Conrad Anker Instagram – Kyle Allen Rott 1987 – 2023
On November 25th we lost Kyle in a fall in Hyalite Canyon, Montana. My heart goes out to his mother and sister and the South Dakota family of this fine man. For his friends the loss is immediate. The years of being together, weaving the fabric of friendship through shared experiences are gone.
Kyle was a climber. Once he realized that the pursuit of gravity was his life’s calling, he lived with a singular purpose. “Let’s go climb.”
As someone close to Kyle, his “uncle” by age and knowing him with our family, his loss is another weight on the scale of “is it worth it”.
Many of my close friends are introverts. In school we found each other and climbing self selected us. Kyle and I climbed together for 15 years – most of the time hiking the folds of Southwest Montana looking for the cliffs and drips that sustain us. In between climbs he helped out by housesitting for the climbing community. For those of that trusted Kyle without houses and animals – you know how conscientious he was. Kyle’s humble approach to life – not entertaining anything superfluous – was reflected by living in his truck. Which made housesitting a good balance.
While Kyle was quiet and shy in a room of his peers, there was this friendly side that Kyle shared with people in life. More than once he would carefully explain the gadgets needed to climb to curious people on the trail. This translated well to the guiding he did with Montana Alpine Guides and the Mountain School in Yosemite.
At our service for Kyle we wrote in a small book for his mother and family. His worldly possessions, kept tidy in a Livingston storage locker, spread out over a picnic table, passed to his friends. They will cherish his memory and then ply the seas of gravity, risking it all for the moment. For his age peers, dealing with non sequential death, many for the first time, left adrift questioning and bonding closer with those that stand. I was there. And now 30 years later as an elder, with culpability and responsibility.
We love you Kyle for energy you brought to our climbing adventures.
We love you for the reminder to live calm.
Photos @petetapley | Posted on 30/Dec/2023 23:08:14
