. Motor and wiring-purchased or otherwise acquired..."

On October 21 and 22, the 6-ft bullwheels were mounted. (These carried the overhead revolving cable to which metal hangers for dangling lengths of old climbing ropes were attached-a VERY modified J-bar design.) The first skiers took the 1,100-ft ride November 26. On New Year's Eve, less than 7 months after the first Club work party, a bottle of champagne smashed on an upper terminal support pole made the "Elwood Ryker tow" official. Club skiers thronged to the slope. The spring 1962 Kinnikinnick reported "Chalet register shows 659 registrations from 12/31-3/18 on 31 different days-biggest crowd was 50. It was occupied overnight on most Saturdays and other nights as well."

But Elwood wasn't there-he didn't ski.

Designer, master mechanic and supervisor was Elwood's description in the 1961 Club annual Peaks and Valleys. "He was a wizard mechanically," recalls Harold Olson, ardent tow constructor, repairer, and skier. "It's quite amazing that he undertook to build that sort of tow." Harold remembers Elwood's drives to Idaho to study the North-South Bowl's J-bar. "But it was all in his head. There was never anything drawn or written down." Though many parts were scrounged (initial construction cost was $1,240), Elwood manufactured the bullwheels himself. His old Buick was stuffed with metal parts and other gear. "He ran it up the mountain in second gear with one foot on the brake and the other on the gas," Harold chuckles.

Though Elwood's experience as a machinist and welder (he then worked for Fruehauf Trailers welding steel liners into cement trucks) was critical, his inventiveness sparked the tow project. Among his devices were a card table where all four legs would open when one was pulled, an automatic shutoff for motor vehicle headlights left burning, and a 10-speed truck transmission operated with a single stick shift. Elwood secured a patent on the transmission, recalls Valliant (Val) of Seattle, the older of his two sons, only to become discouraged when a major company appeared to have copied the design.

Mountaintops lured him. Chimney Rock in 1960 was his first time on high-angle rock. He instructed in the 1961 Mountain School. Time off from tow construction found him tackling Mt. Hood, Mt. Shuksan, and Bonanza Peak. He topped Mt. Stuart in 1962. Memories abound: The clatter of his flashlight down Shuksan's Fisher Chimneys when he flung it into space at dawn, exclaiming, "Don't need it!"; the short, impromptu "search" below Hood's Cooper Spur when he unobtrusively descended the wrong canyon.

Born in 1911, Elwood grew up with his four sisters on a farm between Edwall and Tyler. His youngest sister, Virginia Coleman of Everett, recalls that "times were hard, and we went out on our own early...The nicest person I've ever known," is his sister's memory. "He felt so sorry for me that I didn't have a special dress for my high school graduation that he bought me one!" "He loved camping," recalls Val, but he didn't believe in tents. "We rolled our sleeping bags out on the ground....He taught me a real appreciation of wilderness."

Books and art were passions, too. "A blue-collar intellectual," a fellow tow worker and climber called him, "with a great background in English literature." As a result of his dad's "voracious" reading, Val says, "we're all three [Val plus brother Kurt, of Portland, and sister Lori Weza, of Bothell] pretty much bookworms."

One of Elwood's jobs was dump truck driver on Grand Coulee Dam construction. Val looked forward to sketches illustrating anecdotes in his dad's letters from Coulee Dam. Elwood's drawing of Mt. Shuksan is in the Club archives. After Coulee Dam, Elwood drove for transport companies. "We didn't see much of him," his daughter recalls, "but he always came back on weekends." Mountaineers remember his tales of chaining up in wintery passes.

A little house on 28th in Lincoln Heights, where the Club picnicked in 1961, was the last home the children shared with their father before divorce. All born in Spokane, they had lived briefly in the Colville and Evans areas, where Elwood worked a year in a lime plant. "He bought a little stump farm near Park Rapids in 1946, and a sick horse he nursed back to health," Val remembers. "He cleared the land by himself."

Elwood joined the Club in 1957. He remarried in late 1962. By 1964 he had disappeared from the roster. A brain tumor took his life at 54 in November 1965. The tow faded into disuse as members elected to spend dollars skiing on commercial lifts rather than hours of physical labor maintaining the Club's. (The Ryker electric tow had replaced two gas-powered rope tows, one with a 3/8-in cable for a "rope".)

Elwood appreciated people, particularly his work crews. "Elwood says he has special thanks for all those mentioned here...eager, industrious, typical Mountaineers," the Kinnikinnick reported. And those of us who slaved away with him will never forget the few hectic but fun-filled years building, using, and maintaining the Elwood Ryker Ski Tow.

Lorna Ream