JOSEPH E. TAYLOR III ON CLIMBER, GRANITE, SKY

Environmental History, Jan 2006 by Taylor, Joseph E III

CLIMBER, GRANITE, SKY: The elements are ubiquitous in climbing imagery, clichés of modern marketing, yet it wasn't always so. Until recently mountain art favored peaks and vistas. From Vittorio Sella to Ansel Adams, photographers presented the mountaineer as a static figure; it was the mountain that evoked romantic grandeur. In the 19605, however, climbing aesthetics rapidly evolved.1 The viewfinder zoomed in, framing grew more dynamic, and action suffused everything.2 The individual became as important as the scene, and selling adventure became a raison d'etre. The cover of the 1968 Ascent is not just emblematic of such changes; It was a moment of change, and through it we can comprehend important shifts in outdoor recreation and environmental culture. Official credit for the photo goes to Steve Roper, who captured his buddy Alien Steck on Liberty Cap in Yosemite National Park, yet the two still argue over who deserves credit, Roper for clicking the shutter or Steck for bringing the camera. Theirs is a familiar climbers' debate-who led, who helped-but how that image became a cover, and how Ascent became a cutting-edge journal, involves a more complex tale of how personal friendships and stylistic shifts converged with Sierra Club politics and generational ambitions to transform sport and environmentalism into what we recognize today.

Ascent represented both an evolution and revolution in climbing literature. London's Alpine Club invented the climbing journal in 1859 with Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers. Its successor, Alpine Journal, became the sport's template, recounting hard climbs for consumers of a marginal pastime. Some journals, such as La Montagne (Club Alpin Français) and American Alpine Journal (American Alpine Club), served national organizations, but most covered regional clubs. Fell and Rock, for example, charted the Fell and Rock Climbing Club of England's Lake District, while Appalachia reported on Boston's Appalachian Mountain Club.1 All shared two key traits. One was a tendency to portray adventure in gendered codes of imperialism. Authors perfected a style that understated while underscoring accomplishments for club and country, what Ian Cameron calls the "'and-so-we-climbed-to-the-top-of-the-hiir reminiscences."4 The other was a commitment to the sacred spaces of play. In the i88os Alpine /ourna/railed against plans to build funicular railways up Swiss peaks, and the Mountain Club of South Africa formed to ensure access to hiking and climbing areas.5 In western North America the BC Mountaineers, Colorado Mountain Club, Seattle Mountaineers, and Portland Mazamas mixed pleasure with politics, but none more so than the Sierra Club. Established in 1892 by John Muir and 282 like-minded mountaineers, the club spent sixty years playing in and battling "to render accessible the mountain regions of the Pacific Coast." Only in 1951 did its charter change to "preserve the Sierra Nevada and other scenic resources of the United States."6

That reworded charter contributed to the creation of Ascent, but to understand the full implications we need to remember how World War II inspired events. Long a mountaineering organization, in the 19303 the club established Rock Climbing sections (RCS) for enthusiasts. Some RCS members, including Richard Leonard and David Brower, emerged as leaders in the sport, scaling the unclimbed Cathedral Spires in Yosemite, Shiprock in New Mexico, and Snowpatch Spire in Canada's Purcell Range. These ascents drew wide acclaim, and in 1941 the military enlisted Leonard to equip and train an alpine fighting force. Leonard in turn recruited other RCS members into wartime roles. Leonard infiltrated Burma as a spy, and Brower invaded Italy with the ioth Mountain Division. Both suffered harrowing ordeals, but their time in long-inhabited mountains, experiences neither would have had except for the RCS, also radicalized them as wilderness preservationists. By 1945 they had vowed to keep the Sierra undeveloped, and in 1951, Leonard as club secretary and Brower as soon-to-be executive director changed the charter to reflect their war-inspired wilderness politics.7

This commitment to wilderness became the ironic inspiration for Ascent. Brower is now famous for using the club's press to further the cause. Less noticed is how he also marginalized the club's recreational orientation. Since 1900 the Sierra Club Bulletin, a journal of record for western mountaineering, had blended political activism and mountain reminiscences. Climbing filled a significant portion of the Bulletin until the mid-1950s, but thereafter Brower devoted ink primarily to environmentalist issues.8 By 1965 club climbers felt alienated, so Steck proposed a new journal "to publish material of a creative, entertaining and exploratory nature."9 Brower resisted, wanting to keep plum climbing essays for the Bulletin and relegate the rest to ancillary publications. Club president Will Siri, himself a Himalayan mountaineer, warned Brower not to "throw a roadblock in the way of someone dedicated to a worthwhile project." Siri reminded Brower that in "the past two years I have defended you... on just these grounds on a good many occasions. Let us now give Steck a free hand, just like the one you insist on having."'0 Already plagued by troubles within the club, Brower dropped his opposition, even encouraging Steck to use color, something no other journal had done.11 This is how Ascent came into being.