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Park Rat
Social climber
CA, UT,CT,FL
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The Stoneman Meadows riot was a blip on the radar in July of 1970.
I did not witness the event, but I was working at the Mountain Room when this happened, you have to understand we were used to being knee deep in hippies. Drugs were everywhere; no one seemed to care if the air was filled with the smell of pot, LSD use was common.
When we heard that there was trouble with hippies at the Meadow it was greeted with jokes not alarm. Only later when we heard of fires being set and a car burned did we think it was serious.
I remember us joking about the navy being called in and how they would bring a destroyer up the Merced River. We didn’t take the whole thing very seriously. It was more like a Saturday Night live sketch.
A few weeks later, I noticed a group of young men who were too well-dressed for the Park. I first assumed that we had real undercover drug agents in our midst.
I was close,they were a detachment of Washington DC Park police, who had been sent to the Park because of the riots. They stayed at the Yosemite Lodge for about six weeks. I can't remember how many there were, but I'm thinking about 20 guys.
First, all they talked about was the amount of drugs that were in evidence around the Park. I do not recall that they ever arrested anyone. They actually had to march around during the day, in uniforms, in the heat of summer to be a presence; so that any would be troublemakers would think twice.
The only problem was that we were short on troublemakers and long on Park police. They quickly became extremely bored with their new assignment; the girls of the Mountain Room became very popular.
We were about the same age as these young men.
I remember being at the Yosemite Lodge swimming pool, one afternoon, I said something about not wanting to go swimming because I had to go to work. Two minutes later, I was being tossed into the deep end of the pool by three or four of the Park police. It was their idea of having a wild time. I didn't get mad, but I did get even. Some time later, they were playing baseball against the Rangers. We were on the sidelines watching the event. When I noticed that the Park police had stacked all of their side arms and badges next to where I was standing. Noti, another Mt Roon girl and I decided to play a little joke on them. You guessed it. We hid all their stuff; they didn't see us do it. When they noticed that every thing was missing. They had a moment of panic. Our laughing, and red faces gave us away. We restored their equipment, and all was forgiven.
So, we had to thank the hippies for providing us with this large group of male admirers. The following picture is more innocent than it appears. I was being escorted back to my dorm, and as I recall, the young man decided I needed his jacket for comfort. I figured I may as well have the hat as well. Only after the picture was developed did I notice that my skirt was covered by his jacket. Our appearance caused much laughter, and this old Polaroid picture resulted.
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utahman912
Social climber
SLC, UT
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Enlightening perspective Park Rat... thx
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Keep those stories coming!
I wonder if Steve Roper or Royal Robbins was in the Valley then, and could add to this?
1970 does seem to have been a kind of sea change, both in the Yosemite climbing community with the Dawn Wall etc, and as shown by the Stoneman incident. Ultimately I suspect a lot comes down to sociology, in particular demography. A quickly growing proportion of people in their teens and twenties (many better educated), economic growth (more money), a bit of rebound from the Depression, the war, and the Eisenhower era, some liberal trends, and reaction to schizophrenic and corrupt governments. In a way, perhaps a harbinger of the reactionary Nixon and Reagan years.
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WBraun
climber
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When does the SuperTopo riots start?
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
SoCal
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Certain links are an ongoing riot.
There's been riots & a meltdown on the forum over at SummitPost.com. They even tossed The Chief in the brig. It's tame today but last summer turned into a flame thrower fight.
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Ricky D
Trad climber
Sierra Westside
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"When does the SuperTopo riots start?"
Probably at whichever Sushifest that includes Pate, Rokjox, Skipt, Bluering and the rest of us.
Toss in Crowley and Mimi and a riot will be guaranteed.
;)
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Thanks for the post, Barry, and all the others. I'd always wondered whether Matt was related to the Degnan-Donohoe enterprise.
I was in Beirut when the riots happened, but read about them about July 6 in one of the French language papers there. By the time I got back to the States, Robbins had posted a blurb in Summit warning us to clean up and try not to look like hippie freaks. We did as Robbins said, and had little trouble, but I've heard plenty of stories that confirm fattrad's overreaction scenario.
