South Bay Man Dies on Matterhorn

They’d get together every week or two at someone’s house or at a sushi place in San Pedro. They’d talk about the days when they all worked together at the REI store in Carson. They’d share pictures of their latest adventures--the outdoor sports that bound them together.

“Some of it was surfing,” Larry Cox said. “Some of it was kayaking or sailing. And there was climbing. Lots and lots of climbing.”

One of the best rock climbers in this circle of seven or eight South Bay men and women was Kenny Hayashi, a soft-spoken, 41-year-old public assistance attorney the others treasured for his skills, his patience and his helpfulness.

“We got together again on Monday night,” Cox said. “We kept waiting for him to walk in the door. It was hard to realize he wasn’t going to.”

Swiss officials say Hayashi and Sandra Eggers, 39--the woman his friends say he was planning to marry--were killed Sunday while climbing the Matterhorn. It is the same mountain on which they had met while preparing for an ascent three years ago.

Officials in Bern, Switzerland, said that Hayashi and Eggers were roped to a man they had met shortly before Sunday’s climb--an Englishman whom authorities have not yet identified--when they were struck by falling rocks as they clambered up the difficult east face of the glacial peak.

Hayashi and Eggers plunged about 160 feet. They were killed, but the Englishman, who got lodged in a rock crevice, survived. Airlifted to a hospital in Zermatt, he was treated and released.

The Swiss Mountain Guides Assn. said that heavy rain and snow, followed by abnormally warm temperatures, have combined to make the Alps especially treacherous this summer. More than 100 climbers have been killed in Switzerland, France and Italy since early June.

There is no indication that ineptitude or foolhardiness contributed to the accident that claimed Hayashi and Eggers.

“Kenny was a very good climber, with very good skills and very good judgment,” said Kathy Day, who climbed the Matterhorn with Hayashi three years ago.

“As we were making the climb, a storm came up,” she said. “Even though we were within a couple of hundred feet of the top, he recognized the danger, and we turned around. He was very careful, very thoughtful, not reckless at all.”

“He was dependable,” said Jim Howat, another member of the group. “No one would hesitate to go climbing with Kenny.”

Born in Southern California and reared in Gardena, Hayashi graduated from Cal State Long Beach before earning a law degree at Georgetown University in Washington, his friends said. It was during the summers of his college years when he, along with other members of the circle, started working for REI, which specializes in gear for outdoor sports.

“For us, it was a toy store,” Howat said. “We worked together, we were pretty much the same age, and we were all pretty avid outdoor enthusiasts.”

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Even after most of them moved on to other occupations, the group continued to share outdoor activities and get together regularly to talk about them.

During the bull sessions, Hayashi mostly listened.

“He was a private man, very sociable, but very quiet,” Howat said.

Howat said that even though Hayashi was the best man at his wedding--and lived for two years with the Howats after they were married--there were subjects he seldom discussed.

One of them was his relationship with Sandra Eggers.

Day knows how they met. Day was preparing to climb the Matterhorn with Hayashi in 1994 when they struck up a conversation with Eggers at the railroad station in Zermatt.

“She wasn’t of Japanese ancestry, but she spoke fluent Japanese, and she liked to climb,” Day said. “I saw that twinkle in Kenny’s eye.”

Day said Eggers, whom she believes was from Oregon, ran a Japanese exchange student program at Boise State University.

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“They started as pen pals, and that turned into phone calls,” Day said. “They were really fond of each other. Kenny was looking for a house, and I think it was for the two of them.”

“They were planning to marry before the end of the year,” said Elizabeth Courtenay, a fellow attorney who worked with Hayashi for the California Appellate Project. The project is a nonprofit corporation created by the courts to assist in the preparation of appeals for those who cannot afford to do so themselves.

“Kenny was very devoted to his work, and he did everything well,” Courtenay said. “He was always available when you wanted to talk over a legal question.”

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Courtenay’s voice broke as she talked about a man she described as “irreplaceable.”

“We all loved him,” she said. “All of us will miss him very much.”

Last year, she said, Hayashi showed her a magazine article about an ascent of Mt. Everest during which several climbers died.

“He understood the concept that there is a point at which nature cannot be controlled by man,” she said. “He understood the risk.”

Times staff writer Nieson Himmel contributed to this story.

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Why So Dangerous?

The Matterhorn is 14,700 feet high and considered a relatively easy climb along most approaches. Swiss climbing officials say the number of deaths has declined in the pastdecade, but there has been a surge in fatalities in recent weeks because:

* Heavy rain and snow delayed the climbing season, followed by abnormally warm temperatures, which encouraged a late rush of climbers. Some climbers grew impatient and set off in bad weather.

* Weather conditions also made some routes more treacherous.

* There has been a surge in the number of mountain climbers overall, with a larger percentage attempting difficult climbs with less experience.

* Many climbers underestimate the time a trek will take and then get caught in storms.

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Kenny Hayashi

Hayashi, 41, was killed in a rockslide Sunday along with Sandra Eggers, 39, of Boise, Ida., while climbing the difficult east face of the Matterhorn.

He was a public assistance attorney in the South Bay and an experienced mountain climber.Friends say Hayashi and Eggers were planning to marry. The Matterhorn is the same mountain on which they’d met while preparing for a similar ascent four years ago.