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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Feb 13, 2010 - 10:34pm PT
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Those are some of the most interesting Valley photos I've seen in a long time! It's amazing how different it all seems from a new perspective. It makes me wonder how many other interesting views have never been photographed because they were off the beaten track. It seems odd though that no one has ever walked the rim before and taken photos from that angle.
Meanwhile you guys look super bourgoise and respectable now!
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MisterE
Social climber
Across Town From Easy Street
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Feb 13, 2010 - 10:50pm PT
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Excellent shots, Guido!
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Dick Erb
climber
June Lake, CA
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Feb 13, 2010 - 11:13pm PT
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Great photos Guido. It would also be neat to see what Jeff came up with. When as a teenager, I left the conservative suburbs of Orange County and got a job as a busboy in Yosemite. The first Camp 4 climber that I climbed with was Steve Roper. His uninhibited enthusiasm was a breath of fresh air. A superb quick and efficient climber. He was as fun and entertaining a person to hang out with as anyone I've met. I think most any other Yosemite climber I knew felt the same way about him.
Jan, I know of one other person who took a photo from that place, Ansel Adams. About twenty years ago Judy and I hiked up to the diving board. We got there just in time for the perfect light on the face. I clicked the shutter and my battery was dead. You're right though Jan. Guido got a different angle than Ansel.
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Double D
climber
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Feb 13, 2010 - 11:31pm PT
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Wow great shots guido!
Roper's green guide was incredible at getting one to the base of a climb. Modern topo's don't even come close to getting to the base.
"Man up" Steve!
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Feb 15, 2010 - 04:55am PT
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So, the purpose of the trip was for Jeff to replicate Adam's famous photo, Monolith, taken in 1927 from the Diving Board. That little tree in the foreground of this famous photo had grown a great deal in the interim.
This photo of Jeff is probably where Adams was positioned to compose his photo in 1927?
Adams classic Monolith photo of 1927
The weather made an abrupt change that evening from months of drought to torrential rain. Roper and I bailed early morning, across the slabs and had a difficult and dangerous descent to Little Yosemite. Jeff, opted to stay three more days and had to descend LaConte Gully to escape. The Valley was flooded with one of the worst storms in history. So much for mellow photographic expeditions.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Feb 15, 2010 - 06:27am PT
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Absolutely great photos Guido!
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Boulder Creek CA
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Mar 12, 2010 - 04:27pm PT
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It would be helpful if someone can direct me to contact information for Roper.
Thanks...
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Boulder Creek CA
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Mar 13, 2010 - 09:19pm PT
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Thanks for the contact information. Steve Roper has written some rather intriguing items about me. I'm trying to persuade him that it would be a good idea for him to actually meet me sometime...
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Chris Jones
Social climber
Glen Ellen, CA
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Mar 14, 2010 - 12:34am PT
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I have had, and continue to have, wonderful times with Steve. Whether Yosemite, Pinnacles, Joshua Tree, Berkeley, the climbing gym, his home, on the road. Thing is, he'd be the best one to relate the stories, the myths and the legends. (Unfortunately I have pretty poor memory, so others may correct my spiel). Here's a story from Berkeley. It was likely in the late 1960s or early 1970s that Steve lived in a typical wood-frame Berkeley house on Rose St. His life, and ours it turned out, were transformed when he came into an inheritance. At that time Davis Bynum Winery had an outlet on University Avenue. One of their ploys was to offer private labeling. And Steve soon came up with a suitably macabre label: the well-known etching of the fatal accident from Whymper's "Scrambles Amongst the Alps"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Matterhorn_disaster_Dore.jpg