In 1971 I tried the Center Route of Independence Pinnacle; it was a gallant but quite decisive failure. That one and a few others quickly taught me that Indian Rock proficiency didn't necessarily translate to Yosemite crack climbing competence.
Thanks again for the post.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Thanks, Barry, for starting this thread. Great recollections and insights all around! While I was in the Park the night of the Stoneman Meadow riot, I was up in Tuolumne. At the time I was “protesting” the Viet Nam War by serving my country as a teacher in an impoverished area. But I followed the aftermath of the Stoneman Riot as well as many other incidents around the country where it was determined after analysis that on so many occasions, it was the law enforcement folks were the ones that initiated the violence. The Chicago DNC, Kent State, Stoneman Meadow, and others.
What is most puzzling and troublesome to me is how the NPS’ law enforcement types may have easily equated climbers with those hanging out in Stoneman Meadow. I imagine it was by the superficial standards of unwashed bodies and clothes, pot-smoking with a mix of irreverence and youthful desire for freedom thrown in. However, the NPS also had more long-standing complaints against climbers such as stealing showers, scarfing meals at the Lodge, sleeping out-of-bounds, as well as the more outrageous antics of the “Duke of Earl” and many others.
In the mid-60’s, I remember having really good relations with the Rick Anderson who was Chief Valley Dist. Ranger or similar title. And Steve Hickman knew climbers really well and sympathized with them. Jeff Foott and Guido were both rangers, and Rick even offered me a seasonal job, knowing that they had no climbing expertise in-house nor any way to affect a major rescue that he could see would eventually come.
After the riots, with the non-ranger, heavy-handed “Park Police” presence, the vibe certainly did change for the worse. I still think that much of the friction between the NPS and climbers was brought on by the climbers’ behaviors as some of the posts up thread confirm.
Somewhere I have a picture or 2 of Carol O., Guido’s gf at the time…
Here is Carol:
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Anne-Marie Rizzi
climber
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Jul 10, 2010 - 02:47pm PT
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Barry, thanks for the memories.
1970 was my first summer in Yosemite, and when I started climbing. I was working at the old Chinquapin store, and living at Badger Pass with other Curry employees who worked at Glacier Point. We heard news of the riots and went to Glacier Point itself to watch the Valley activity---I remember fires in the meadows below.
Somewhere in that timeframe, I was belaying some nameless, dirty, and not remarkable new route on the Chinquapin side of the Wawona Tunnel. It was evening, I remember that much, with mosquitoes flying around, and me smoking like a chimney to dissuade their bites. I was getting ready to follow the second pitch when a road patrol ranger spotlighted us and started barking about what the hell we were doing. We were ordered to descend, which we did, under his observation. I think our gear was searched.
The Stoneman Meadow riots became lore among all of us living there at the time. Those of us not directly at the meadow never knew exactly what happened, but most of us chose sides.
Anne-Marie
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Chief
climber
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Jul 10, 2010 - 04:59pm PT
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Great story, thanks Barry!
I climbed the Center Route on Independence in 76.
My friend Scott said we had to do it if we planned to do "Real Valley Climbs".
It was excellent and I remember looking down Steppin' Out thinking, holy sh#t man, there's some real Valley climbing!
Never did get back to try that one.
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snowhazed
Trad climber
Oaksterdam, CA
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Sweet thread- and the abbey essay is great
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Rick Sylvester
Trad climber
Squaw Valley, California
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Wow, another treasure - a posting from my old friend and sometime climbing partner, Barry. You supplied some of the names of other climbers I'd forgotten were part of the fire crew. But I'd forgotten the food fight -- what a waste! Spoiled rich Americans. 80 mph- a bit of poetic license for added dramatic effect perhaps? But what I never knew until now was that our being hired had anything to do with fear of another riot. I thought it was just due to the need for the usual brush clearing and so on. Are you sure about this?
