In episode 1, we learned about the three great wounds of Eric Robinson’s life and how friends helped him find solace from his grief in nature.
The wounds fueled Eric’s drive to get outside and hike, and that motive went well beyond the bounds of a simple hobby. Hiking gave Eric’s life a sense of purpose. Over time, he built a strong base of experience in mountains all around the world, a competence that gave him confidence to venture out alone.
But Eric’s trekking experience didn’t begin solo. During a pivotal period of his life, he shared trails with a coworker and friend named Alan Beck.
Eric Robinson and Alan Beck
Eric and Alan met through work, as they both worked for the company Carter Holt Harvey in the late 1990s.
“They had a bit of a reputation in the lunch room and in the workplace of being those nutter outdoor people,” Eric’s wife Marilyn Koolstra said. “The two of them over lunch breaks would conjure up places … and off they would go together.”
Alan was a New Zealander, and 11 years Eric’s junior.
“Alan, being younger, would walk faster. And taller, he had a longer gait,” Marilyn said.
Eric and Alan’s travels took them across portions of central and southeastern Australia, as well as across the Southern Alps of New Zealand. With each outing, their aspirations grew. In 2003, the pair planned a month-long trip to Patagonia.
They spent a week of that time hiking a trail called the O Circuit in Torres del Paine National Park. Photos Eric took during the trek show they were lashed with bouts of bad weather. At one point, Alan led Eric up a steep slope to the base of a snow drift.
“Eric hated the snow, growing up in cold Scotland,” Marilyn said.
Alan had experience mountaineering that went beyond Eric’s comfort and skill level. Going off trail, through talus and scree, was beyond the trekking Eric’d done previously. At Alan’s urging, he braved the snow.
“That was probably the highlight of their first foray into mountaineering, glacial snow places together,” Marilyn said. “When he came back, he was so full of this beautiful place, ‘cause the rock formations, the snow, the animals, the plains, the Chilean people. He was waxing lyrical about this for months on end.”
At one point, Eric told Marilyn that when he died, he wanted his ashes split into three portions. One should be buried with his mother in Scotland and another scattered in the Grampian Mountains of Victoria.
“And, ‘Get Alan to take some ashes and scatter them in the Torres del Paine National Park.’ That’s how significant that trip and hike up the Gray Glacier was with him.”
Marilyn promised to honor Eric’s wish, as the two married in March of 2005.
Friendships on the John Muir Trail
Eric’s profound experience in Patagonia prompted another grand adventure with his friend Alan in 2006. The duo flew to the United States to hike the John Muir Trail. Their itinerary would carry them from the heart of Yosemite National Park south along the High Sierra, to Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 states.
“Alan and Eric were very social on that trip,” Marilyn said.
One of the people Eric and Alan met near the start of the journey was a woman in her early 20s named Julia Geisler.
“I was on the Travel-the-World-Plan and I wanted to do some backpacking,” Julia said. “I had a friend, Devon McClive, who wanted to join me.”
Julia and Devon were both single and out for adventure.
“We’re going to go into the woods and we’ll probably meet some hot young dudes and get to hike with them,” Julia recalled. “Then we met Eric and Alan.”
At the time, Alan was 48 and Eric was 59. Over the course of several days on the trail, Eric, Alan, Julia and Devon merged into what some hikers might call a “trail family.”
“You kind of move along at similar paces,” Julia said. “It’s a pretty intimate experience being out in the woods with folks.”
However, the weeks in close proximity strained Eric and Alan’s friendship. On his return, Eric told his wife Marilyn they’d had a falling out.
“Eric would say, ‘He’d just charge off and I wouldn’t know what was going on.’ And Eric liked to know what was going on,” Marilyn said. “It was, ‘I’m not going to hike with him ever again.’”
Eric Robinson’s retirement
Eric turned 60 in March of 2007. He informed Marilyn he intended to retire, so he’d have more time to trek ambitious trails all around the world.
“He wanted to travel and walk as long as he could carry his backpack and I was not able, nor willing, to take time out of work,” Marilyn said. “So we had an understanding, if he wanted to go and hike somewhere, he would do that.”
Without his friend Alan Beck to accompany him though, Eric resorted to hiking alone. His first major solo experience came in early 2008, when Eric traveled to Te Waipounamu, the South Island of New Zealand. He’d arranged to do several ambitious hikes, beginning with a tough route over the Cascade Saddle between the Dart and Matukituki Rivers.
Eric carried a new digital camera on this journey, a Pentax K10D DSLR. His photographs show his path as he traveled up the Rees River, crossed the Rees Saddle, and descended along Snowy Creek into the valley of the Dart River.
At the Dart, Eric turned right and headed upstream toward the Cascade Saddle. An intense storm system was at the same time blowing in off the Tasman Sea, crashing into the Southern Alps. Torrential rain fell.
Eric failed to arrive at the far end of the route.
Eric Robinson overdue on Cascade Saddle
Alan Beck, Eric’s estranged hiking buddy, also happened to be in New Zealand at the time, preparing for a mountaineering ascent of Tititea/Mount Aspiring.
