A Climber We Lost: Tony Sartin
You can read the full tribute to Climbers We Lost in 2024 here.
Antony “Tony” Sartin, a kindergarten teacher at Hazeltine Avenue Elementary in Los Angeles, was a prolific, widely respected Southern California climber and route developer. In addition to his full-time role as an educator, he worked on weekends and during the summer as a climbing guide for climbing school Vertical Adventures.
Sartin’s late wife, Anjelah, met him in 2014, at the elementary school where they both worked. She said that as soon as she met her future husband she knew he was a special person, and someone to hold onto. “His smile was infectious,” she said. “His love for me was evident in his patience and willingness to do anything to make me happy … I knew I couldn’t live without him.” The pair married in 2018, and had a son, Elias, in 2022.
Bob Gaines, the owner of Vertical Adventures, was one of Sartin’s close friends. Gaines said that Sartin—who had worked at VA for over two decades—stood out as one of the most talented guides he’d ever worked with in his 40-year career, someone who was perhaps even more stoked about the sheer art of guiding than even their own personal climbing.
“Some guides, they work at it, but you don’t really see that love for teaching,” Gaines said. “Tony had that love. The kids loved him, the adults loved him. He was the consummate teacher. He had a joy for life, and for climbing, that was infectious, and it made him one of the most respected instructors in Southern California.” Compared to his kindergarten students (which Sartin jokingly dubbed “ragers”), he found it a pleasure to work with even the most frustrating guided climbing clients, Gaines said, simply because he enjoyed the sport so much.
Outside his professional role, Sartin was a stalwart friend and a motivated climbing partner, Gaines said. Together, they established dozens of new routes together around California, but particularly in Joshua Tree National Park. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a climber who could hang on for so long,” Gaines recalled. “He had incredible stamina.”
Some of Sartin’s proudest new routes were Prime Real Estate (5.12d) and Silver Spur (5.12c) on Saddle Rock, the latter established with Gaines. Off the wall, he and Gaines also bonded over a shared love of fishing (Sartin was a deep sea fisherman from childhood) and NBA basketball.
Many others took to Mountain Project to share memories of Sartin. “Tony was perhaps the best storyteller I ever knew,” wrote Kyle Edmondson. “One time, he told the story of a poaching of a desert tower, two trips, both in the middle of the night, which came very close to him [getting] pulled off the tower in a helicopter and flown straight to jail. … The image I have of Tony is those stories… told in his characteristic absurdist style, with a broad smile and a ton of laughter. I never saw Tony having a bad time.”
“He was one of the best climbing guides I’ve ever seen,” wrote Erik Kramer-Webb, who worked with Sartin at Vertical Adventures. “He was so patient and kind and articulate and funny and engaging, and he had that ‘it’ factor that just made it cool to be around him.”
“I have always been extremely impressed with Tony’s incredible stoke regarding climbing,” wrote Guy Keesee. “I first met him in the mid 90s—he was young and full of infectious energy about climbing. This energy remained for 30 years, only his marriage and son eclipsed [it].”
Sartin passed away suddenly while out cragging, after an unclear medical emergency, on September 4, at the age of 57. His climbing partner described what occurred as similar to a seizure, Gaines said, but autopsy results were inconclusive. Sartin is survived by two brothers, as well as his wife, Anjelah, and two-year-old son, Elias.
Sartin’s family was “extremely important to him,” Gaines said. “The biggest tragedy in this death is that Elias is going to miss all that time with his father.” A GoFundMe has been established to help Sartin’s family in the wake of his passing.
Anjelah said that her son still talks about Sartin every day, and that everything in his life seems to remind him of his late father. “He refers to the two paintings that decorate our home as ‘Daddy’s paintings’ because he had created them on his own,” she said. “When I get a smoothie, Elias refers to it as ‘Daddy’s drink’ because [Tony] often got a smoothie after work. He remembers ‘Daddy’s tomatoes’ because Tony had a green thumb, and Elias only liked the tomatoes Tony planted. Elias refers to our dog, Beaver, as ‘Daddy’s dog,’ because Tony loved animals, especially our pup. Elias says ‘I love daddy in spirit.’”
“Tony lives on in Elias’ energetic, brave, and social personality,” she added. “Tony taught me to live life with integrity, love deeply, and never give up when the climb gets difficult.”
You can read the full tribute to Climbers We Lost in 2024 here.
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