“Beaver’s story is one example of the gaps between the classic narratives and the non-climbing soul that gives these ranges more depth,” writes Zach Lovell, speaking about Beaver the Talkeetna cat, in this week's Q&A. Lovell wrote a profile of Beaver in the SJ 325, and Alpinism’s Favorite Feline features on one of the covers too.
Today, we talk with Lovell about the story behind the Beaver story and why he thinks less is more in storytelling.
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Zach Lovell is a climber, skier, writer, and IFMGA Mountain Guide based in the Sierra Nevada. Similar to the sentiment that “climbing is closer to art than sport”, Zach considers himself more of a musician than an athlete. His richest days are spent chasing his soon-to-be wife Syd on a mountain bike and catching substantially fewer fish than her at an alpine lake. New-routing lands at a distant second (or third) place.
You can follow him on Instagram @zachjlovellThe Stories Between the Summits: Q&A with Zach Lovell
Summit Journal: I'm fixated on names lately; the last Q&A was with Hamish Frost, a photographer who specializes in winter climbing (you can see the connection, I’m sure). Your family name is Lovell, and I can’t help but notice that the two pieces you’ve written for Summit Journal could, through a certain lens, be read as love letters. What do you think of this description?
Zach Lovell: They certainly are love letters in a sense. There’s a great deal of science or sport, rather than art, woven into my mountain career, from training to risk management to coaching, so I try to be more emotive in my writing. It’s a space for more feeling than thinking. It’s fitting that “love” is in my family name… I’m far more of a lover than a fighter.
SJ: Your stories start from a place of deep personal connection and expand into remembrance and appreciation. How do you think about structuring your stories so that meaning and the greater idea builds as one reads?
ZL: In my younger years, literature like Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and Mary Oliver’s American Primitive were incredibly influential — it showed how personal the written word can be. A stranger can read the works of a long-gone author and feel connected to them in a way that transcends time. I’m certainly not aspiring to be a writer whose work becomes multi-generational, but I do aim for pieces like this to carry a strong, narrative voice. I want readers to feel like they’re not just in a scene, but actually feel the emotions of the people in it.
Depending on the story, I like to establish a more personal experience for the reader through prose openings. As a piece expands into its main themes, I still like to circle back to first-person moments, so the reader isn’t dragged through a dry article that feels like a chapter from their high-school history book. There are writers out there that can captivate you with chronology, but that’s not me.
“One afternoon in 2019, Paul Roderick, owner and head pilot of Talkeetna Air Taxi, completed his final pre-flight checks and fired up the engine of the Tundra Bird. He taxied to the runway, raised one hand to shield his eyes from the sun, and eased the throttle forward. The takeoff was smooth and routine, one of tens of thousands he’d executed from Talkeetna Airport. He had no climbers on board, no dropoffs to make at Kahiltna Base Camp or the Ruth Gorge. Just a pleasant, personal flight to go skiing. But as he climbed toward the Alaska Range, Denali, Sultana, and Begguya scraping the sky, from behind the cockpit a stowaway emerged—partially hidden inside a ski boot. Was it a pine marten? Roderick thought, as a blur of gray and black sped towards him. And then he saw the creature’s whiskers and pointy ears.” — Excerpt from Talkeetna Cat in Summit Journal 325
SJ: Is climbing an emotional endeavor for you?
ZL: Climbing is many things for me, and has very emotional roots. I started climbing and skiing at a young age, but it was a close friend’s suicide that eventually put me on the path of a mountain career, pulling hobbies into a profession (much of that story remains unwritten, for now).
I deeply believe the outdoors and mountain recreation are some of the best forms of therapy, and stemming from that, I also agree with the long-shared belief that “who you’re climbing with is far more important than what you're climbing.”
As much as anybody, I can (and still do) get caught up in a drive to perform, chase arbitrary numbers, and climb bigger or harder routes. But after completing or failing a project, I usually stumble my way back to a more grounded relationship with climbing, focusing on the experience and friendships within the sport rather than silly numbers.
SJ: Quick hits: Are you a cat person? Do you have a cat?
ZL: I grew up with my parents' cats and a couple of golden retrievers (though we didn’t have all those pets at the same time). Present day, my soon-to-be wife and I have a sweetheart Bernese Mountain Dog named Maya, whom we adopted a couple of years ago. As far as cats go, I most often hang with our friends’ cat Dunkin’ (like Dunkin’ Donuts) when he isn’t on a multi-day mouse bender roaming the streets of Mammoth.
Beaver the cat with a fresh dusting.
SJ: Your latest story is Talkeetna Cat: Alpinism’s Favorite Feline in SJ 325. Sure, you’re a proud member of the Beaver fan club, but why was this a story you wanted to write?
ZL: There are so many mountain stories hiding in nooks and crannies of even the most iconic ranges. As much as I appreciate the news flashes of a new route or hard repeats, the spirit of climbing, to me, comes from the stories surrounding its cultures and communities.
Beaver was undeniably a core part of Alaska Range expedition preparation or tear-down, and I remember hanging with him on a weather day just as vividly as being strung out on lead somewhere in the mountains. Beaver’s story is just one of countless examples of the gaps between the classic stories many have heard more than once, and the non-climbing soul that gives these ranges more depth than: “We started at the bottom, summited, had some near misses, but made it home.”
SJ: The anecdotes and quips you use are a great example of “showing, not telling” Beaver’s character. When thinking about the subject, what is your process for clarifying for yourself “this is what makes them, them”? That is to say, how do you sift through the information (from personal experience, interviews, etc.) to decide on a subject’s characterization, and then, what is most important to present?
ZL: To show or tell someone’s (or some cat’s) character, I lean on my own anecdotes and stories of those closest to the subject. I look at their most iconic stories and attributes, and find moments that speak the loudest. The right memory, even just a few sentences long, can speak volumes about a person.
A long time ago, I remember the impact an English professor had on me when they gave us an assignment dubbed the “300-word epic". That first showed me the power of brevity when writing a profile or a creative piece.
SJ: Lastly, how does writing for Summit Journal differ from other publications?
ZL: Summit Journal offers a more artistic outlet for facts and climbing histories. I appreciate the multi-discipline world the Summit Journal team has cultivated, where climbing lore, famous or not, has equal weight from alpinism to bouldering to a feline who likes to get sassy on a tarmac.
Talkeetna Cat title page from Summit Journal 325.
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Feature Image: Zach Lovell on the summit ridge of Ptarmigan Spire, with the Citadel in the background. / Photo by Mark Westman