Bouldering History 3.0

Tony Julianelle - a fellow mathematician - tells me of a discussion he once had with Hassler Whitney (1907-1989), a world class mathematician and skilled rock climber. Whitney told of climbing on boulders in Sleeping Giant State Park and East Rock Park, both in the New Haven, Connecticut area, in the early 1920s, while a student at Yale.

Thus, he was one of the very early American boulderers (although, probably not in the modern sense), as well as a great mathematician who spent a number of years at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. In his lengthy career he received the National Medal of Science, the Wolf Prize, and the Steele Prize for his outstanding contributions to mathematics. He was a bold climber, as well, and established the hardest rock climb in the East on Cannon Mountain in 1929.

In Yankee Rock & Ice (2002), Laura and Guy Waterman talk about Whitney: "Hassler Whitney entered Yale in 1924 following secondary schooling in Switzerland, where he had been exposed to climbing with alpine guides. . . In personality Whitney was an introvert and loner, mildly eccentric, of strong convictions quietly and tenaciously held. He was a fluid and elegant climber . . . a true disciple of the Geoffrey Winthrop Young philosophy that judgment and skill were more important to a leader than muscle and bravado - or protection . . . In his sophomore year, Whitney discovered the Sleeping Giant . . . He spent much time there during the next three years, sometimes with rope-mates, sometimes alone. Whitney's solo climbs on the Giant (20 - 100 feet) illustrated a facet of the Young ideal . . . that the seasoned leader's judgment could tell him what he could get up or down safely, so that solo climbing at a reasonably demanding standard was regarded as justifiable."

At the age of seventy-six, Hassler visited the Sleeping Giant with the Watermans. He was very reluctant to put on a rope, and soloed most of one of his old routes - putting on a rope only at the crux. This was very much the old British game, for even through the 1930s leaders there frequently avoided protection, and essentially free-soloed their climbs. A good description of this approach - accompanied by revealing photos - can be found in The Coniston Tigers (2000) , by Harry Griffin.

Climbing began at Carderock, near Washington, D.C., with visits by Gustave Gambs (1868-1958). Manilla ropes and pitons were used, both for leading and top-roping. Jan and Herb Conn moved to the Washington area in the early 1940s and began climbing at Carderock. The Conns practised on top ropes and performed longer, low-level traverses - the precursers of actual bouldering. They established a newsletter for local climbers entitled Up Rope in 1944. Much of the early difficult climbing was done with top ropes, including Herbie's Horror by Herb Conn (5.9), done about 1943, Jam Box (5.10 today) by Tony Soler in the mid 1950s, and Silver Spot (5.10) by Mike Banks in 1962. By the mid to late 1960s, a new generation of top climbers, including Charlie Fowler, Joe Faint, and John Stannard, were exercising on the local rocks. Stannard probably created the first modern boulder problems at Carderock.
(Carderock: Past & Present, 1990)

Herb Conn on Herbie's
Horror, ca. 1943

Photo Conn Collection

Black Hills Needles

JG Sylvan Lake Boulder
ca. 1962

JG & Bob Kamps mid 1960s
Photo Bonnie Kamps

In the Needles of South Dakota, starting in 1949, Jan and Herb Conn practiced long ground-level traverses when not making first ascents of spires. They wore cheap, low-top tennis shoes, tightly fitted and with the smooth rubber soles scored with a knife, and dried their hands with dry forest duff and pinecone powder. Herb and Jan usually climbed on a 60' rope, prefering the shorter length since it encouraged down-climbing, an important facet of the climbing experience as they saw it. (This practice was promoted in America by Fritz Wiessner, as well as Underhill and Henderson, during the 1930s, and was apparent in Whitney's climbing - due to G. W. Young's influence - as noted previously.)

I began visiting the Black Hills in the mid 1950s, introducing modern bouldering there.
From the late 1950s through the mid 1960s a number of (then) difficult problems were done on the coarse granite.

Other climbers contributing substantially to Needle bouldering during the 1960s include Bob Kamps, Rich Goldstone, and Pete Cleveland.

All the classic problems on the Sylvan Lake Boulder were done by the early 1960s. The Outlet Boulder was done a year or so later.

Indian Rock

Climbers at Indian Rock in Berkeley practiced climbing moves and rope techniques starting in the 1930s. In the early 1930s, Dick Leonard developed the concept of the dynamic belay there, in order to save the leader from perishing due to a snapped sisal rope. This minute outcrop, surrounded by private homes, has seen continuous climbing/bouldering activity for over seventy years, including visits by many famous climbers. Nowadays, one can also see strange Berkeley-types there on occasion, like the gentleman I saw setting up toy soldiers on small ledges, along with a collection of coins, during the Iraq War. Important: be sure to empty your bladder before driving to the Rock - I'm told that the moist soil around the base has persisted since the early 1930s!

Stoney Point

Royal Robbins ca.1960
Photo Roger Brown

Bob Kamps ca. 1960
Photo Roger Brown

Glen Dawson and others in the Sierra Club practiced ropework at Stoney Point in California from 1935 on - but in the early 1950s a very youthful and extraordinarily talented Royal Robbins (see his biography Spirit of the Age ) and his friends began clambering about on the rocks, pushing themselves on harder sections, both with and without ropes. These bouldering sessions in the early 1950s represent the first consistent practice of a more modern variety of bouldering in America.

"By 1957, Stoney Point had become a regular weekend destination for the tight-knit climbing group that would push California technical roped-climbing standards to the highest in the world: Robbins, Frost, Chouinard, Rearick, Herbert, Kamps, and Powell."
Stone Crusade by John Sherman.

