Half Dome photo by Kirk Keeler, 2012.

I met Kirk Keeler in the mid-90s through friends and though we’ve only seen one another occasionally over the years I’ve been impressed by his spirit and commitment to his goals. He’s a dedicated cyclist (we share that) and a talented singer-songwriter who made a heartfelt album of his music 20 years ago. In late 2021, less than 8 months after he and Anna married, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer at age 52, yet he’s set an athletic goal that would be tough for a highly fit person half his age.

He’s getting ready to climb Yosemite’s Half Dome with climbing legend Kevin Jorgeson to raise awareness about the importance of colon cancer screening. I wrote about his quest for The Press Democrat. Here’s an excerpt.

To read the full story, click here. There a sidebar on how they plan to climb Half Dome, for the sidebar click here.

Excerpt: “I’ve been lengthening my life with all the chemo treatments, but I’m at the point where it’s just so hard,” Kirk Keeler said, noting he had an allergic reaction during one infusion. “I can only take so much of that poison.” So he quit chemo and worked to get back in shape. “I just want to have quality,” he said. “I want to be at my best.”

And he wants to climb Yosemite’s most seductive rock wall, Half Dome. Not the cable route that about 300 people climb daily, which would be impressive enough. No, Keeler will rope up with renowned climber Kevin Jorgeson, famed for his first ascent of El Capitan’s Dawn Wall, and climb the Snake Dike route on the edge of Half Dome’s face.

The idea of climbing Half Dome, elevation 8,842 feet, hatched two years ago during one of Keeler’s few good days between chemo treatments. “I was feeling good (and thought), wouldn’t it be cool to do Half Dome,” Keeler recalled during a late June conversation at Session climbing gym in Santa Rosa, which was built by Jorgeson.

“You know how you get ideas, good ideas, and then they go away? Well, this one just wouldn’t go away. It just kind of kept nagging at me,” he said. Around this time, Keeler connected with a Davis-based support group called Cancer Champions and met Jen Miramontes, the group’s founder.

Miramontes felt “an immediate connection.” Keeler’s “honesty and willingness to share his true feelings” made a deep impression. Keeler told Miramontes he wanted “to show what a guy with Stage 4 cancer can accomplish,” he said, but he had a “bigger message” to share: If you’re 45 or older, get screened for colon cancer, “because it’s showing up in younger people now.”

When Keeler was so sick from the chemo that he believed he couldn’t get off the couch, Miramontes would encourage him: “Just walk around the house – go outside – go to the end of the street. Do something!”

Even when walking a block felt impossible, Keeler dreamed of scaling Half Dome to raise awareness for cancer screening. One day he shared that dream with Miramontes. When he brought up the Half Dome idea, Miramontes said to him: “You know, you just put that out into the universe, right?”

Keeler said, “Yeah, I did.”

In that moment Miramontes became confident about Kirk’s aspirations: “He’s going to do this,” she thought. “This is going to happen.”

Kevin Jorgeson and Kirk Keeler (right) at Session climbing gym in Santa Rosa

What makes Keeler’s story even more remarkable is that he’s not a big-wall climber. Snake Dike, though not the toughest route up Half Dome — it’s eight pitches (roped segments) and rated or 5.7 — will be the most imposing and challenging climb he’s ever attempted.

Keeler is doing the climb at age 54 while living with colon cancer, with a body that’s endured more hell than most people could imagine. “I was parked on the couch for many, many months,” he said. “I lost so much fitness” and “chemo ravages the body.”

Now he’s “surprisingly feeling really good about where I’m at. I feel on track,” he said on July 26, a week before the climb. “It’s just like eight pitches of low-angle stuff. The crux is the first pitch,” he said. “After that, it’s apparently this incredibly beautiful granite dike that just goes vertically up the dome. All the holds are there. I’m feeling ready for this.”

To read the full story, click here.

There a sidebar on how they plan to climb Half Dome, for the sidebar click here.