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.
Behind The Lens
Colette McInerney and Austin Siadak, both photographers and filmmakers, have each worked on climbing film projects in remote locations. What does it take to capture incredible outdoor stories?
Risk Roundup
How do you decide to take on risk? Alex and Fitz discuss their five takeaways from talking to climbers, alpinists and experts for this season on risk.
Walking Away
Steve House gave his entire attention and focus to alpinism. He was an iconic figure who seemed poised to finish out a career as a sponsored athlete. Then in April of 2021, Steve announced that he was done with elite climbing, embarking on a new chapter of life. We asked, how do you walk away?
Image: Marko Prezelj
The Power of Negative Thinking
Big, audacious dreams come with real risks. The dreamers are presented with a labyrinth of physical hazards, possible outcomes, hurdles, and dead ends. Often, we are told that success comes down to positive thinking, but maybe there’s a flip side to that coin. Few people have thought about risk more than Will Gadd, pioneer of modern mixed and ice climbing. And he’s got a lot to say. We also get some insight from Brette Harrington.
Image: Christian Pondella
A Necessary Risk
Sometimes you don’t get to choose the risks you take. It’s a matter of survival. Alex talks with climber and photographer Nikki Smith about what she gained when she took one of the biggest risks of her life, how her passion for climbing has evolved as she’s forged her path to live authentically, and the importance of standing up for others.
Image: Nikki Smith
Spotting The Gray Rhino
To manage risk, you first have to see the threat. Best-selling author Michele Wucker and Alex talk about how he evaluates risk, creating safety nets and his greatest fear.
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
Captain Safety
Best-selling author Michele Wucker has dedicated her career to understanding how humans interact with risk in big and small systems. Her hypothesis: the risks we take create a unique fingerprint. Colin Haley, aka Captain Safety, has shaped his fingerprint through two decades of elite alpinism, soloing and identifying risk factors.
Faffing About
Hazel Findlay and Alex dive deeper into the intricacies of British trad climbing. Just don’t hit the ground.
Image: Hans Radetzki
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
The Stuff Of Nightmares
Is British trad an audacious game of risk or merely a fast track to a Darwin award? In 2000, while following in the footsteps of his heroes, a young James McHaffie booted up in front of the famed Masters Wall and launched upwards. What followed was a four hour fight for survival. Hazel Findlay supplies perspective on the strange craft of British trad.
Image: Ray Wood