Rubidoux

Bouldering in the Riverside area - namely, Mount Rubidoux and Big Rock - began as a stop-off activity for Royal Robbins and his friends on their way to Tahquitz during the 1950s. But, bouldering as a separate activity and not just a warm-up for bigger things probably got underway in the mid 1960s with efforts by Lee Harrel, a PhD historian I had met a few years earlier in Colorado. Paul Gleason, Keith Leaman, and Phil Gleason were early converts. The following is a short article by Phil, describing early bouldering evolution in the area . . .

Early Bouldering in the Riverside Area by Phil Gleason

Paul Gleason ca. 1965
Photo by Keith Leaman

Yosemite

Midnight Lightning
First Ascent 1978
Photo Stone Crusade

In Yosemite , though poorly chronicled, several legitimate boulder problems had been established prior to 1950. The Steck Overhang (5.10+) on Columbia Boulder was done in the late 1940s, and challenged Robbins and friends as they began climbing in the Valley in the early 1950s.

During the 1950s and especially the 1960s a number of very difficult routes were climbed by Pratt, Ament, and others. "Pratt was not all that fired up about bouldering; he was just good at it. . . What the powerful Pratt excelled at were mantles . . . Ament was eager to do those mantles, he says,'because I thought they were the hardest routes in Camp 4. Hard bouldering mantles remained a Yosemite trademark throughout the 1960s and 1970s." - Stone Crusade by John Sherman

One modern test-piece, Midnight Lightning, was done by Ron Kauk in 1978. Bachar and Kauk and others worked on this infamous problem for two months : ". . . Yablonski envisioned the line, then rushed over to Bachar and Kauk.. .'I found this new problem, man. It'll go Bachar and Kauk looked at it and shook their heads. . . they started working on the problem and making unexpected progress. . . soon the two were reaching the lip, but having no luck turning it. . . . Finally, on what promised to be another heel bruising day of attempts and failures, Kauk was again at the lip . . . he rocked over his right foot while popping a quick mantle with his left arm. He grabbed the finishing jug and the crowd fell into a shocked silence . . . "
Stone Crusade by John Sherman.

Nearby Tuolumne Meadows became a bouldering destination in the late 1950s and early 1960s, offering relief from the heat and crowds of Yosemite Valley. Kamps and others worked the knobs, reminiscent of the Black Hills Needles. Later, Bachar and Yerian discovered the Gunks, increasing the variety of available climbing.

Joshua Tree

It's difficult to say when the first actual bouldering began at Joshua Tree. The Monument was created in 1936, and later Phil Smith - Grand Teton's first Park Ranger, and author with Fritiof Fryxell of many first ascents there - and his son did some climbing at JT, joined by Jim Langford when he was appointed ranger in the early 1960s.

Randy Vogel informs me that he has learned that the Southern California Sierra Club RCS began making climbing trips to JT in 1950. Royal Robbins was an assistant leader on the November 1-2, 1952 trip to the Hidden Valley area. It appears that Royal, Mike Sherrick, Don Wilson, Frank Hoover, and others were in JT at least once a year throughout the 1950s, and it seems probable that they engaged in bouldering, since there are nice problems all around Hidden Valley CG.

Documented modern bouldering activity appears to have begun with visits by
John Long and John Bachar in the early 1970s.

Bishop

Smoke Blanchard, a Zen student and mountaineer, who favored boots and alpenstocks, scrambled around the small summits above the Buttermilks near Bishop, CA in the 1950s, and about 1969 he introduced Doug Robinson to the area. Doug may have been the first climber to actually try difficult moves on the monzonite boulders, although there is the possibility that Yvon Chouinard, Ken Weeks, and others might have visited the area in the late 1950s. Doug and his friends treated the boulders more as a spiritual haven than a competitive arena.

Around 1980 John Bachar, and a little later, Dale Bard, began establishing modern competitive routes. The Happy Boulders - of volcanic origin - were discovered and explored much more recently.

Photo Jody Langford

Boulder - Flagstaff Mountain

Ray Northcutt ca. 2000 Photo Bernard Gillette	Pat Ament on Red Wall ca. 1978 Problem Done 1968
Holloway ca. 1976 Photo Pat Ament	Jim Michael 1970s Photo Stone Crusade

Bouldering first occurred on Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder, Colorado, in the early to mid 1950s with the efforts of Corwin Simmons, Ray Northcutt, Bob Culp and a few others. Simmons was the first recognized Flagstaff boulderer, working the sharp rock in the early 1950s. Some of those initial Flagstaff Mountain problems may have been at least 5.10. A problem done by Ray - a powerful competitor - on Cookie Jar Rock, called Northcutt's Roll, is certainly greater than 5.10, and was ahead of its time.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s the premier boulderer was the tall and strong Bob Culp, a salesman at Holubar's. Following Culp in the 1960s, the powerful gymnast Pat Ament led a group who raised these standards even higher. And then Jim Holloway appeared in the early to mid 1970s, setting standards that are still among the highest in the world.

Bouldering at Flagstaff Mountain - the Early Years by Pat Ament.

Denver - Morrison

Bouldering at Morrison, near Denver, in its current form, began in the early 1970s with efforts by Jim Holloway, Jim Michael, Steve Mammen, David Breashears, Bob Williams, and others. The overhanging Dakota Sandstone invites a dynamic and gymnastic technique.

Some of the most severe problems on the Front Range are located here - the least repeated being routes by Holloway, seen here in the Black Hole in 1978. Some of Holloway's problems, here and at Flagstaff, were well into the 5.14 range.

Jim Holloway 1978
Photo by Neal Kaptain

The Origins of Bouldering . . .Continued