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Richard "Dick" Toups hiked the Grand Canyon many times, including on this 1990 trip.
courtesy of the toups family
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Life Stories
This feature chronicles the lives of recently deceased Tucsonans. Some were well-known across the community. Others had an impact on a smaller sphere of friends, family members and acquaintances. Many of these people led interesting — and sometimes extraordinary — lives with little or no fanfare. Now you'll hear their stories. Past "Life Stories" are online at go.azstarnet.com/lifestories.

Tucson Region

LIFE STORIES

Richard Toups: The journey was the object for this hiker

By Kimberly Matas
arizona daily star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.28.2008
It didn't matter if the destination was a Catalina mountaintop or a Mount Lemmon mud bog. Avid hiker Richard "Dick" Toups considered the trek worthwhile.
"I think he's been on almost every peak in Arizona. He kept a log. I would guess he probably has hiked thousands of miles," said Jim Martin, who, with his wife, B.J., is a Sabino Canyon Volunteer Naturalist. Toups joined the group in 1989.
"He was a joy to go hiking with," Martin said. "We would talk as we went along. You learn a great deal about people when you do that."
One lesson Martin learned the hard way was that Toups enjoyed hiking for hiking's sake.
Toups started a summer program, an offshoot of the Volunteer Naturalists called the Mount Lemmon Volunteer Interpreters, and he led weekly hikes on the mountain during months when it was too hot to hike at lower elevations. It was at the end of one of these hikes that Toups cajoled an exhausted Martin into "a quick jaunt."
"We came down into Summerhaven, and we were finished with the hike, and he said to me: 'Have you ever been to Mint Springs? You really have to see it.' I said: 'I'm tired. I really don't want to see it,' " Martin recalled. "He said it was 'just over this hill.' "
A mile or so of switchbacks later, the men arrived at the must-see Mint Springs, which Martin described as a boggy patch of land.
Only when Toups started to slow down during hikes about nine years ago did he and his trail companions realize something was wrong. He suffered through heart attacks, surgeries and pulmonary ailments before he finally was forced to retire two years ago from the active outdoor lifestyle he so enjoyed.
His heart gave out for good on June 25. He was 72.
Toups and his wife of 51 years, Lee, raised their four children in their home state of New York. An engineer by trade, Toups was detail-oriented and planned family vacations down to the very last mile and drop of gasoline before hitching up the Airstream trailer and hitting the road for camping and sightseeing trips.
"We went on lots of camping trips," said daughter Marianne Bourdeau. "He had a huge map with all these pinpoints in it to make sure all of his kids could see as many states as possible. He wanted us to see the world."
The Toups family saw a good deal of the country on a memorable road trip in 1976. Toups saved up eight weeks of vacation time from his job at IBM and took his family on a cross-country, round-trip drive from upstate New York to California.
"He did as many states as he possibly could," Bourdeau said. The family made stops at national parks, museums, tourist attractions and amusement parks.
"We did something ridiculous, like 37 states in two months," said his son, John Toups, of Nevada. "We got to see pretty much the whole United States."
In 1978, IBM transferred Toups to Tucson, and he began exploring the surrounding mountain ranges — the Catalinas, the Santa Ritas, the Rincons — in his spare time.
When he retired nine years later, "he was so happy," his daughter said. "He could finally go out and do all this hiking.
"It was the miracles, the beauty of nature. It just awed him," his daughter said.
Marti Elkind is a member of the Southern Arizona Hiking Club and was a friend of Toups' for 18 years.
"He knew a lot of really great trails on Mount Lemmon that most people don't know," she said. "We never did get lost with him. He was an extremely strong hiker. There were times we didn't think anything of doing 12 or 14 miles in half a day."
And at the end of each hike — or during a stop for lunch — Toups pulled a hammock from his backpack, strung it up and relaxed while his hiking companions rested on terra firma.
"He was a very, very strong hiker, and he was very eager to help the rest of us, showing us all kinds of new trails," said Althea McClure, a member of the hiking club who knew Toups for 20 years. "He knew his plants and flowers and trees, and was always eager to share his knowledge."
Ricki Mensching met Toups about 13 years ago through the Volunteer Naturalists and took over as organizer of the Mount Lemmon Volunteer Interpreters when Toups became too ill to continue.
"Basically, he taught me everything I know about hiking," she said.
During the school year, the Volunteer Naturalists conducted nature hikes for students on school field trips.
Toups "wasn't the kind of boring teacher or naturalist who just wants to give them all these facts so they can spout everything they know. He was more interested in making it fun so they appreciated nature."
Toups would use silly sayings to help the students remember what they learned, such as: "Alice algae and Freddy fungus took a lichen to each other, and now they are on the rocks."
Toups enjoyed shocking the students, and his fellow Volunteer Naturalists, too.
Scat was one of the subjects typically covered during the interpretive walks with the children. Mensching was accompanying Toups on one of the walks when he asked the 10 or so children to gather around and try to guess what animal had made a deposit along the trail.
Before anyone could take a guess, Toups scooped up one of the droppings, popped it in his mouth and said: "Mmm, it tastes like deer scat."
"The kids are freaking out, and so am I," Mensching said. They didn't see the sleight of hand Toups performed and the raisins he'd consumed instead.
After Toups resigned from the Volunteer Naturalists because of his health, he remained an emeritus member, a prestigious designation given to only three other volunteers since the group was formed in the late 1970s.
"We only nominate people to the emeritus status who we feel have done exemplary volunteer service with us, not just the normal volunteering we all do," Mensching said.
His name will be etched into a rock that will be placed in the Volunteer Naturalists memorial garden behind the Sabino Canyon Visitor Center during an autumn celebration of Toups' life.
On StarNet: Did you know Richard "Dick" Toups? Add your remembrance to this article online and find a photo gallery of his life at azstarnet.com/lifestories.
● To suggest someone for Life Stories, contact reporter Kimberly Matas at kmatas@azstarnet.com or at 573-4191. Read more from this reporter at go.azstarnet. com/lastwrites.
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