In the kitsch cowboy setting of a Sisters grill and saloon, the 89-year-old leaned over the table and whispered a 60-year-old secret. Between puffs of oxygen from a scratched green bottle,

wheezed, "I'll tell you about my brother Ross. Nobody knows ..."

Ross Petrie "is one of the top 10 climbers of his generation," said

citing Petrie's first ascents, his early role in opening Oregon climbing mecca Smith Rock, and his rescues. "In the 1950s and '60s if you named an important mountain rescue in northern Oregon, Petrie was there," Thomas says.

gushes that in 1946, Petrie "climbed 'anything with a summit,' coming away with first ascents of Shiprock, Independence Tower and Staender Summit."

In his Northeast Portland home, Ross Petrie, 85, his long limbs eclipsing a high-backed easy chair, recalled boyhood summers spent in Mount St. Helens' shadow at YMCA Camp Meehan on Spirit Lake. There, at age 13, he bagged his first peak, a then 9,677-feet-high St. Helens. As for Mount Hood, Petrie says with a bemused grin, he's summited it "around 50 times."

In climbing Petrie was a rare bird, and in his work Petrie was an endangered species: the male elementary schoolteacher. "I had a lot of fun with those kids," he says.

Stories cascaded off Petrie. How he first met Charlene, his wife of 60 years, leading an OSU climb up Three Fingered Jack, and Mt. Hood Ski Patrol tales -- Petrie was president in 1957. But I came for this story:

It was 1947 and Petrie spent every summer weekend at Timberline Lodge. It was required duty. Petrie was an Oregon State University forestry student working summers for the U.S. Forest Service, chipping time off his school's six-month work-experience requirement.

"On the weekends we weren't on the payroll, but we had to stick around in case there was a fire."

One August weekend, two of Petrie's friends, World War II vet George Padon and Lincoln High senior

Petrie learned of Padon and Snyder's plan and, as he blithely says today, "The idea just sort of popped into my head."

Late that Saturday night, Petrie bought a fresh-off-the-press Sunday Oregonian and a quart of milk in a glass bottle. The newsprint folded in his pack was dated Aug. 17, 1947, and starred the Greek Civil War. The night was moonless, windless.

"I must have started up the mountain around midnight because I got up there just before sunrise. ... There was a crust of snow and my crampons were making a noise and I didn't want to wake them up so I took the crampons off ... then snuck up on the tent and I just tucked the newspaper underneath the loop of the tent peg."

He deposited the milk with the morning paper and snuck back down. Petrie saw no one. He didn't tell a soul.

With the morning sun, Padon and Snyder emerged. Outside, like for so many in Portland far below, there was the Sunday Oregonian and fresh milk.

The story spread. But who did it? Writing in 1975,

retells the event with no hint of Petrie.

Which brings us back to Sisters and brother Gordon's telling, "It was Ross." Gordon leaned back in the booth, his tale done.

With both Petries heard from, was it possible to reach the two tentmates? George Padon died in 1997, but Gary Snyder was easy to find, today an 81-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

Answering an email, Snyder placed a fitting capstone on the event.

"I remember the frozen milk and the newspaper. That was deliciously outrageous of Ross."

-- Barney Mann