The power of social media flexed its muscle earlier this week when a Durango resident posted on Facebook an old photo she found wedged in a book purchased from a local thrift store. Within an hour, all five hikers posing on top of a mountain were identified.
On Monday, Lesley Forrest finally sat down to read a book she bought a few years ago at a Durango thrift store, The Complete Works of Shakespeare Volume II.
When she opened the book, inside was a picture of five hikers smiling for the camera with snow-covered mountains in the background, and a 1984 lotto ticket. She estimated the photo had to be from at least the 1980s, judging from the men’s attire and picture quality.
The next day, she decided to post the photo on the Facebook group Durango On-line Garage Sale, thinking maybe somebody would be able to identify the five friends. Within an hour, the mystery of the random photo was solved.
“By 10 p.m. someone had named all of them,” Forrest said. “The crazy thing is, three of them still work together. Thirty years later, they’re all still great friends.”
The picture was taken in 1988 from the top of Grays Peak, a Fourteener on the Front Range, said Larry Allen, one of the men in the photograph.
“I went to work (on Tuesday) and (our receptionist) is like, ‘Did you see what was on Facebook?’” Allen said. “It just took off. I heard from more people than I can shake a stick at. It was wild.”
Allen, Kevin Orrick and Rex Turner were all living in Denver at the time, working at McAlvany ICA, a brokerage firm that sells gold and silver. The three friends and co-workers decided they wanted to climb a Fourteener, so they called their experienced hiker friend, Gary Strat, also affectionately known as “White Trash.”
“You would think from looking at that photo we’re all physical people,” Allen said. “But we’re all office hacks.”
The group, which included Rick Miles, who also lived in Denver, intended to hike Longs Peak that day, but because of wildfires in Yellowstone, the park was closed. Instead they decided to trek along two mountains, Grays and Torreys peaks.
There, another hiker took the picture of the five friends. Allen said he might have a film slide of the picture, but other than that, he hasn’t seen the picture in years. He believes the Shakespeare book belonged to Orrick.
“I knew it wasn’t my book,” he said. “I’m not that cultured. It probably belonged to Kevin, he’s the cerebral one in the group.”
Orrick refuted that he’s “the cerebral one,” but did agree the book probably was his wife’s, who also had a Complete Works of Shakespeare Volume I from high school.
Orrick has a habit of using special occasion photographs as bookmarks, so it was probably in there when at some point the book was donated to a thrift store. His wife’s mother also had a tradition of giving the couple lottery tickets, explaining that mysterious item.
“My reaction was, we’re very blessed that all five of those guys in the photo are still healthy, and stay in touch with each other,” Orrick said. “It’s an amazing chain of events.”
McAlvany ICA relocated to Durango in 1992, and all three friends relocated with it. They still keep in touch with Strat and Miles, and even talked about the possibility of recreating the photo.
Forrest said she plans to return the photo to the men.
“That picture has created a life of itself,” Allen said. “Go figure.”
jromeo@durangoherald.com
