David Gunstone, beloved by climbers

When David Gunstone was a child, if there was a tree, he would be scrambling up it. As a teenager, if there was a cliff, he'd be skiing off it. As an adult, if there was a rock, he'd be climbing it.

A prominent figure in the Seattle climbing community for nearly 20 years, Mr. Gunstone wrote and self-published "The Traveler's Guide to Washington Rock Climbing," and he recently pioneered a climbing route at Index Town Wall that he named Heaven's Gate.

His knowledge of Washington's rock faces earned him the nickname "Beta," a term used in the rock-climbing community to refer to good information on a route.

Mr. Gunstone, 41, died Saturday (May 31) as he was descending a rock formation called the Squamish Chief, north of Vancouver, B.C. He fell about 100 feet and died instantly.

Born Dec. 22, 1961, to Else and James Gunstone in Seattle, he grew up camping, riding dirt bikes and doing cannonballs into Union Bay off the Lake Washington Boulevard ramp-to-nowhere. When the future Eagle Scout wasn't outdoors, he was taking apart radios and other electronics and then putting them back together.

He knew as early as third grade that he wanted to be an electrical engineer, his younger brother, Eric Gunstone, recalled.

He went to Chief Sealth High School in West Seattle and graduated from Washington State University in 1985 with a degree in electrical engineering. Boeing soon hired him to build remote-control models of the F/A-18 Hornet and F-15 fighter jets for radar-tracking tests. He later worked in research and development but was laid off more than a year ago.

Having been laid off and rehired by Boeing before, Mr. Gunstone took advantage of the time off, climbing or training nearly every day. Friends say climbing combined his meticulous engineering mind-set and his passion for outdoor adventures.

Even as a full-time Boeing employee, he worked four 10-hour days so he could spend long weekends at favorite climbing spots in California, Arizona and Colorado, as well as throughout Washington.

His favorite Washington climb was Heaven's Gate at Index, where he spent three years scrubbing the moss off rocks, clearing out crevices and planting anchors.

"He was so proud of it," his friend Merridy Rennick said. "Most people don't like to do the same climbs over and over again, but he wanted to share that experience with all of his friends."

"There's no one in the climbing community that is more loved than this guy," said another friend, Mary Sue Shafer. About 60 people, mostly local climbers, attended his surprise 40th-birthday party a year and a half ago.

About two years ago, Mr. Gunstone suffered a brain injury climbing in Eldorado Canyon in Colorado. His head swung into a rock, causing a blood clot in his brain that required surgery. But when his family expressed fear about his return to climbing, Eric Gunstone remembers his brother responding, "This is the biggest part of my life; you are asking me to stop something that is me."

The night before he died, he did a night climb with Rennick and friend Roger Bown. They sat on a ledge 800 feet up drinking wine until after midnight.

"Beta was a person of not too many words," Bown recalled, but on that warm night, sitting under the stars, he said, "This is life."

Mr. Gunstone was preceded in death by his mother, Else Gunstone. He is survived by his father and stepmother, James and Catherine Gunstone of Seattle; his grandmother, Magnhild Fjarvoll of Lynnwood; and two brothers and their families: Peter and Brenda Gunstone and their daughters, Jackie and Robin, of Auburn, and Eric and Sheila Gunstone and their sons, Daniel and Shane, of Sumner.

A memorial service will be held at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Lake Burien Presbyterian Church. At 7 that evening, the Vertical World Climbing Gym in Seattle will hold an additional memorial service.

Memorials may be made to Lake Burien Presbyterian Church, 15003 14th Ave. S.W., Burien, WA 98166; Boy Scouts of America, 3120 Rainier Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98144; or Vertical World Climbing Gym, 2123 W. Elmore, Seattle, WA 98199.

Julia Sommerfeld: 206-464-2708 or jsommerfeld@seattletimes.com