Pretty soon untold cases of privately labelled wine arrived. The entire full-height basement was given over to its care and storage. The shelves of wine reached from floor to ceiling on three sides! It was a mind-boggling sight; particularly as this was much better wine than our normal fare of gallon jugs of Mountain Red and Rhineskeller (or whatever it was called). Always popular, Steve was suddenly even more so. Sometimes we opened a bottle or two in the basement and swapped yarns there, other times one of us popped down to the cellar from the living room to re-stock. In spite of the immense amount of wine it disappeared at a withering speed. This was especially true when Steve was out of town - as I recall Chuck Pratt (who Roper always called Marshall) was among those responsible for some of the depredations. Steve, it seems, basically looked upon the inheritance as found money - and was happy to share it with his friends. He probably has one of labels kicking around somewhere. Steve, you're a good man.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Mar 14, 2010 - 01:47am PT
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Steve Roper is one of those genuine individuals, a notable
big wall climber in his day. He, Kor, and Denny teamed for a
fast ascent of the Nose for that time. Weighted down with pitons
and haul bags, the three sailed up the Nose in 3 and a half days,
a fast time then. Steve and Jeff Foote also did a fast ascent of
the NW Face of Half Dome, but Roper was a leader in the creative
department. He and Steck, of course, spearheaded Ascent, a very
good publication even though a bit pseudo-intellectual or self-
righteous at times. One of the best ever issues to be published in
the mountaineering literature was that beautiful issue of Ascent
with Totem Pole on the front. Fitschen's article and Pratt's were the
genius ones, but all the others were good too, including Royal's.
That was fantastic stuff. Roper is a historian. He has an incredible
memory. No, he doesn't get everything right. He is human, like the
rest of us, and I can point out mistakes in his guides and his
Camp 4 and other writings, just as he can point out mistakes in my
historical works. That's normal. But you won't find people that have
gone deeper into it than we have. I appreciate Steve, because he
is a teacher, in essence, in the way he conveys his knowledge and
in the way he remembers. Steve is a valuable spirit in this day and
age. He is a walking wealth of wisdom and memories, in a day when too
many don't have any interest in their roots or in history. Those who
have taken a serious and noble interest are becoming few and fewer.
Hats off to Steve for all he has given us. There are some real pseudo
historians floating around, and some noted climbers who pretend to be
historians, and who get more wrong than they get right, but Steve Roper
is the real thing, an American climbing treasue.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Mar 14, 2010 - 07:26am PT
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Morning Chris,
I think Steve had Mort Hemple house sit for him when he visited Europe and East Germany in about 1970. Steve published his trip to Dresden in “Ascent,” and Mort and his friends drank most of Steve’s wine.
Steve’s private wine label with the Matterhorn accident print was labeled “The Incubus Hills” allowing Steve to unite three of his true loves in life: climbing, wine, and sex.
Steve’s inheritance also allowed him to perfect his fourth love, writing, in organizing and editing “Ascent,” with Allen’s and Chuck’s help. I learned to write and edit listening to those guys.
It sure was fun to hang out at Roper's house.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Mar 14, 2010 - 10:18am PT
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LOL! Steve’s private wine label with the Matterhorn accident print was labeled “The Incubus Hills” allowing Steve to unite three of his true loves in life: climbing, wine, and sex. Great stuff!
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Chris Jones
Social climber
Glen Ellen, CA
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Mar 14, 2010 - 01:16pm PT
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As editors of Ascent, Allen Steck and Steve were very taken with the writing of Ed Drummond. (Now there's a character ..). Ascent published his account of a climb on the Orkney Islands, Scotland. Drummond writes of the approach: "swaying like camels under our masters, up the incubus hills ..." They took this startling imagery, and used "The Incubus Hills" as the title of the piece, and as Roger reminds us, as their wine label. Steck also had loads of this wine, but not in anything like the Roperian quantities.
Incubus Hills not only works in the ways Roger outlines, but also in the genre of wine labels. These are often at pains to tell us that the grapes come from this hillside, that Cote, or the other mountain slope.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Mar 14, 2010 - 01:19pm PT
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Hey Chris,
Do you see Ed? If so, ask him to join in. I haven't seen him since we lived on opposite sides of the Pan Handle in 1980.
