Half Dome - Nat Geo June 1974 - historical

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Messages 1 - 19 of total 19 in this topic
docsavage

Trad climber
Albuquerque, NM
Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 31, 2013 - 06:34pm PT
I been meaning to post this for a long time. Here's one of the reasons I got into climbing....
Fat Dad

Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
Jan 31, 2013 - 06:52pm PT
That one article, probably more than anything else, inspired me to one day become a climber. As a 10 yr. old, looking at the article, I never would have guessed that only six years later, I'd be in that very spot.
docsavage

Trad climber
Albuquerque, NM
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 31, 2013 - 06:52pm PT
I just pulled it from a box in a storage unit where it had been for nearly 40 years!
big ears

Trad climber
?
Jan 31, 2013 - 09:21pm PT
Radness
Morgan

Trad climber
East Coast
Jan 31, 2013 - 09:44pm PT
That article was a big deal. I still have it. Does anyone remember how many rolls Galen shot for that one? It was a lot.
BooDawg

Social climber
Butterfly Town
Jan 31, 2013 - 09:56pm PT
I wanted to go on that climb in the worst way! I was doing my field research on meadows and forests in the high country in '73 and had to do my soil moisture data before I could go. Galen wouldn't wait till I was done, hyper-guy that he was, so he asked Doug to go, and the rest is his-story, as they say...

Edit: +1 to Guido's comment below. So often, Galen was all about Galen!
SteveW

Trad climber
The state of confusion
Jan 31, 2013 - 10:09pm PT

I still have that issue too!
guido

Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
Jan 31, 2013 - 10:33pm PT
One of the funny parts was Galen used one of Hennek's photos that ended up in the Geo article and Dennis didn't give a sh#t about the credit he just wanted a little of the money pie.
Roxy

Trad climber
CA Central Coast
Jan 31, 2013 - 11:37pm PT
YES, love these rich ass history threads!


thanks for posting,
More Air

Trad climber
S.L.C.
Feb 1, 2013 - 12:15am PT
Thanks for posting up those excellent scanned photos. Same as Fat Dad, I was also climbing that route as a teenager with my twin brother 4 years later. Rowell's photos are excellent...as a youngster I couldn't stop looking at that article.
docsavage

Trad climber
Albuquerque, NM
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 1, 2013 - 06:34pm PT
'Does anyone remember how many rolls Galen shot for that one? It was a lot.'

Morgan - I remember someone telling me around that time that he took upwards of 2,000 pix. A far cry from my 36 exposures of Kodachrome taken of it in 1976 but then with Nat Geo picking up the tab, why not? Another little birdie told me this was hardly the first clean ascent, that it had been done that way numerous times before. No reason to doubt that, chocks were in full use by 1974, but the point of the piece was to broadcast a clean climbing ethic....
guido

Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
Feb 1, 2013 - 08:07pm PT
Well I guess we ought to ask Hennek and Robinson about all those facts or non-facts?

Knock knock.......................
Roxy

Trad climber
CA Central Coast
Feb 1, 2013 - 09:51pm PT
couldn't remember when a photographer got by with so FEW rolls of film for a story.

sounds like Rowell shot pictures how Allen Ginsberg taught spontaneous prose.

"first thought best thought"

Galen had instinct.

Tarbuster

climber
right here, right now
Feb 1, 2013 - 10:04pm PT
Good one!

I was 13 at the time and had been climbing most of that year, my childhood buddy and me having taught ourselves with "Basic Rock Craft", the La Siesta press rig from which many of us were spawned.

See this picture at the top with Robinson clenching his teeth/scratching his beard?


Swear to pork I couldn't recognize those guys as climbers, all bedraggled in socks' n such and all I could think was: those dudes look like Pakistanis or something ... Do they really need porters on a big wall???

 Nice recount Joe Hedge: I remember you telling that story and it's nice you trotted it out for us here!
Sierra Ledge Rat

Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
Feb 2, 2013 - 03:09am PT
I remember that article very clearly, like it was yesterday. It had a similar effect on me.

Dig the knickers.
wayne burleson

climber
Amherst, MA
Feb 6, 2014 - 09:16am PT
Bump! Thanks for posting the article. Very inspirational... to many of us. What a team!
Steve Grossman

Trad climber
Seattle, WA
Feb 6, 2014 - 12:12pm PT
Great post!

More excellent clean climbing history and discussion here...

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=445546&msg=2151667#msg2151667
Mike Bolte

Trad climber
Planet Earth
Feb 6, 2014 - 12:17pm PT
me too! I was inspired by this article. Still have the magazine.
Peter Haan

Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
Feb 6, 2014 - 08:53pm PT
Meanwhile, as Hennek caught up to the group, stuff had gotten quite a bit kookier since last he looked. Galen thought to stage a photo where where he was bivying, strapped to The Mountain. Never mind the details.

Messages 1 - 19 of total 19 in this topic
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