Big Walls

Yosemite & Big Wall Climbing Quotes
"This valley is the only place that comes up to the brag about it, and exceeds it."    — Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The tide of visitors will float slowly about the bottom of the valley as harmless scum collecting in hotel and saloon eddies, leaving the rocks and falls eloquent as ever."    — John Muir about Yosemite.

"To apply human standards of measurements to this monarch of mountains is sacrilege. To attempt by mere words and figures to convey some idea of its stupendous massiveness, its nobly-defiant impressive individuality, is rankest folly."    — Herbert Earl Wilson, about El Cap, 1926.

"It is a crest of granite... perfectly inaccessible, being probably the only one of the prominent points about the Yosemite which never has been, and never will be, trodden my human foot."    — California Geological Survey report about Half Dome, 1865.

"It's so good and wonderful and so other-earth-other-sky transcendentally different in Yosemite that I could spend a dozen karmic cycles there and not exhaust the place."    — Mike Borghoff.

"I couldn't catch a ball or any of that stuff. I could do only what required brute stupidity."    — Warren Harding (1925-2002).

"Screwing is more enjoyable than drilling bolt holes !."    — Warren Harding (1925-2002).

"I continued with whatever 'qualified climbers' I could con into this rather unpromising venture."    — Warren Harding (1925-2002), about the Nose.

"As I hammered in the last bolt and staggered over the rim, it was not at all clear to me who was the conqueror and who was the conquered. I do recall that El Cap seemed to be in much better condition than I was."    — Warren Harding (1925-2002).

"I was spent up. I sure grabbed that girl of mine."    — Warren Harding (1925-2002), after summiting the Nose.

"If mankind doesn't kill himself first (on a mountain or with a bomb) he may just learn how to inhabit the Earth as god planned."    — Editorial in News after the ascent of the Nose.

"Our ascent, of course, does not end the possibility for new accomplishments on El Capitan. The day will probably come when this climb will be done in five days, perhaps less; and a younger generation will make a new route on the west face."    — Royal Robbins, after the 2^nd ascent of the Nose, 1960 (the record is now about 4h17).

"If the answer is 13 RURPs and a bat hook, what was the question ?"    — Joel Wiley.

"Actually, we're just glorified flagpole sitters."    — Warren Harding (1925-2002).

"I started climbing when men were men... and we nailed 5.8."   — TM Herbert.

"Anyone who says that they are having fun up here is flat out lying !"    — Russ "The Fish" Walling.

"Being out on lead is like having a loaded gun pointed at your head all day !"    — Russ "The Fish" Walling.

"Anyone who climbs walls is certifiably insane."    — Russ "The Fish" Walling.

"The best part is getting to the top 'cause the pain's all over."    — Dan Osman.

"As we unloaded packs at the parking lot, two young ladies approached us to ask if we were THE Yosemite climbers... They asked if it were true that Yosemite climbers chafe their hands on the granite to enable them to friction up vertical walls. We assured them that the preposterous myth was true."    — Chuck Pratt, 1965.

"The climbing as a whole is not very esthetic or enjoyable; it is merely difficult."    — Yvon Chouinard (1963, on Yosemite).

"Just why is Yosemite climbing so different ? Why does it have techniques, ethics and equipment all of its own ? The basic reason lies in the rock itself. Nowhere else in the world is the rock so exfoliated, so glacier-polished and so devoid of handholds. All of the climbing lines follow vertical crack systems. Every piton crack, every handhold is a vertical one. Special techniques and equipment have evolved through absolute necessity."    — Yvon Chouinard, 1963.

"I strode among giants, friends tell me now, though at the time I felt more like a misfit associating with oddballs."    — Steve Roper, Introduction to Camp 4.

"Many have questioned the quality of this sort of achievement, deploring the use of pitons, tension traverses and expansion bolts, but the record speaks for itself. This is a technical age and climbers will continue in the future to look for new routes. There is nothing more satisfying than being a pioneer."    — Allen Steck, justifying the 1^st ascent of Sentinel's north face, 1950.

"Writing this last chapter has been difficult and painful. It involves do's and don'ts, obligations and responsibilities. Most climbers are individuals who love freedom--they climb because it makes them feel free. We may expect then, that having others suggest how they ought to climb will rub wrong. There used to be so few climbers that it didn't matter where one drove a piton, there wasn't a worry about demolishing the rock. Now things are different. There are so many of us, and there will be more. A simple equation exists between freedom and numbers: the more people the less freedom. If we are to retain the beauties of the sport, the fine edge, the challenge, we must consider our style of climbing; and if we are not to mutilate and destroy the routes, we must eliminate the heavy handed use of pitons and bolts."    — Royal Robbins, Basic Rockcraft, 1977.

"I had the unique experience the next day: placing sixteen bolts in a row. It was just blank and there was no way around. But it was a route worth bolting for, and after a time I began to take an almost perverse joy in it, or at least in doing a good job."    — Royal Robbins, Tis-sa-ack ascent, 1970.

"To practice for the Steck / Salathe, crawl across asphalt parking lots in the summer, on your knees and elbows."    — Dingus Milktoast.

