Steve and I probably climbed more mountains together than possibly even his brothers. It would be close, Steve and I shared a lot of fires and winter camps. I remember him and I X-country skiing into Taylor Fort Campground on the road to Mirror Lake in the Uintah's. We had settled down for the night and there was a full moon. About midnight a pack of coyote's started howling down in a little clearing about a hundred yards from where we were camped.
We weren't that tired so we hopped back into our gear, jumped on our ski's and skiied down into the clearing surprising them because of the noise they were making. Well they scattered as we came in yelling. It was fun to watch them run and the snow they kicked up sparkling in the moonlight.
We were so pumped up we didn't feel sleepy so we found an old dead quacky(sp?) and I climbed up it and start throwing my weight in the direction of Steve's pushing and it snapped off after only a minute or so of getting it swaying. Yes, I fell with the tree but there was four feet of powder under me so we weren't worried about the landing.
Steve and I sat there burning that tree and other wood almost all night, we melted down thru the snow to the ground and made seats on the side of the snow as it melted away and sat on our sleeping bags. We talked almost all night and watched the moon and the stars. I can't remember exactly what we talked about but I can guarantee it had to do with God, the universe, our immediate family's and eternity. That is not an exageration, often on those trips hours were spent talking over the fire about our beautiful wives and children.
Memory from Von Phillips
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