Illusion Dweller

Stimson Bullitt was born into a privileged and influential Seattle family, a position he did not always find comfortable.   He showed his black-sheep tendencies when, after graduating from Yale University, he rode the rails to come back West, where he worked in Central Washington orchards and on a highway crew at Chinook Pass. Later he became a skilled lawyer, a champion of civil and environmental causes, and president of King Broadcasting, the communications empire built by his mother, Dorothy Stimson Bullitt.

While he was always drawn to the mountains, it wasn’t until Bullitt reached his 50s and 60s that he sought challenges on North America’s formidable peaks, including Denali and Mount Rainier. Not until he was 70 did he take up rock climbing, but it became a match and foil for his passions and, at times, his inner demons.

Illusion Dweller, named after a particularly hard-earned and difficult climb (5.10b) at Joshua tree, is Bullitt’s climbing memoir, published posthumously and based on his own detailed manuscript. He climbed until just before his death at age 89. His achievements serve as inspiration to climbers of any age — and to anyone striving to retain or acquire a spirit of adventure later in life.

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