1990 Honorary Member Profile : Jim States

The lure of the mountains brought Dr. Jim States from his native East to an internship at Deaconess Hospital in 1971. Already a veteran Eastern mountaineer and outdoor instructor, Jim was "stuck by storms" on a McKinley climb and showed up at the hospital a month late.

He relaxed between intern stints by exploring the peaks, putting 50,000+ miles on an old Chevy Carryall (at 27, his first car) that year. "Someone told me to call John (Roskelley). He said you can go here and there...."

Soon, Jim was climbing with John: first ascent of Split Peak's north summit in the Canadian Rockies; first free ascent of Bourgeau, a waterfall near Banff; in 1975, an expedition to the Bolivian Andes, which gave them new routes on four peaks from 16,000 to 20,000 feet; and in 1976, the 25,645-foot summit of India's Nandi Devi, which they climbed without using oxygen.

Then, in 1980, Maluku, fifth highest mountain in the world at 27,790 feet, brought the world's attention to four Spokane Mountaineers. They made up the first U.S. team to put a climber on Maluku's summit (and two climbers within 150 feet), and the first team from one city to top a major Himalayan peak, all without oxygen or Sherpa support. In 1990, Jim, John, Chris Kopczynski, and Kim Momb (posthumously) were together awarded special honorary memberships for their outstanding contributions to international mountaineering.

"The best part of Makalu (climbed via the West Pillar) was being on the cutting edge," Jim says. "It was the hardest thing I've ever done, physically and psychologically."

There are good memories growing up (baking apple pies in campfire coals, sleeping out alone) and exciting ones. "Blowing up the yard" when a chemistry "experiment in extermination" sent flames shooting 3 to 4 feet high from connected mole tunnels. (His dad gave him a fire extinguisher for his 13th birthday.) With his electrical engineer dad's help, building Sputnik-inspired rockets that soared 1 to 2 miles high. Also building a ramjet engine that "caught the kitchen on fire."

Jim has always been in the wilds. "I started up hills in Pennsylvania and they just got steeper," he says, recollecting his childhood north of Pittsburgh. "When I was 15, my younger sister and I raised ourselves in the woods" after losing their mother when Jim was 12. "The woods was family." Her death shaped his life. "My strength comes from watching my mother's struggle to survive cancer and my father's quiet determination." Jim recalls vowing that "I would make this positive somehow."

"Medicine was always an interest," Jim says, remembering a family doctor's visit when he was 5. His mother was a nurse. At 16, recalling how badly he wanted help, then unavailable, when she died, he vowed that "when I am a physician, kids will be able to get care." Graduation in 1971 from Philadelphia's Temple University Medical School followed a 1967 chemistry degree from Bucknell University. After 2 years of family practice coupled with nights helping street youths as a volunteer medical director for the Spokane Drug Treatment program (Youth Help Association), he became the full-time director. Then came a 1978 fellowship in adolescent medicine (psychological and medical) at the University of Southern California's Children's Hospital in Los Angeles. Self-esteem and how kids do better in the mountains was a medical school research project. Then, 16 years after his vow, in 1978, he established the only private practice in Washington, Idaho, Montana, or Oregon dedicated exclusively to the treatment of adolescents and young adults.

Work and fun in the Eastern outdoors filled nonstudy hours-teaching canoeing and survival in New England camps, instructing in the Adirondacks Mountain Club, lots of winter climbs (Mt. Katahdin, Mt. Washington, traverses of the Presidentials)-and his "fascination with winter survival" grew ("I've never seen weather that severe since, including Everest and Makalu"). At first costs were minimal. "I took a piece of plastic, a gas mask bag, a $25.00 sleeping bag...and hitchhiked."

Alaska beckoned in 1967 when he was hired as a porter for an Ohio State Institute of Polar Studies summer expedition at Glacier Bay. He also did a first ascent on a "rest day." On another, he hiked 20 miles to the ocean for mail, napped briefly, and plodded 20 miles back.

During the year at USC, Jim pursued his love of ice in the Sierras. "I had figured out that ice was the route to the summits. It's sheer joy, dancing on your crampons and playing with your ice tools!" There were also marathon bike trips, such as traveling from Bakersfield to Las Vegas via Death Valley. Returning home, he headed for the Canadian Rockies to the north face of Robson (12,972 feet) and Photo Finish, an ice route in Columbia Icefields.

Jim is committed to combining and sharing his experience and knowledge. "I get enthused about seeing new people get excited about the mountains!" he exclaims. The Mountaineers first benefitted in early 1975 when he showed McKinley slides at a Chalet potluck. His many-time Mountain School Medicine for Mountaineering lectures focus on the "intelligent risk taking" he advocates with vivid do's and don'ts. An example: don't fill a water bottle with an untried liquid (Gatorade) when packing for the final summit push on Everest, not be able to keep it down, and end up taking no liquids at all from the final camp to the 29,028-foot summit and back.

Other topics (for more than 20 presentations a year) include adolescents: growth and development, mountain bike touring, risky business: sex and drugs, high altitude illness, disarming myths that disable our youth, Everest--the Process of Risk Taking, eating disorders, sports performance enhancement, Makalu 1992--the climb, lessons learned from our neighbors in a developing nation, preparing for a Third World expedition, conflict resolution, Nandi Devi--the North Ridge.

He has instructed in the National Outdoor Leadership School and the Pacific Crest Outward Bound instructor's program. He lectures to Sacred Heart pediatric interns and residents five to eight times a year, as well as to physician groups. Teacher training, primarily to high school teachers, takes up more hours, as do presentation to administrators, parents, and students. He consults with area schools at all levels.

"There are a lot of neat kids who need help," Jim says, explaining 22 years of low- or no-cost care to disadvantaged, high-risk young adults. He is on the board of the nonprofit Teen Junction program and has served on governor's advisory councils for both AIDS and drug use prevention.

No peak is "most memorable" to Jim. But experiences stand out: fixing 1,000 feet of line "by myself and totally unprotected" across the Lhotse Face at 24,000 feet on the way to the summit of Everest in 1983; the tragic illness and death of Devi Unsoeld on Nanda Devi that "reinforced the feeling we should listen to the mountain and be respectful of its power"; the Makalu experience in 1980 with John, Chris, and Kim; rainforests on the way to the 13,455-foot summit of North Borneo's Kota Kinabalu; Makalu again in 1992 with "a good friend (Brian Cox) who was culturally sensitive and willing to learn." "We carried all our own stuff to high camp (24,000 feet)," on the northwest ridge, where, in bad weather, "we turned around before we got killed."

Dubbing himself "a civilian in the Air Force," Jim now works 2 days a week helping Fairchild youths with difficult medical and psychological problems. He is a consultant for young adults at Eastern Washington University for another 2 days.

The future? "I think there's a lot more available to us than we're aware of, more we can tap, seeing the mountains as friend instead of obstacle, and being willing to honor, not ignore, inner sensations. It's really important to have a sensitivity for living things-plants, animals, people."

There'll be more time for the Club, too, Jim says, commending the quality of its mountain training program. "It's neat how many instructors are willing to give time. I feel real fortunate to have been involved in the mountaineer community in Spokane."

Lorna Ream