www.johngill.net

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Historical Rock Climbing Images 1890s - 1930s

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The Great Pioneers of Modern Rock Climbing

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Page 1

Photographic Evidence The surge in climbing popularity during the last 20 years has brought with it a surfeit of images, photographs of well-toned climbers making their way up countless overhanging bulges and walls seemingly devoid of holds. So many pictures, numbered in the many thousands, that to some extent they have become a cliché. Except, perhaps, for a few that document accomplishments at the very edge of the current envelope. However, the number of photos of climbers on "difficult" ascents thins out rather dramatically as one examines the history of rock climbing - moving back through time for three quarters of a century, then into the Victorian Era. It is indeed our great good fortune that several climbers took the time and energy and patience to record the magnificent efforts of some of the few who founded the sport of rock climbing in the 1880s and 1890s and established the contours of ethical and technical evolution in the years that followed - particularly in the Lake District and Wales in Great Britain and the Saxony area near Dresden.

On the Napes Needle Ridge Photo by Abraham Brothers ca. 1900

I like to think that in some distant dimension these climbers still navigate their challenges, flowing up the rock - virgin in each encounter - with the same robust spirits, determination, and courage that led them onto the heights so many years ago.    Here, then, is a look back into the early times of our sport. Brief descriptions of a few of the strong and unique personalities and photographs showing these - our forefathers more than mere predecessors - as they assemble the paradigm that, to a large extent, remains in place today.

Elbsandsteingebirge

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Center:  Affensteine with Blosstock.  Photo W. Handtke Sides:  Otto Dietrich on the valley side of Heringsgrundadel. Photo W. Hahn  1920

My thanks to Karsten Kurz for helpful comments & corrections

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An American arrives in Dresden . . . Oliver Perry-Smith :   Born in Philadelphia in 1884, Oliver Perry-Smith attended St. Paul's School through his senior year, then sailed to Europe to join his mother in Dresden. There, he attended the Technische Hochschule (similar to MIT) and quickly became acquainted with several students who climbed. About twenty miles away, along the Elbe River, sandstone spires and walls had enticed serious scramblers since the 1860s, and by the time Perry-Smith arrived (1902) the spirit of competition among local climbers ran high.   "By 1890 rock climbing in this region had become a pure sport. It was no longer a question of getting up by any available means, but of 'how' it was done. By 1898 a large number of summits had been gained by more than one route, O. Schuster and F. Meurer being pioneers." - J. Monroe Thorington in Oliver Perry-Smith: Profile of a Mountaineer (Journal of the AAC, 1964). [This article owes much to Thorington's excellent piece, supplemented with photographs and additional information from various sources.  Where quotes in green italics are not identified, one should assign them to him.]

Perry-Smith 1913 ca. 1905