HTMC Newsletter 2006

Along the Trail
The Hawaiian Trail & Mountain Club Newsletter
July - August - September 2006

ERWIN “SKI POLES” JASKULSKI

1902 - 2006

   Erwin Jaskulski, the oldest member of the Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club, passed away quietly at his home on Friday, March 10^th. He was 103 years old, and was known to club old-timers as “Ski Poles,” for his habit of using them as hiking aids long before they became popular.

   I first saw Erwin about forty years ago on one of my first hikes with our club. “Here comes old Ski Poles,” someone said. I looked up to see a white-haired figure descending the slope to join us on the trail. He was in his sixties then, and since in those days no one hiked with ski poles, I assumed he used them because of some infirmity. But as I watched him hop nimbly and briskly over rocks and logs, I could see that he was using them for balance and speed, much as a skier would do—and with far more efficiency than most twin-pole hikers exhibit in today’s newest hiking fad.

   As a hiker, he was something of a loner, although he sometimes hiked with a companion (whom I did not know). He would not stay with the group long, but push out in front, where he wanted to be. He liked to go cross-country, and would suddenly bound off the trail and disappear into the dense underbrush, and we wouldn’t see him for the rest of the day. Although he stopped actively hiking with the club years ago, he continued to exercise regularly, and held world records in the 95 to 99 and 100+ age groups.

   A memorial service was held at the Pagoda Restaurant on May 14. Erwin is survived by two sons, who live in Austria. On the following pages are articles from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, John Hall, and Jim Yuen, which provide many details of his long and fascinating life.

                        Richard McMahon

EXCERPTS FROM STAR-BULLETIN ARTICLE
by Kalani Simpson

Erwin Jaskulski was born Sept. 24, 1902, in Czernowicz, Moldavia (officially, he was an Austrian). His parents died when he was young, and he spent three years in an orphanage. When WWI broke out, young Erwin went to Vienna to attend a cadet school to become an officer in the Austria‑Hungary army. He loved all sports, did everything--skiing, mountain climbing, swimming, dancing, gymnastics and jiujitsu. He loved knowledge and culture, spoke several languages, and was a true renaissance man. He began a career in business, got married, had two sons. Then came another world war. Jaskulski worked as an interpreter in France. When it was over he worked for the Americans, at our military headquarters in Vienna. He divorced, and later would say he just wasn't husband material.

In 1954 he came to Hawaii. He married again, but that didn’t work out either. He worked as a controller at Channel 2 for almost 30 years. When he retired, he hiked, climbed mountains, and ran. In his 90s, friends pushed him into competitive sports, the Senior Games. He set records and became famous. Someone got him to sit for a photo for Sports Illustrated's "Faces in the Crowd."

He pushed himself, loved to stay fit. His one bragging point was that in all his years he had never had a smoke. He took his sport seriously, but not himself. Since he loved classical music so much, someone once asked him if he could play any musical instrument? "The radio," he replied. When NBC offered to fly him first class to appear on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, he refused. “I’ve outlived my vanity,” he said.

But then, his sight abandoned him, and he was forced off the track. But he still did pull‑ups, and ran in the hallways of his apartment building, where he knew the course by heart. Then, age finally caught him, and he was off his feet. Still trying to do sit‑ups in bed, he died at home, after 103 full years.

TRIBUTE FROM JOHN HALL

HTMC has lost another old‑time hiker, Erwin Jaskulski, known by many as “Ski Poles,” who died on March 10, 2006. He was 103 years old.

Erwin had not hiked with the Club for many years and was best known for his prowess on the track, setting World Records for the 100, 200, and 400 meter runs for men from 95 to 99 years old, and later, in the 100 plus age group. Three of these records still stand. As I recall, the international authority that maintains these records could not

believe that a man so old could run so fast, and after the first report of his time in one of the runs, they sent a representative to Hawai'i to witness a repeat performance to be sure it was valid. It was.

I knew Erwin in the 1960's when we did a good bit of rock climbing together. Erwin was from Austria, and loved to test his skills against vertical rock faces, even in the crumbly, treacherous terrain in Hawai’i. We used to climb with rope and pitons on the cliffs of Waimanalo, but the climb I remember best was one above the windward portal of the Wilson Tunnel. At that time, there was a parking lot just as the tunnel emerged on the windward side, and we parked there and scrambled up to the roof of the Portal to begin our ascent.

