Ed Leeper moved to Colorado and began to create climbing gear in 1962. In the few catalogs that I got from Ed it is mentioned that at some time he was a rocket scientist. He also mentions that he was a writer, writing plays and novels - none yet published, (mentioned 1982). Ed was a compulsive perfectionist. - Ed Leeper passed away March 16, 2020. Jamie Logan on Mountainproject.com wrote this: I worked for Ed for a few years in the early 1970's making pitons at his tiny shop in the mountains above Boulder. Every day he would make us exactly the same lunch. A hamburger patty with no bun, cottage cheese, and a simple salad. All the machinery for making the pitons was foot operated and it was a long day stomping down on the lever to punch, shear and bend the metal. A physicist, Ed had come to Boulder from I think Berkeley to work for the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics. After years of working on research projects that failed to yield information, he quit physics and bought an old back hoe excavator and went into the digging business. He liked it that when you dug a hole, put a pipe in it and covered it up, something tangible had been accomplish. Although Ed hadn't climbed since the early 1960's, he was interested in the transition from pitons to clean |
Ed Leeper - from 1982 Leeper catalog
|