name ten climbers who influenced American climbing the most

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Wheatus

Social climber

Dec 30, 2007 - 06:59pm PT

First, it should be the first one hundred climbers. There are so many that influenced American climbing it is unfair to list only ten.

Below are a few of my favorites but many greats left out.

Alpine:
Herman Buhl
Jeff Lowe
George Lowe
Alex Lowe
Jim Bridwell
Yvon Chouinard
John Roskelley
Voytek Kurtyka
Reinhold Messner
Jerzy Kukuczka
Steve House

Most of the Eastern European alpine climbers who can take suffering on big peaks to new dimensions.

Rock:
Ron Fawcett
Bob Kamps (personal mentor and master of footwork)
Royal Robbins
John Bachar
Peter Croft
Ron Kauk
Huber Brothers
Tommy Caldwell
Lynn Hill
Beth Rodden (you don't have to look like a steriod puppy to climb really hard)
Chris Sharma
Jim Bridwell(you can chain smoke unfiltered Camels and climb hard)
Kevin Thaw (best all around climber: rock and alpine)

All the East German climbers who climbed barefoot with knotted rope for chocks in the Elbsandsteingebirge during the cold war.

All those crazy Brits who lead climb gritstone.

deuce4

Big Wall climber

the Southwest

Dec 30, 2007 - 07:02pm PT

For the record, my note on the Stettner's was edited...

Jaybro

Social climber

The West

Dec 30, 2007 - 07:12pm PT

I've had a soft place for those stettner bros, since they taught Me, how to climb.

TwistedCrank

climber

Ideeho

Dec 30, 2007 - 07:43pm PT

Richard Jensen and Mark Smith

Hahhahehhaehahehahehaheahehaehaehahehaeh

Apocalypsenow

Trad climber

Cali

Dec 30, 2007 - 08:10pm PT

Frank LeBone,is so often over looked for his bold FA's. He developed some of the most remote areas as well as chipping holds on established routes to make them more interesting.

If you read Bachers book,"Where Did the Masters Go?",you will learn more about Frank. Truly a legend.

Last I talked with him he was working a chipping project on the south face of Half Dome.

bachar

Trad climber

Mammoth Lakes, CA

Dec 30, 2007 - 08:26pm PT

"Where Did the masters Go?"

huh?

deuce4

Big Wall climber

the Southwest

Dec 30, 2007 - 08:28pm PT

Yeah, I just looked it up on Amazon, thought you might have written a book I hadn't heard about (which of course I would have bought immediately).

Sounds like a good topic, John.

rgold

Trad climber

Poughkeepsie, NY

Dec 30, 2007 - 11:12pm PT

Well, the standards have of course gone up and up, and many amazing climbers are responsible for that. But from my 50-year perspective, there is no single change in American climbing that even comes close, in magnitude, to the change from pitons to nuts, and the climbers responsible for this change are, in terms of ultimate effect, by far the most influential American climbers.

I don't think it is possible now to appreciate what it meant to a generation reared driving iron to put aside everything they understood to use an entirely different system of protection of unknown utility and effectiveness. Every climb was a heart-pounding question mark. The people who convinced an entire generation to abandon everything they knew about security for a new ideal had an influence that has not and may never be matched.

So far, these towering figures haven't been faring all that well in the lists. Here's my perspective, perhaps an idiosyncratic one. No doubt I've missed important things; I'm not a historian, of climbing or anything else. But I'm convinced a few people stand out from the even the rest of the pioneers, so here is my list.

First came Royal Robbins, who came back from a trip to England with the word that nuts really could be effective. But the nuts we were getting from Britain were never going to be more than a supplement to a rack of pitons in this country, until Yvon Chouinard produced a full range of effective sizes. One has to understand Chouinard's production and promotion of nuts in the context of the damage he did to his own piton business---this was a man whose principles went way beyond the profit motive. Chouinard's contribution to rock climbing, first through his production of chrome molly pitons, then through his production of a genuinely useful range of nuts, and finally through his many contributions to ice climbing equipment and technique, taken together, make him the single most influential American climber.

Once Chouinard's nuts were out, things didn't change overnight. Interestingly enough, Western climbers were not at all quick to embrace the new technology, which still seemed limited in more or less parallel-sided cracks. Doug Robinson wrote poetic exhortations to use natural protection, but in terms of really hard climbing, the scene shifted to the East Coast, and there can be no question that John Stannard played a pivotal role, one in retrospect that made him the person most responsible for the complete changeover.

Stannard did several things. First, using his analytical skills as a physicist, he went about field testing what kinds of falls nuts could actually hold. Stannard was the first person to understand that relatively small wired nuts were not just the aid pieces everyone else thought them to be, but could be used for free-climbing protection. He knew, in a way that makes him as unique today as he was then, pretty much exactly what kinds of falls he could take on what kinds of placements and gear. He then went about using his expertise to do scores of hard 5.10, 5.11, and a touch of 5.12 face climbs with devious protection that could never be judged or even anticipated from below. I don't think anyone has ever made a case for how revolutionary, how ahead of their time (and arguably now ahead of the present time) these climbs were.

Stannard had a profound influence on a small band of disciples, including Henry Barber, John Bragg, and Steve Wunsch, who, before the rest of the country, simply put aside their pitons and decided to either succeed or fail using only nuts, Wunsch together with Jim Erikson in Colorado, and Henry and Bragg at the Gunks and New Hampshire. Other talented climbers took notice and followed suit.

