Davis was a skier and had awards and accomplishments in white water canoeing and mountain climbing, most notable of which was a first ascent of Mount Abanico in the Venezuelan Andes with George Band. (Band was a member of the team that first successfully climbed Mount Everest.) He also was a political activist, starting in the sixties in the civil rights movement. Beginning in the 1980s, he held a variety of positions in the Democratic Party, both in California and nationally. On May 16, 2011, Davis died, aged 86, in Claremont, California.