“One night I got a phone call from Alan, which was most unusual,” Marilyn said. “He said, ‘I don’t want to alarm you, but Eric is overdue on the walk. He wasn’t come in.”
Alan notified New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, while Marilyn reported her husband missing to Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Concern for Eric’s welfare began to mount.
A day-and-a-half later, Eric stumbled into the Aspiring Hut alongside the Matukituki River.
“Eric had just waited out in his tent with the rain,” Marilyn said. “Eric smiled and it was a bit of a laugh about how people worry about the weather, about people’s ability to cope. He wasn’t at all concerned.”
Marilyn felt differently. She’d spent two anxious days worried about his safety, not knowing if he might’ve been injured or killed. Eric dismissed her concerns.
“And I was saying, ‘Well, so far you’ve walked by yourself. Maybe you can’t go by yourself anymore,’” Marilyn said.
The death of Alan Beck
Eric met up with Alan in the tourist town of Wanaka after his delayed return from the Cascade Saddle trek. Alan invited Eric to join his climbing party for the ascent of Mount Aspiring.
“Eric goes, ‘Oh no, I don’t think I want to do that. I’m not experienced in that. It’s a young person’s thing. It’s Alan’s thing. I don’t think I’m going to do that,’” Marilyn said.
Alan took the rebuff in stride, and promised to reunite with Eric again after coming off the peak in a few days. The two friends then parted, with Alan boarding a helicopter as Eric headed out on another hike, in the Wilkin Valley.
Alan Beck and his climbing partner, Andy, arrived at the Collin Todd Hut on the northwest ridge of Mount Aspiring on March 3. They attempted to climb the peak the following day, but were driven back by bad weather. Alan and Andy made a second attempt on March 6, but were once again foiled.
On March 7, Alan and Andy, along with two other hikers, decided conditions would not allow them to make the summit. The weather would also prevent helicopters from retrieving them from the hut. Their only escape route was to trek across the Bonar Glacier and descend into the Matukituki River Valley by way of Bevan Col.
The four climbers began crossing the ice and were partway across when a white-out blizzard descended. Alan set up a tent and the group took shelter there. Conditions didn’t improve. Two days later, Alan stepped out of the tent into the storm to try and scout a path off the glacier to Bevan Col. He didn’t return.
Meanwhile, Eric arrived back in Wanaka to learn a search and rescue mission was underway for Alan.
“Eric called me and he was extremely upset,” Marilyn said. “I had to keep asking, ‘What did you say? Tell me that again. Explain what happened.’”
The searchers eventually found Alan Beck’s lifeless body, scooted back beneath an overhang of ice. A coroner’s inquest later determined Alan had slipped on ice and fallen into a schrund. The impact caused severe chest and head trauma that cost Alan his life.
Alan’s death deprived Eric an opportunity to mend fences with his friend.
“He knew that he wouldn’t be doing such trips ever again with somebody that really had the same passion,” Marilyn said.
Eric’s insistence on going solo
Eric did not allow Alan’s death to dissuade him from adventuring outdoors. Only months later, he traveled alone to Scotland to hike the Cape Wrath Trail. In early 2009, he tackled the South Coast Track in Tasmania.
Marilyn and her children, meanwhile, were growing increasingly uncomfortable with Eric’s insistence on trekking solo.
“He was hopeful that I would retire earlier and join him on some of those walks that he wanted to do,” Marilyn said. “But I was still energetic, passionate, involved in my teaching chores.”
Marilyn was by this point serving as principal at Valkstone Primary School, a career position that demanded a great deal of her time and attention. She could only travel with Eric over holiday weekends or breaks in the school schedule.
Death in Nepal
They arranged to visit Nepal together in late 2009, and spent a few weeks trekking the Annapurna Circuit. The route required crossing Thorong La, a mountain pass over 17,700 feet (5,400 meters) above sea level.
“He hadn’t really done anything of that altitude before, either,” Marilyn said. “Neither had I.”
Eric returned to Nepal a year later, joining an expedition for a trek over Mera La. Crossing the pass, and attempting to reach the summit of Mera Peak, would require Eric to confront his dislike of snow. The expedition leaders held a training session below the pass, allowing Eric to gain his first experience wearing crampons and carrying an ice ax.
During the journey, Eric witnessed one of the party’s hired porters become ill from altitude sickness and die.
“When I picked him up from the airport, he was still in a great state of agitation and distress,” Marilyn said.
The Uinta Highline Trail
When Eric told Marilyn only a short time later that he intended to once again head out solo, to hike a trail in the United States called the Uinta Highline Trail, she felt strong misgivings.
“We also talked about the safety angle of that,” Marilyn said. “We then started talking about strategies of what you would do [in case of an accident], ‘But preferably Eric, not walking by yourself.’”
To assuage her concerns, Eric purchased an EPIRB (emergency position indicating radio beacon). The SOS device would allow him to summon help via satellite if he ran into trouble he couldn’t overcome.
But that device remained silent when Eric traveled to the United States alone, headed into the High Uintas Wilderness and failed to return.