Word: basses
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...through the door: "You just have to think that you're not saying you're the best musician in the room, just that you know how to do your job. You're not telling these musicians who've been around for years how to do theirs." Matthew Gibson, double-bass player and board member of the London Symphony Orchestra, says of Harding: "We all think he'll be one of the greats in 10 or 15 years." Harding's recordings (he's signed exclusively to Virgin Classics) have been mixed so far, but last year's issue of Britten...
...Dick Bass, a Texan who salts his speech with darlin' and dadgum, was 51 years old and clueless about expedition climbing when he decided to summit Mount McKinley in 1981. Bass, the owner of Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort in Utah, had no idea McKinley was among the hardest U.S. climbs. He made the decision to brave the elements after a particularly tough employee pronounced that he would never cut it on the mountain. Bass vowed to prove her wrong. "I didn't even know how to put a tent up," he says. But off he trudged, defiantly...
...days, Bass, along with nine other weary hikers, poured sweat and plodded upward, carrying a 70-lb. backpack and lugging a 35-lb. sled. At the final ascent, the amused Snowbird guide sentenced him to lead rope--the tiring position that carves out the group's path. Bass relished the challenge, and as he spied the wide ribbon of snow upon the mountain's ridge, he untethered himself, rushed the summit and yodeled a Tarzan yell. "I was told all the way I wasn't gonna make it," he says. "Shoot, I walked everyone to the ground." Bounding down...
...Bass isn't the only old-timer who spends his free time sucking wind in the mountains. A gaggle of weather-beaten seniors are following in his footsteps up jagged peaks, skirting crevices and negotiating rocky paths. Some started late in life; others have climbed since Depression-era Boy Scout outings. "We have what we didn't have 50 years ago, which is a group of people over 50 who've stayed fit, who are getting out, who have disposable income and who've achieved a very high level of performance," says Peter Metcalf, CEO of climbing manufacturer Black Diamond...
Dangling from cliffs in casts, the live-fast, die-old set defies stereotypes about staid seniors. Though climbers must be extraordinarily cautious, the payoff is hard bodies and quick minds. That's why Wignall is frantic to escape his bedroom and climb; why Bass will give Everest another go; why he'll face competition from Miura, who will also return. "I wanted to encourage the elders in the world that if man keeps hopes and a dream, believes in the dream and works toward the dream, the heart and soul of man will remain young," Miura says...