Late start no deterrent to this old climber

Wendy Kay   -   Wednesday 4 June, 2008 12:01am

A WARNING from his doctor stopped Ralph Newbrun in his tracks ... and started him climbing mountains.

At 53, he was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day and suffering chronic bronchitis.

"My doctor told me I'd be a respiratory wreck by the time I hit 60," Ralph, now 82, said.

"So, at exactly 3.15 on February 15, 1978, I stopped smoking right there in the surgery."

Instead, on doctor's orders, Ralph began puffing his way around the streets of Killara to strengthen his lungs and get fit.

He took up hiking with his wife Pat, and less than a year after stubbing out his last cigarette, he climbed his first mountain.

"We were in Austria and had walked to the base of Dachstein, but we couldn't go any further without a guide," he said.

"Then a guide came down from the mountain and asked if we'd like to go up.

"Pat couldn't jump across a crevice at the start, but I continued up with him.

"We got to the top and it started to snow. It felt good I liked it."

Since then Ralph has climbed the alps in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria, France and tackled our own Mt Kosiosko (that's just a walk).

"I just love mountains, I always have."

It's possible his love of mountains stems from his birthplace, Austria, a country he was forced to flee with his parents as Hitler's regime spread.

They settled on the North Shore. After studying science at university, Ralph embarked on a 33-year career as a brewer and plant manager for Millers and then Tooheys, using his leave to pursue his passion for climbing.

Pat, who died three years ago, travelled with him on his relentless search for more mountains to climb. "She stopped short of the climbs though, that wasn't her thing," Ralph said.

"Every time I climbed she'd find a church and pray for me."

The walls around Ralph's house are adorned with photos of his conquests and his guides.

There are also certificates of achievement and dozens of badges and medals tucked away in little boxes as mementos of each climb.

Mont Blanc, the Taschorn, Monte Paradiso, Dent Blanche and, his toughest of all in the European alps, the Eiger, a climb he completed at the age of 64.

"That's one I'd never do again," he said. "It took me about seven hours."

The Matterhorn, on the other hand, was a different matter. He climbed that three times.

"Only from the Swiss side. Bad weather kept preventing me from climbing it from the Italian side."

It was on the Moch in Wales that Ralph confronted his mortality.

"Just near the top the rock turns to ice, my guide misjudged his step and slipped behind me.

"I just clung on to a rock, and held on for both of us, I knew if I let go we'd be as dead as mackerels.

"But then he did it again, which is not good because you have to trust your guide implicitly. I never went up with him again."

Was he scared?

"You can't be scared climbing mountains, otherwise you'd never get to the top," he said. "And a lot depends on the weather. You can't go mountaineering and hope to have good weather.

"But if you got stuck in a blizzard you'd just get under a rock and sit it out."

Ralph climbed his last mountain, Schwarzhorn in Germany, in 1992. "I got crook," he said. "Would you believe it, I developed asthma at the age of 67!"

"I miss it, there's nothing like the adrenalin of climbing a good mountain."