Eber Glendening by Pete Cowgill
Eber, a civil engineer, was a 39-year member of the Southern Arizona Hiking
Club. He was one of the most dedicated hikers, guides and officers in the early
days of SAHC and was primarily responsible for the success of SAHC.
Almost from Day One, Eber took over guiding our longer and more difficult hikes.
He had a passion about hiking in and exploring the Outdoors. His father George
worked and lived at the Santa Rita Experimental Range Station. When Eber was
nine, he hiked to the top of Mt. Wrightson via the long and difficult Florida
Canyon trail. He and his hiking buddies from the University of Arizona Ramblers
would do the three high points in the range (Wrightson, Hopkins, Josephine) in
one day before the Supertrail and the telescopes on Mt. Hopkins were built.
He introduced the rest of us to the joys of backpacking not only in the
Southwest but also from the big volcanoes in Mexico, to the Sierra Nevadas in
California and the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.
Eber and his wife Lorna published the SAHC Bulletin for 33 years. Their house
was the social center of SAHC every month when 20 or 30 members would show up
and Put the Bulletin Together. We took huge mimeograph stacks of pages placed
around their big circular dining room table and turned them into individual
Bulletins ready later that evening for mailing to members. Eber and Lorna never
missed a mailing deadline.
Eber never got lost. Or if he did, the rest of us were even more confused. He
would glance at his map and, with an air of confidence and a jaunty stride, lead
us to our next campsite and a huge campfire.
He had been to countless lovely places in the Great Outdoors. He seemed to
remember every peak, ridge, canyon, rock, and tree he had ever seen before. His
memory for places was phenomenal and his map-reading skills were unsurpassed. He
was your ideal guide in the back country.
Potable water was never any problem for Eber. He would drink from, and fill his
canteen from, any stock water tank, no matter if cattle were milling around
and/or in the foul-looking, slime-covered liquid.
Eber always had a cheery disposition, no matter the circumstances. If we were
heading for a campsite and were ready to drop someone would ask, “How far?” His
reply was always the same, “Just one more mile.”
Eber didn’t want to become an officer but in 1962 he allowed himself to get
elected as Chief Guide. The following year he was President. He discovered these
jobs weren’t too bad and over the years he was President three times and Chief
Guide four times.
Eber died in 1997. We erected an aluminum plaque in his honor overlooking his
beloved Rainbow Bridge. That’s where his ashes were scattered. He finally found
his Rainbow.