The second thing Stannard did was to sink his own money into the production of a newsletter, the Eastern Trade, that was devoted to the promotion of clean climbing. This process was not simply arduous, he took a lot of flak from climbers who wanted to keep driving chrome molly into the same placements over and over, and he was sometimes reviled as being responsible when someone who didn't understand nut placements had one pull with nasty results. Eventually, Stannard realized that perhaps beginning and intermediate climbers would not be up to the challenge of protecting mid-range climbs with nuts, and so, again at his own expense, he designed and placed a number of extremely burly soft iron pitons at critical spots on moderate climbs. These pitons proved to be significantly hardier than any chrome molly, and a number lasted as reliable protection for nearly thirty years.

Although nuts were certainly in use on the West Coast, a second wave washed over Yosemite when Barber showed up and did everything with just a rack of nuts, including his famous ascent of Butterballs. The changeover to climbing with no pitons and no hammer brought Westward by Barber and Wunsch had its roots in Stannard's insights and accomplishments, and so he stands, with Robbins and Chouinard, at the fountainhead of modern American tradtional climbing.

Mighty Hiker

Social climber

Vancouver, B.C.

Dec 30, 2007 - 11:39pm PT

rgold, an insightful perspective on this. Here are two of the people you mention, Royal Robbins and John Stannard, who met for the first time at the FaceLift in September. The third person is Tom Frost.

It's interesting that for all three, and Chouinard and many others, they've maintained a lifelong interest in climbing and the climbing community. One is even a SuperTopian.

WBraun

climber

Dec 30, 2007 - 11:43pm PT

I love these 3 guys. To top it off they're genuine.

Curt

Boulder climber

Gilbert, AZ

Dec 31, 2007 - 01:28am PT

John Stannard makes nobody's top ten list? Perhaps east coast contributions to climbing don't count. Additionally (and along those lines) I'll also toss Steve Wunsch into the mix.

Edited to add that I hadn't read rgold's post before posting this. Well said, Rich.

Curt

GDavis

Trad climber

SoCal

Dec 31, 2007 - 01:37am PT

" Wow...no one has mentioned Alan Watts...."

At first I had Christian Griffith up there, changed it with Watts. The key word being "influenced" warrants watts a top 10 on the American climbing list, no doubt.

A top 50 list would apply. Hell, half of these guys posting should be on SOMEONES....

I am but an incredulous youth, I need to do some research on some of these fellas. East coast climbing is a somewhat empty zone in the histories I've read. Seems like chapter one is Barber, chapter 2 is written... probably. Us Californians are just to self centered maybe :D

Mungeclimber

Trad climber

sorry, just posting out loud.

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 31, 2007 - 01:37am PT

perfect rgold, gracias.

NinjaChimp

climber

someplace in-between

Dec 31, 2007 - 01:41am PT

The most influential climbers to American climbing means, to me, who's actions on or off the rock have influenced, for better OR worse the way American climbers climb and think about climbing. So, in no particular order.

J.Salathe (opened the big walls to all that followed)

R.Robbins (set the standard in climbing difficulty and ethics on and off the walls)

J.Bridwell (please refer to JL's comments earlier, nuff said)

R.Messner (Alaska expoits were great, sure...but how many people have read his books?)

J.Bacher (worshiped here and in Rolling Stone)

R.Jardine (Friends)

P.Croft (ask JB how badass he is, and how often is referenced in guidebooks and magazines)

L.Hill (defines rock climbing for a generation)

A.Watts (anyone ever go sport climbing?)

C.Sharma (more people, especially youth, climb now than ever. guess why)

Honorable mention goes to J. Muir. He would begin the list except that by todays standards he would not really be considered a climber. There are others obviously but I had to choose 10 right?

-Justin

Edit: Ugh! How could I forget Gill! The list is now sh#t.

SteveW

Trad climber

Denver, CO

Dec 31, 2007 - 08:43am PT

Todd
Is Herb Laeger still climbing? I haven't seen him
since we both moved west, me to CO and he to SoCal.
But he was always pushing limits at Seneca when we
were climbing there in the 70's. Talk about a modest,
and really fun guy to be around.

Todd Gordon

Trad climber

Joshua Tree, Cal

Dec 31, 2007 - 10:48am PT

I believe Herb and Eve are still climbing;....I think Herb has done over 1000 first ascents;......that is an impressive feat, and one that I wish to reach some day. Herb's eye for a route , and his unstoppable motivation to climb and explore new turf for decades puts him in a catagory of super climbers; in my eyes anyways. He's the Man.

bob d'antonio

Trad climber

Taos, NM

Dec 31, 2007 - 12:34pm PT

This is a heavy west coast thread. Just look at the people being mentioned and where they are from. The Cali boys always have a provincial way of looking at climbing. John Stannard was doing the hardest routes in America in the early to late 70's. He also changed the way people climb as Rich pointed out in his post.

Toker Villain

Big Wall climber

Toquerville, Utah

Dec 31, 2007 - 02:35pm PT

"influenced American climbing the most" seems to imply to me a change of direction. Not merely doing the same type of thing "only harder", but rather doing things in a novel way; getting people to view climbing potential in a new perspective.

Thats why Warren was on my list. I remember how Lito Tejeda Flores wrote to Mountain Mag after the WOTEML about the significance of the experiential content of 'life on the wall', and how that tactic could be carried to the greater ranges.

Likewise, Yvon not only pushed the envelope climbing (NA, Muir Wall etc), but he, probably more than anyone else, was responsible for the clean climbing revolution that changed the very SOUND of climbing here.

The same could be said of Greg Lowe. I think that the innovation he gave to our tools was likely even more significant than Jardine's.

But most of the lists are OF americans, yet people like Bonatti, Cassin, Terray, Messner etc. had a most profound influence on climbing in this country. Their leadership surely changed the direction for some here.

With climbing being one of the few true world communities we should be wary of provincialism.