The Dark Horse
Quiet and humble, Lucho Rivera was the antithesis to the wild, loud and over the top antics of the Stone Monkey generation. Yet in that band of misfits, he found a home. Now, after three decades of climbing in Yosemite, Lucho may have made the greatest contribution of his generation to the Valley’s history.
Image: Gabriel Mann
Dope Lake: Aftermath
After Jack Dorn’s death, conspiracies begin to fly in the Valley. Camp 4’s dirtbags figure out what to do with their spoils. And the plane crash becomes the stuff of Hollywood, literally. Our final installment of the Dope Lake series.
Dope Lake: The Black Book
By early April, the rumors of Dope Lake began to spread far beyond the Valley. What was once an under-the-radar get rich mission had spiraled out of control. When the rangers get a tip, they decide it’s time to take back the lake, but not before one of the legendary Stonemasters escapes with a kilo of cocaine and the black book. The party has to end.
Dope Lake Tangent
Yosemite, 1970’s – it was the heart of the climbing revolution. You’ve heard a lot of voices and names in the Dope Lake series – John Long, Jim Bridwell, John Bachar, Dale Bard, Vern Clevenger, John Yablonski. Big names with big personalities that helped write the history of Yosemite Valley across all the disciplines – big wall, free climbing and bouldering. When the decade started, the hardest route in Yosemite checked in at 5.10. By the end of the decade, that standard would climb to 5.13.
Dope Lake: Yosemite Mafia
The gold rush begins. When two skiers reported a possible plane crash, Yosemite Ranger Tim Setnicka started making calls. Pretty soon he realized, the park service had a serious investigation on their hands. When federal agents landed in El Cap Meadow, the Camp 4 climbers knew something was up, but had no idea their lives were about to change.
Dope Lake: Misfits
In 1976, a plane carrying four million dollars in marijuana crashed into a small alpine lake in the Yosemite high country. Broke and living off discarded scraps of tourist meals in the valley below, America’s best climbers smelled opportunity. The events at Dope Lake became climbing’s most potent myth and inspired a Hollywood blockbuster, but the real story and the lives it changed is stranger than fiction.
The Dawn Wall Tipping Point: Part 2
What happens when you unexpectedly find yourself in the global spotlight? Tommy Caldwell offers a candid perspective into the personal impacts that the Dawn Wall media coverage had on his life. Almost overnight, the ascent arguably made Tommy the first household name in climbing and inspired an influx of new climbers to the sport.
Image: Austin Siadak
The Dawn Wall Tipping Point: Part 1
In 2015, climbing became a cultural avalanche. The Dawn Wall was its tipping point. In part one, we talk with the Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times reporter John Branch. We hear about Sandy Russell’s novel project to put The Nose on Google Street View and Tommy Caldwell helps us make sense of the year climbing finally hit the mainstream.
Big Nature
In early 1980’s Yosemite, big wall climbing was tedious, difficult and often terrifying. Enter 19-year-old Lydia Bradey. She’s not good at free climbing, but she has this overwhelming desire to experience the feeling of being on one the steepest bits of El Capitan thousands of feet above the ground. There are people who dream of doing things and there are the people that go do them.
Image: Duncan Critchley
Cheater Cheater
Far from Yosemite’s spotlight, an unknown climber changed a sport by breaking some of its most sacred rules on a crumbly cliff. Today, we are all very grateful he did. We talk with Alan Watts, pioneer of sport climbing in America, about the highs and lows of breaking the status quo. There’s an upside and a downside to every risk we take.
Image: Cathy Beloeil
Bit Of Gold Bonus: Fricking Stanley
Sean “Stanley” Leary never got a lot of media attention, but he was a driving force in the progression of the sport and beloved by the climbing community. He held numerous speed records in Yosemite, pioneered new routes on Baffin Island and was on the leading edge of wingsuit flying. Alex shares some of his memories of climbing with Stanley.
Image: Cedar Wright
Chapter 06: When Climbing Takes Flight
By the mid 2000’s climbing was growing, but the ephemeral first ascents were harder to find. Enter BASE jumping. The leaders of our sport stepped to the edge and jumped into the golden age of human flight. With it, a whole new element of risk arrived in climbing. We talk with Randy Leavitt, Chris McNamara and Steph Davis, who helped pioneer the movement.
Image: Ian Mitchard
Chapter 05: A Magician Needs A Stage
El Cap. Free. In a day. Putting those words on your resume puts you in the league of legends. When Lynn Hill freed the nose, she redefined what’s athletically possible in climbing. Emily Harrington and Beth Rodden add their perspective on the momentous achievement.
Image: Heinz Zak
Chapter 02: Tap-Tap-Twist
Behind each of the 200,000-plus climbing routes in the US, there is a person. Joanne Urioste, a prolific first ascensionist, pioneered some of the most popular routes and helped bring climbing into the future.
Image: Joanne Urioste collection
Chapter 01: More Bird Than Larry Bird
Peter Croft and Alex talk about their climbing heroes and pushing the mentality of possible. And how 1940’s bebop jazz relates to Yosemite’s famed Astroman.
Image: Phil Bard