POWAY — Long before Greg “Grug” Cameron became known for bold free solos on Yosemite National Park granite and benchmark offwidth climbs in Canada, he was a teenager from Poway learning to move over stone at Mount Woodson.
Cameron, whose climbing career spanned more than five decades, died Feb. 8 in Denver, Colo., from complications of injuries suffered in a fall last November. He was 69.
His North County beginnings remained central to a life that ultimately carried him to some of North America’s most storied walls.
“Greg was one in a million and he’s left his mark, that’s for sure,” said his sister-in-law, Sheila Cameron. “He wasn’t an ordinary person. He was so far beyond that. He was extraordinary, and that’s why I want people to know about the life he lived.”
Born Aug. 18, 1956, Cameron grew up in Poway’s Del Norte area in a household of 11 children, all of whom attended Poway High School. He graduated in 1974, captained the water polo team and discovered climbing through a school mountaineering program led by teacher Gary Hepler.
Family members said the boulders of Mount Woodson became his training ground. The granite above town shaped a climber who would become known for his comfort in offwidth cracks, a punishing style that requires arm bars, knee locks and full-body technique.
He climbed with a local group known as the Poway Mountaineers, honing his skills close to home before moving on to the heart of the Sierra Nevadas. That progression — local stone to legendary walls — became a pattern repeated throughout his life.
By the late 1970s, Cameron had established himself on difficult Southern California routes and began tackling major Yosemite walls. During a brief but influential period of free solo climbing, he ascended formations including Sentinel Rock and the Lost Arrow Chimney without ropes.
In 1979, he traveled to Squamish, British Columbia, where he made the first free ascent of Pipeline on sight and alone, a climb that later became a benchmark for wide-crack specialists.
Despite the seriousness of those achievements, relatives said he sought fulfillment more than fame.
“He lived to climb and he loved it,” Sheila Cameron said.
The passion endured. In September, only weeks before his accident, Cameron camped in Yosemite with siblings and roughly a dozen nieces and nephews — including a 4-month-old — and spent the trip teaching many of them how to climb. He had recently returned from another outing to the Mount Rushmore region.
Away from the cliff, Cameron earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geology from San Diego State University and later worked as a software developer. Friends described him as thoughtful and inquisitive, as ready to talk about literature as he was to analyze a rock face.
At home, relatives said he remained devoted to his wife, Elizabeth; his daughters, Mary and Taylor; and his stepdaughter, Grace. He also stayed closely connected to a large extended family that includes 16 nieces and nephews and seven grand-nieces and grand-nephews.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Loretta and Donald Cameron.
The accident that led to his death occurred on Nov. 2 in Eldorado Canyon State Park. While Cameron was leading a pitch, his rope ran over a rock edge, broke, and he fell about 70 feet, according to reports at the time.
For many local climbers, his journey holds particular weight. Mount Woodson continues to produce strong athletes, but few from Poway left such an imprint on the sport’s formative years.
Celebrations of life are planned in Colorado and San Diego. Friends and family expect the gatherings to focus less on risk than on long routes, shared days outside and a lifetime spent moving upward.
From backyard granite to the continent’s biggest walls, Cameron returned again and again to the same simple act.
He found rock, climbed it and kept climbing.
