By Julia Caulfield
Bill Kees
William “Bill” Kees was passionate. He was driven, a mentor, bold. A positive life force. Kees was big timber.
“Unfortunately the big timber falls, and Bill was big timber. He cast a big shadow wherever he was in a positive way,” says Kees’ friend Jerry Roberts, “you know, we’re going to miss that. Bill was just fun loving, great guy that loved his family, and loved his extended family just as much.”
Bill Kees passed away holding his wife’s hand, on November 9th after a fight with cancer. He was 79 years old.
Kees was born on December 22, 1941 in Los Angeles, California. He spent his childhood in Southern California, but after a winter bussing tables and bartending in Aspen, he quickly fell in love with the mountains.
Kees met the (non-geological) love of his life, Susan, and they soon packed up their lives in a van – and along with Susan’s two children, headed East in 1972.
On the way to Aspen, Kees and Susan stopped in Telluride, and realized this was the place to be.
It was in Telluride, Kees quickly became an integral member of the community – including co-founding the Mountainfilm Festival in 1979.
Jerry Roberts met Kees in those early years.
“Bill and I were like brothers. We loved each other and we hated each other,” Roberts remembers, “but it was mostly good. We’d fight and then we’d kiss and make up and have a good time.”
A lot of that “good time” was spent skiing.
“He and I used to go out when it was less than beautiful and spend a lot of time skiing powder, and Bill was just one of the most enthusiastic people I knew. The worse the weather the was, the happier he was, it was almost manic. He was just hooting and hollering and saying ‘God, isn’t this great. Do we deserve it this good?’ There wasn’t a bad day for Bill,” Roberts says, “He was a man of adventure, whether it was walking down the street in Telluride, or on his couch watching a football game and drinking a beer with a buddy, or out in the mountains, or the deserts, or the rivers, he was probably the most enthusiastic person I knew.”
His love and passion for the outdoors was central to many who knew him.
Josh Borof says, “Bill was the grandfather of Ophir climbing.”
Borof met Kees climbing.
“When I started climbing with him he was in his 50s. I think the last route we did together he was 62 or 63. His shoulders were starting to fail him, but man he sure did, still, he would get on lead and he was so solid. So impressive to watch,” says Borof.
For Tor Anderson, the name Bill Kees proceeded the man.
“Bill Kees’ name was on so many first assents on the Ophir Wall, and a few other places around, that of course I knew his name before I knew who he was,” says Anderson.
Anderson would go on to spend more hiking days with Kees than climbing, but he always looked up to him as a mentor for climbing and adventuring, “and also for how to be respectful, when I first moved to town or first started getting to know him, of the old school ethic and old school mindset – which he certainly embodied – which was ‘go for big adventure’ and in terms of climbing that meant you didn’t come from the top and come down, to inspect what you were going to go up. You went from the bottom and up and took it as it came,” remembers Anderson.
While Kees was an excellent climber, and avid outdoorsman, he also loved bringing people into his sunlight.
Borof says “when we started climbing together I was 24. I was a fraction as good a rock climber as he was. But I was into it, I was trying hard, and he really did want to include all of us youngsters in the Ophir Wall and what was going on out there.”
But that love didn’t end at the Ophir Wall. It extended into his whole life.
“He had a lot of love, and if you were his friend, he treated you like gold,” says Kees’ friend, Judy Kohin, “He was a true lover, a lover of his family, his friends, and he loved life.”
That love was apparent towards his friends, children, and grandchildren, but Kohin notes it stood out in the way he adored his wife, Susan.
“We all worshiped their relationship, and all the struggles they went through, and how they persevered,” Kohin says, “they really showed us what it means to be in a relationship in this modern world, and to be really committed, and to share your love with someone through your whole life.
Kees’ joy and passion for life went everywhere he did.
“Bill had the biggest smile of just about anybody I knew, and his life was great. You could hear him across town,” says Roberts, “You knew Bill Kees was around by his laugh. He was always laughing about something.”
For those who knew him, finding that exuberance in the wilderness is the best way to remember him.
“You climb his routes. The best way to know Bill and what kind of rock climber he was. It’s all right there on the Wall. Go do his climbs, and you get a very good sense of what he was about, and just how sure of himself he was as a person and a climber. It’s all right there in his rock climbs,” says Borof.
Kohin adds “he wanted people to go outside and feel what it feels like to be outside, and to be in the wilderness, and just spend your life enjoying the mountains.”
Kees is survived by his wife, Susan, his children Scott, Blake, and Lorraine, and his grandchildren Mira, Alex, Zach, Marius, Cricket, and Ozzy.
There will be a celebration of life for Bill Kees on Saturday, November 20th at 2 p.m. at the Transfer Warehouse in Telluride.