I'd been hassled by the enhanced security, the border patrol agents brought in, that summer. Despite a "No Swimming " sign on Steamboat, the pool-like portion of the Merced below Elephant Rock, ostensibly due to one or more prior drownings there, Chuck Ostin and I were side stroking across it holding aloft our climbing gear with one arm in an attempt to keep it dry. Our aim was a route above. But we were summoned to shore by an armed agent. Chuck, a true Berkeley -- well, Oakland hills -- liberal was no idealistic idiot. He kept urging me to reveal my address -- that is, my former, my parents' one. Its zip code was 90210. He knew that authority is likely to back down before perceived power. It worked. Suddenly I switched from mountain hippie to someone who might be in a position to make trouble. And he departed...although it did kill the day's climbing plan.
Chuck and Betsy whom I'd later marry left Camp Four and observed the Stoneman Meadow riot. I remained behind. In the morning I saw the cold concrete ground of the adjacent gas station filled with people forced to lie there at the direction of law enforcement. It was shocking to see them like that. We learned that during the night the rangers and related and gone through campgrounds pulling sleeping people out of their bags and tents. Yes, this was the Sixties; there was revolution and unrest throughout much of the world. And this was Yosemite's microcosm of it. But the final analysis was that the rangers had gotten the riot they'd been training for all summer. And it looked like the odds were vastly in favor of their getting away with it but for only one stroke of luck. Supposedly a Florida state senator or former state senator happened to be on vacation in the Valley at the time. He witnessed the whole sorry debacle and had a letter to the editor of, I believe, "The New York Times" published, probably due only to his stature. So there were repercussions, multiple firings...and naturally overreactions. One example: Bill Jones, the chief park naturist -- his wife Darla was a fellow Squaw ski instructor -- lost his job. He wasn't law enforcement; he had nothing to do with it.
Onto a less dismal subject. I climbed all of your great thin hands first free ascents, Barry. I found Vanishing Point the hardest back then. I led the Independence Center Route followed by Carlos Buhler and his then girlfriend, Canadian Sharon Wood who was the first North American woman to get up Everest, and did so outdistancing her male companions. She had some trouble following at the steep crux. I found this interesting. The day before she'd led Carlos and me up several of the lower pitches of "Hall of Mirrors" on the Apron. I think Carlos led some pitches but I led only one, at .10a. Sharon's leads involved .10d and .11a moves 40' out with potential nearly unimaginable 80' or more slides. On Independence Pinnacle I could, if needed, get protection every couple of feet, ie. no runout. It had been said that women due to their physical structure, lower center of gravity and/or shape due to the nature of their pelvis, were better suited to lower angled friction slabs, that this type of route was one of the great equalizers, like speed skiing and for similar reasons. Another endeavor where there's supposedly less difference between gender athletic performance despite men having in general greater muscle mass is distance, channel type swimming, but for different reasons.
Every one of those first ascents is a classic. I always felt Steve Roper did you a real disservice by not including mention of those significant ascents, thin cracks that hitherto were considered A1, in his "Camp Four" book, despite his disclaimer that it wasn't intended as a definitive history. You were the first climber due to the precise way you made your hand and foot placements to make me realize climbing could be an art form, a dance, not just a wrestling match. Of course I later felt a bit betrayed when I learned of your superior genetic strength. Excuses, excuses...rationalizations and rationalizations.
By the way, what ever happened to Matt Donahoe? I knew he went to Alaska to become a professional fisherman and that you joined him on occasion. Is he still up there? And what about you, what and how are you doing? Call me -- I'm in the book.
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bergbryce
Mountain climber
South Lake Tahoe, CA
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Oct 25, 2011 - 10:50pm PT
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Bumping this.
I went to a wedding this summer and met an older woman who told me the hippies ruined Yosemite in the 70s. She no longer felt safe taking her family there, so they stopped that family tradition. I'm sure the valley was a great scene, for awhile, but like so many other places, they get popular and get played out.
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
It ain't El Cap, Oregon
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Oct 26, 2011 - 02:48am PT
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Ahhh gee-wiz Anders... Can't a guy get any credit?
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wildone
climber
Troy, MT
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Oct 26, 2011 - 09:44am PT
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Great thread. I've enjoyed every post so far. As for the documentary, when I was a resources ranger, I checked the documentary out from the archives and watched it at home. It was awesome. If you're in the valley, they'll let you watch it, I'll bet.
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