Recently,
two
men
showed
up
unannounced
at
Dave
Page's
cobblery
shop
in
Seattle's
Fremont
district
with
an
unusual
package
in
hand.
They
carried
a
pair
of
leather
climbing
boots
of
a
very
old
vintage
and
in
considerable
disrepair.
The
boots,
it
turned
out,
belonged
to
George
Leigh
Mallory,
the
English
climber
whose
75-year-old
corpse
was
recently
discovered,
preserved
in
ice,
on
the
north
slope
of
Mount
Everest
---
the
same
Mallory
whose
quip
"Because
it
is
there"
is
the
classic defense of reckless ambition.
One
of
the
men
that
day
in
Seattle
was
a
forensic
anthropologist,
the
other
an
Everest
scholar,
and
they
had
a
simple
question
for
Page: Who made the boots?
It's
not
the
kind
of
thing
your
ordinary
cobbler
would
ever
be
faced
with,
but
then
Page
is
no
ordinary
cobbler.
A
specialist
in
climbing
and
hiking
boot
repair,
Page
is
legendary
among
outdoor
enthusiasts
around
the
country.
Ailing
boots
come
to
his
modest
workshop
from
as
far
away
as
Hong
Kong
and
as
near
as the sailmaker's shop next door.
And
it's
not
just
individuals
who
seek
him
out.
REI,
the
outdoor
retailer,
sends
him
boots
from
stores
nationwide;
he
handles
all
stateside
warranty
work
for
famed
Italian
bootmaker
Asolo;
and
Raichle,
the
Swiss
manufacturer,
sends
its
warranty
work
from
Switzerland.
Outside
magazine
recently
featured
Page
alongside
a
handful
of
other
unsung
heroes
under
the
title
"The
Great
Ones."
Page,
a
stocky,
white-haired
man
of
almost
60,
is
remarkably
unassuming
about
it
all.
"We're
good
at
what
we
do"
is
about
as
close
as
he
comes
to
gloating.
And
he
is
gracious
enough
to
recognize
a
few
peers,
repair
shops
such
as
Cobblers
and
Cordwainers in upstate New York.
A
former
history
professor
at
the
University
of
Washington,
Page
spent
a
summer
during
his
teaching
years
cutting
leather
uppers
for
a
boot
manufacturer
in
Kitzbuhel,
Austria.
Cobbling,
he
says,
"just
literally
hooked
me."
And
so,
contemplating
his
own
ragged
footwear
one
day
on
the
crags,
he
decided
to
drop
out
of
academia
and
hang
out
his
shingle
instead.
Thirty
years
later,
the
sign
above
the
shop
door
still
reads
"Dave
Page,
Cobbler,"
a
lug
sole bootprint stamped beside it for emphasis.
Inside
the
shop,
things
seem
to
hark
back
to
another
era.
Nine
employees
in
aprons
are
stamping,
hammering,
gluing
and
cutting
amid
a
chaos
of
footwear,
all
tagged
and
stacked,
or
hanging
from
boot
trees.
Trekking
and
climbing
boots
predominate
among
the
miscellany,
but
a
quick
survey
reveals
everything
from
Birkenstock
sandals
to
Telemark
boots,
light
hikers to rock shoes.
But
why,
I
ask,
in
this
throwaway
culture
of
ours,
when
even
expensive
electronics
get
trashed
rather
than
repaired,
do
people
bother
mending
their
boots?
"It
comes
down
to
emotions
as
much
as
economics,"
Page
says.
"Some
really
expensive
boots
are
worth
it,
of
course,
just
in
terms
of
dollars
saved.
But
most
boots
are
like
old
friends;
they
don't
give
you
blisters,
you've
taken
the
time
to
break
them
in.
You
just
want
to
keep
them
around."
He
adds,
"In
the
case
of
some
of
the
boots
we
see,
it's
not so much a matter of repair as of restoration."
Which
brought
us
back
to
Mallory's
boots.
Did
Page
know
who
made
them?
"About
as
far
as
I
was
able
to
get
was
that
they
were
made
in
the
U.K.,"
he
says.
"Those
old
custom-made
boots
were
stamped
with
numbers
on
the
sole
and
on
the
last
so
that
everything
could
be
matched
together
in
the
shop.
This
particular
number
had
a
seven
in
it
and
the
seven
wasn't
crossed.
So
that
told
me
they
weren't
built
on
the
Continent."
The
forensic
anthropologist
and
the
Everest
scholar
slapped
their
foreheads,
he says. They hadn't thought of that.
As I say, no ordinary cobbler.
Written by Patrick Joseph
United Press International
Hikers keep skillful cobbler busy
Climbers from far and wide seek him out for help with
favorite boots