"My next climb is going to be a tourist troll in a wheelchair."    — Allen Steck to Salathé during the 1^st ascent of the north face of Sentinel Rock.

"Oh, shit !"    — Jim Madsen when he rappelled off the end of his rope on El Cap's Dihedral Wall in 1968.

"Goddamn it ! His parka doesn't fit me !"    — Steve Roper, after reaching the body of Irving Smith in the Lost Arrow Chimney.

"I wouldn't go there if I were you. They steal from the store and they smell and they wear rags and even piss right outside their tents. I tell you, it's like a leper colony, that place."    — Yosemite Lodge bellman trying to dissuade a girl from visiting Camp 4, 1962.

"Climbers have no sense of smell."    — Conrad Anker's mother.

"John Wayne never wore Lycra."    — Ron Kauk.

"I became so desperate that I considered throwing Eric [Beck] off the ledge. I thought I could get down and then lie about what had happened. To my addled brain, this was plausible. Then I came to my senses and woke Eric up and told him that either he had to retreat or I'd throw him off. We went down and I never climbed again for a quarter of a century."    — Dave Cook about a new route on the Sentinel.

"There was a climber named Bridwell
On grade I's he did well.
But on grade VI, he got into a fix
and rappelled to the talus and hid well."    — Eric Beck.

"It is better to retreat off a good climb than to succeed on an indifferent one."    — Chris Jones, 1971.

"Excluding Royal Robbins (who is in a brilliant class all by himself, a Stirling Moss, an index of perfection) Valley climbers are brooding misfits who know only too well what awaits them down in the San Joaquin Valley and beyond."    — Mike Borghoff.

"He was skinning a bear. I was terrified at first, because the corpse resembled a naked man quartered between two trees. He'd created a deadfall trap over some big talus blocks and the bear had fallen in. He used the skin for something and jerked the meat. If it wasn't astonishing enough behavior in a national park, the next day he made doughnuts, using bear fat for grease ! Surely, by now, he's created an empire somewhere in the world..."    — Dave Cook.

"In light of the rising frequency of human/grizzly bear conflicts, the Department of Fish and Game is advising hikers, hunters, and fishermen to take extra precautions and keep alert for bears while in the field. We advise that outdoors men wear noisy little bells on their clothing so as not to startle bears that aren't expecting them. We also advise outdoors men to carry pepper spray with them in case of an encounter with a bear. It is also a good idea to watch out for fresh signs of bear activity. Outdoors men should recognize the difference between black bear and grizzly bear droppings. Black bear droppings are smaller and contain lots of berries and squirrel fur. Grizzly bear droppings have little bells in them and smell like pepper."    — Grizzly bear notice.

"I so much enjoy waking up to garbage truck 'back up' beepers in the morning at Yosemite. It makes me feel like I'm in New York city !"    — athayer999.

"My once-keen analytical mind has become so dulled by endless hours of baking in the hot sun, thrashing about in tight chimneys, pulling at impossibly heavy loads, freezing my ass off.... so that now my mental state is comparable to that of a Peruvian Indian, well stoked on coca leaves..."    — Warren Harding (1925-2002), Reflections on a broken down climber.

"Here I was working away and always this mumbling and bitching from below, and finally the shocking ejaculation "This is a lot of shit." From then on I felt I was battling two opponents, the wall and Peterson."    — Royal Robbins, Tis-sa-ack.

"I was once bouldering in solitude in the Needles, when a young female walked up and introduced herself and asked who I was. I told her and continued bouldering. She turned and walked away after a few minutes, saying over her shoulder: 'you can't be John Gill. He climbs much better than that'."    — John Gill, Master of rock by Pat Ament.

"I've tried many sports, but climbing is the best. The beauty of this sport is that no matter how good you get, you can always find a way to challenge yourself."    — Randy Leavitt.

"Gee, in the old days people used aid to make things easier, nowadays they use aid to make things harder."    — Juanita Donini.

"It lasted but a year of two, till all the routes were done. The pace so fast that most forgot that climbing could be fun."    — John Sherman.

"The future of Yosemite climbing lies not in Yosemite, but in using the new techniques in the great granite ranges of the world."    — Yvon Chouinard, 1963.

"Personally, I would rather climb in the high mountains. I have always abhorred the remendous heat, the dirt-filled cracks, the ant-covered foul-smelling trees and bushes which cover the cliffs, the filth and noise of Camp 4 (the climbers' campground), and worst of all, the multitudes of tourists which abound during the weekends and summer months."    — Yvon Chouinard, 1961.

"Climbing for speed records will probably become more popular, a mania which has just begun. Climbers climb not just to see how fast and efficiently they can do it, but far worse, to see how much faster and more efficiently they are than a party which did the same climb a few days before. The climb becomes secondary, no more important than a racetrack. Man is pitted against man."    — Yvon Chouinard.

"Every time I go out and do something, Hans panics and starts trying to beat me. He's like a dog humping your leg."    — Dean Potter.

"Vy can't ve chust climb !"    — John Salathé.