The Last Hand Hold
Harvey Butchart 1907–2002

I’ll always have fond memories of my treks with Harvey Butchart. I had the fortune to traverse places with him few people have, and places that I thought I never would. The distances we wandered were vast, and the terrain we traversed was some of the most rewarding I’ve ever had the opportunity to experience. From the mountains of eastern China, to the flatlands of Illinois, to the hidden recesses of Grand Canyon, we logged many miles together.
Yet, despite all the ground we covered, we never actually shared the trail. And while I’d followed in his footsteps on so many occasions in Grand Canyon, I’ve never actually seen his tracks. But I always knew they were there.
Unfortunately, by the time I got serious about my Canyon hiking, Harvey was well into the twilight of his astounding canyoneering odyssey. Years ago, like so many Canyon hikers once they started looking beyond the corridor trails, I inevitably learned of Harvey Butchart. His name was synonymous with hiking the Grand Canyon backcountry, and his legendary status was already as entrenched in the Canyon as the rock itself.
For decades starting in 1945, Harvey Butchart dedicated his life to the most intimate and personal of landscape exploration, travel on foot. Like no known person had ever before, he tenaciously wandered Grand Canyon’s hidden passages, scrambled its lofty pinnacles, and viewed its awesome realities with undying devotion. Before it was over, the native of Hofei, China and former Northern Arizona University math professor, would ramble some 12,000 miles, summit 83 peaks (35 as inaugural ventures), pioneer more than 116 approaches to the Colorado River, and garner the respect and admiration of countless Canyon nomads.
For myself, as with so many hikers who’ve also trudged in his wake, Harvey Butchart eventually became just Harvey. His first name was simple, yet endearing when used with the informality and affection typically reserved for friends. It also was literally a Canyon buzz word, and I quickly learned that phrases like, “Harvey says” and “according to Harvey” were standard jargon in Canyon hiking circles. Beyond that, his hiking logs and Grand Canyon Treks books were like the gospel according to Harvey, a source of truth and wisdom for the remote Canyon trail.
Although I felt kindred in spirit, when I first approached him, it still wasn’t without some hesitation. I knew he encouraged correspondence from his Grand Canyon Treks books, but I wasn’t sure to what extent he welcomed it. After all, he was, again, the foremost Grand Canyon hiking expert and the inspirational mentor for a multitude of hopeless Canyon-hiking addicts. And despite several years of my own hiking in the Canyon, my experiences were comparatively trivial, which I thought he might find irritating, somewhat like a neurosurgeon trying to discuss the finer aspects of brain surgery with an emt.

Fortunately, just the opposite was true. In classic down to earth, humble Harvey Butchart fashion, he was free and patient to share his Canyon experiences with someone like me. Through it, in a literal but very real sense, we were able to have those memorable journeys for which I am very grateful.
As for Grand Canyon, while his footprints have long since vanished, the impressions he made are still there, and always will be. I believe that more than ever now. If you look you’ll find them, and if you listen hard enough, you’ll also hear his footfalls beside your own. They’ll always be there, for inspiration, guidance, or just company. A lasting legacy, to a remarkable man, in a remarkable place.
Born on May 10, 1907 in Hofei, China, John Harvey Butchart was the second of four children born to James and Nellie Butchart, missionaries to China for the Disciples of Christ Church. His father, an Ear, Eyes Nose and Throat (eent) surgeon, tragically died from an infected wound in 1916, in 1920 the Butchart family eventually returned to the U.S., and his mother’s home state of Illinois.
Ultimately settling in Eureka, Illinois, Harvey (who was referred to by his middle name) went on to attend his mother’s alma mater, Eureka College (as did future president and classmate to Harvey’s younger sister Ruth, Ronald Reagan). Graduating in 1928 with a degree in math, he married his college sweetheart, Roma Wilson, a year later, in 1929.
After earning a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Illinois in 1932, the depression had Harvey teaching around the Midwest in various positions, including university faculty stints in Indiana, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Iowa.
In 1945, Harvey applied and was hired for the position of math professor and department chairmen at Arizona State College in Flagstaff, Arizona. Mainly the move was to try to get to a drier climate at the urging of their doctor, for daughter Anne’s asthma. It was a good match. In September of 1945, Harvey hiked in Grand Canyon for the first of what would eventually tally over 1000 days. It was be the dawning of a new hiking era in Grand Canyon, and heralded in Harvey’s reign as the undisputed monarch of its hikers.
He did his last Canyon hike at age 80 in 1987.
Harvey “slapped the wall above his last hand hold” and finished his final trek in Tucson, Arizona on May 29, 2002, dying at the age of 95. He was preceded in death two months earlier by Roma, his wife of nearly 73 years.
Thanks for everything Harvey. You were right. It really was a “sporty” climb.
Tom Myers