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John Morton
climber
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Mar 14, 2010 - 01:22pm PT
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OK, I'll pitch in with an early anecdote. I may be the climber who has known Steve the longest - we grew up a few blocks apart, and he was a couple of grades ahead of me in school.
I remember Steve as the terror of the schoolyard at Hillside Elementary. I genuinely feared him, and dreaded encountering him on the street. A neighboring kid named David was very timid - a sitting duck, if you were looking for someone to intimidate. So David's father told David he would pay him a nickel for every time he punched Steve Roper. I am quite certain he never collected, but you could ask Steve about that.
It was years before I came to know Steve again as a climber, and it didn't surprise me to learn that Ed Roper had introduced his son to climbing (and bravely undertaken it himself!) in an effort to keep him out of trouble. Now I am happy to say that I have now enjoyed his company, quick mind and ironic wit for many years.
Roper's pad in the seventies was on Delaware St. I lived far away at that time, but on a visit I knocked at Delaware one evening and Pratt answered the door with no clothes on. Others will have much more to tell about what happened at that place.
About Incubus Hills - Steck has a complete set of labels in his fabulous historical file cabinet - there were several varietals. (Someone start a Steck thread and I will reveal what may be the finest document in that cabinet!)
John
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Mar 14, 2010 - 04:31pm PT
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It's interesting that the alcoholic drink of choice amongst the 1960s era climbers seems to have been (cheap) red wine, whereas from the 1970s onward it seems mostly to have been beer. I wonder why the preference for wine then? More bang for the buck, or?
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MH2
climber
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Mar 14, 2010 - 04:43pm PT
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it didn't surprise me to learn that Ed Roper had introduced his son to climbing (and bravely undertaken it himself!) in an effort to keep him out of trouble
Now there's a pregnant statement. One to conjure with, anyway.
As Robert Nugent said as we watched a lady take over the lead from her faltering partner, "We[men] are all looking for the girl who can get us out of trouble."
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Gene Pool
Trad climber
A trailer park in Santa Cruz
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Mar 14, 2010 - 06:08pm PT
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How many of you have done the Sierra High Route? I did 75% of it a few years back and had a blast. His description of Bench Canyon is classic. If I had it handy, I would quote it for you. In addition to his climbing exploits he must complete with Secor for time spent in the Sierra Nevada.
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oldguy
climber
Bronx, NY
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Mar 14, 2010 - 07:40pm PT
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Roper's secrets are safe with me (at least for the time being), but mention of wine and Ascent reminds me of our editorial meetings for the first two issues (before I decamped to north-eastern California in search of a salary). At the time, Davis Bynam, who made the Incubus Hills wine, had a little shop on San Pablo and was at the blending and bottling stage of his career. He produced a nice sherry, much more than merely drinkable, and sold it in gallon jugs for a very reasonable price, so that became the refreshment of choice at our editorial meetings at Steck's house. We kept forgetting that it was sherry and drank it like it was Chardonay. Fortunately, I lived downhill from Steck and could roll home at the end of an evening. Roper lived up on a ridge, so I don't know how he made it. It amazes me that the quality of Ascent was so high. Later Bynum started selling future shares on wine he produced from grapes himself, and that was the Incubus Hills. It was very good, especially for the price. One day Allen and Steve and a few others and I drank a bottle and left it on top of what became Bynum Spire at Pinnacles. The last time I was there the bottle was gone, probably taken by the same scoundrel who filched Salathe's date can from the Narrows of Sentinel. A few years ago, I found a bottle of Bynum wine on a menu at one of the better restaurants in New York, and although the price was more than double what I usually pay for wine, I had to have it. It was worth every penny, and I even let my wife have a glass. I don't know if Davis is still alive, but he had a beautiful winery up Sonoma/Napa way.
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Dick Erb
climber
June Lake, CA
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Mar 14, 2010 - 08:00pm PT
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Roper's Sierra High route seems to me to be a more interesting and scenic thing to do than the John Muir Trail which was designed as a route for pack trains.
Interesting wine post, Joe.
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