Erwin would work his way up the loose, but nearly vertical slope, trailing one end of a rope, while I stood at the other end, on some narrow ledge, for half an hour or so, admiring the view over Kane’ohe, and enduring the steady rain of twigs, pebbles and other debris that he dislodged as he climbed. Once he found a “secure” stopping point, he would call to me, and I would work my way up along the rope to the new ledge. Then the process would be repeated until finally we perched on the narrow ridge top above the tunnel. When we got down, I found I had left the car lights on, and we had to push my VW beetle over to the downward slope of the Likelike highway to get it to start. All this was great fun, no doubt, but when my children began to arrive, I decided that my family probably needed me more than they needed the insurance money, and gave up these expeditions, rather to Erwin’s annoyance.

Erwin was a very strong hiker, and was always in the competition to be the first to the top of whatever trail the Club was doing that day. He used to hike with a pair of sharp‑pointed ski poles, long before hiking poles became popular, and would wave these about with great abandon. He hated to be passed on the trail, and with his ski poles flailing about behind him, it was an intrepid trail-burner indeed who would try to get by him on a narrow path. This earned him the nickname of “Ski Poles” which was not always applied with great affection. However, he was a staunch member of the Club for many years and offered serious advice on investing the Club money once a Clubhouse Replacement Fund was initiated.

Erwin was a vegetarian, I think, and took good care of his health. Once his eyes began to fail and he could no longer judge the distance of various obstacles on the trail, he gave up hiking and became a dedicated competitor on the track instead.

And so farewell to another of the old‑timers of my early days in HTMC. Good running and good climbing, wherever you are, Erwin!

TRIBUTE FROM JIM YUEN

Erwin Jaskulski was a legend in the 1960's‑1990's as an iconoclastic hiker, speeding up the trails with his eponymous pair of ski poles. He would be coming down Olomana when you were still struggling halfway up to the peak. In later years, he kept up his physical fitness in track and field, setting numerous records for sprints in his age groups (80+, 90+ 100+).

He certainly exemplified the colorful, individualistic, self‑reliant image of an HTM hiker many of us secretly aspire to. We will miss him.

NEW BOOK BY MEMBER

Prolific HTMC author John Hoover has published another book. “Rainbow Reefs: Images from Hawaii’s Underwater Paradise.” (Mutual Publishing, $7.95), is a collection of photos focusing on the underwater reefs that surround Hawaii.

CLUBHOUSE COMMENTS

[The following Letter to the Editor addresses ongoing discussions concerning the future of the clubhouse]

I’ve not been a member of HTMC as long as Mr. Hall, I joined at the invitation of Thelma in 1971. During the past many years I visited the clubhouse four or five times, once to see a slide show. Night-time driving is no pleasure for me either, not even from the closer Honolulu.

As had been said, our membership may soar with the growth of the population, but will people interested in hiking descend in huge numbers upon Waimanalo [without rapid rail] all at once? Country clubs abound, as do hotel meeting rooms, golf clubs have meeting space, all at a cost affordable compared to building a new function entity.

When younger and still in hiking and camping shape, my daughters and I wanted to get away from comfortable and relatively luxurious surroundings. With or without our tent, we traveled the Sequoias and lots of other places for hiking, sometimes sleeping only in sleeping bags under the stars. Hot nights at the clubhouse? Why not offer the slide shows during cooler weather? Those of us forced to live without A/C know all about heat and cope with it. If it’s insufferable at the clubhouse, why not install an A/C in the meeting room?

Renovation and preservation seem ideal to me instead of a “Turtle Bay East.” Neither Camp Timberline nor Camp Erdman are super deluxe, and their guests generally love it. In my opinion, the only ones to suffer because we may not choose to rebuild are the contractors.

Aloha,

Rosemarie H. Tucker

NEWSLETTER SUBMISSIONS
ALONG THE TRAIL is a quarterly publication of the Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club designed to inform the membership of club activities and matters of interest to the hiking community. HTMC members and any other interested parties are welcome to submit articles to ALONG THE TRAIL. Submissions must be received by the 5th day of March, June, September, and December in order to appear in the newsletter published for the quarter, and may be sent in any of the following ways (email preferred):
email: richard27@hawaii.rr.com
FAX: 293-2554
Phone: 293-2554
Mail: Richard McMahon
57-531 Kamehameha Hwy
Kahuku, HI 96731

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