Bob Sloezen

"As full as life as any 70-year-old": Bridges on Kusum Kanguru, Nepal, October 1998

Bridges was 11 years younger than Lowe, but his work as an expedition cameraman was only one facet of a fast-rising career that planted him firmly in his elder's bootsteps. He grew up in Lake Arrowhead, California, learned to climb at Joshua Tree and Yosemite, and summited Mount McKinley in 1989, at the age of 19. Just four years later he led a successful American expedition up the South Spur of K2 and went on to summit a string of Himalayan giants, including Annapurna IV and Makalu. Bridges didn't just climb, however: He also soared. As a winner of the national paragliding championships in 1995 and 1996, he was one of the finest paragliding pilots in the world.

Bridges lived in Aspen, Colorado, where his training routine involved sprinting from his house to the 11,212-foot top of Aspen Mountain, a 3,300-foot climb. Extreme skier Chris Davenport recalls taking part in one of these runs when Bridges was training for Baruntse, a 7,000-meter peak in Tibet. "Dave's best time to date had been 48 minutes, so he wanted to break 47," says Davenport. "But he came in at 48 minutes again. I told him we'd try again next time, thinking tomorrow or next week. Instead, Dave went down, ate lunch, and ran up again that afternoon. He succeeded." Says Joel Koury, a climber who knew Bridges since high school, "Dave led as full a life as any 70-year-old I've ever met." —TYLER STABLEFORD