Honoring Old and New
Matt Kelly: friend and Cochise mentor
By James Q Martin / JamesQMartin.com

1997 was the first time I set eyes on the Dragoons. It was from a dust-covered window of a rusty old Trooper with a motor that ticked more loudly than a coin-operated washer. The driver of that rusty but trusty vessel was an undergrad student named Matt Kelly.

I had only been climbing about six months when Matt and I met at the gym. After watching me train religiously – daily Matt quickly pinned me for that dumb, strong-enough kid who could belay, follow, and suffer well. Matt was a rock veteran and in the prime of his climbing and female escapades. He sought adventure as a calf calls for milk. But Matty didn't like his adventure to be tame; he wanted it raw — not like on a sterile factory farm, but as a young, wild bull who seeks the harsh, dry open spaces of the West would want to live.

In 1997 it was Matty who held the cord that radiated power when I did my first trad lead anywhere, on the first pitch of the moderate classic Moby Dick, in Cochise. We shared many adventures till Matt’s life was cut short 2005 when an asshole drunk driver hit him on his road bike, not even stopping to see if he’d taken someone's life. Matt's unborn son, Jasper, was safely in his mother's womb when the bastard struck my friend. Matt and I shared coffee, tales, and plans just hours before this tragedy.

From day one, I’ve quietly dedicated to Matt and Jasper the pictures that follow and the idea of a Cochise Stronghold feature. If not for Matt, there’s no telling when I would have sought such odysseys, far from home. It takes 6.5 hours to get to Cochise from my house in Flagstaff — but shit, Zion is 4 hours, J Tree 5, The Creek 4.5, and Hueco 8 — plus there’s tons of rock here. But it was always Matty who suggested the Stronghold, even if only for a two-day blast. I generally would say yes, and we would skip a day of classes and stay for three. Sometimes we wouldn’t even climb, just spending half-days wandering in search of artifacts as Matt bent my ears about the Apaches’ life and survival tactics.

I hope one day to offer Jasper a belay in Cochise and show him this story proudly, in remembrance of his father, who made it all possible. Cochise is strong, potent, and real — it gets in your blood like the scent of a woman gets in your mind — when you're apart, you’re drunk with the essence of its memory and your long for the challenge and comfort of its rugged contours. The day Matty died, he was proud: he had just diploma’ed in a master’s degree in archeology, he and his wife had recently purchased a home, and she’d waited until he finally received his diploma to tell him the good news about being pregnant with their first child.

So this is my sad and very true story — but is also a great story, too, because Matt lived large and fostered many dreams still being realized today.