Stewart M. Green's Blog, page 5

Layton Kor: Memorial to a Great American Climber

Layton Kor at his home in Kingman, Arizona, in April, 2009. Photograph @ Stewart M. GreenLayton Kor, one of the greatest American climbers of the mid-20th century, passed on to big cliff in the great beyond six years ago on April 21, 2013. I was privileged to call Layton a good friend and spent many days with him during the last years of his life, talking about rock climbing, adventures, religion, and philosophy. Layton, along with Royal Robbins, was one of my climbing heroes in the 1960s when I was a Colorado kid learning the ropes. I remember well the last conversation I had with Layton the week before he died. He called to say that the doctor was taking him off dialysis. He was glad not to have to go through that procedure again and in the next breath said that he wanted to plan a trip with me to go to his beloved Dolomites in northern Italy and share rope and rock. He was excited and hopeful for the future. But I knew that going off dialysis was a death sentence. Layton, rest in peace. Here is an obituary I wrote for Layton that appeared in Alpinist Magazine in 2013.Layton Kor. The name says it all. Everyone who is a climber has heard his name. Every climber has seen his name plastered all over the guidebooks and on route names like Kor’s Flake, Kor’s Door, Kor’s Korner, and Kor-Ingalls Route. Layton Kor was ubiquitous in the 1960s. The man was everywhere, stirring up an impatient storm on the rocks wherever he landed.Layton left his mark at every major American climbing area in the sixties—the Gunks, Yosemite Valley, Longs Peak and Rocky Mountain National Park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Monument Valley, the desert around Moab, and even obscure places from Connecticut to Arizona. He put a narrow canyon south of Boulder called Eldorado on the map, doing routes just for practice that are now time-honored vertical classics. “I basically learned to climb going to Eldorado,” says Layton. “I did a lot of dumb things there. And I learned how to place pitons, which are really pretty easy to put in.”I asked Layton a couple years ago how he came up with his clever Eldo route names like Psycho, Ruper, Grand Giraffe, Kloeberdanz, and Kinder Rooten. He laughed and said, “I don’t know where some of those names came from. Like Ruper. It was just a name I liked. I named Kloeberdanz after a construction company I once worked for. Years later when I was getting gas, I saw a work truck in Glenwood Springs that said Kloeberdanz Construction on the door. I went over to the guy and told him, ‘Hey, I named a climbing route Kloeberdanz!’ He looked at me pretty strange.”I first became aware of Layton Kor when I was a boy learning to climb at the Garden of the Gods in the mid-1960s. Even then Layton was a giant among climbers, a man who stood high above most of his contemporaries in Colorado. At the Garden, experienced climbers would speak in reverent tones when they pointed out his routes like Anaconda and Kor’s Korner. Later I poured over Pat Ament’s High Over Boulder guidebook and reveled in the black-and-white photos and route descriptions of all those classic Kor routes in Eldorado Canyon, the Flatirons, and Boulder Canyon.In the early 1970s, I regularly climbed Layton’s routes with my regular climbing partners. When Jimmie Dunn and I signed into the register on top of Castleton Tower after its 6th ascent in 1971, there were the names of Layton Kor and Huntley Ingalls from the first ascent in 1961. Later that year we saw Layton’s name penciled in a sardine-tin register bolted to the summit of Standing Rock after we made the 3rd ascent.The past six months I’ve been working with FalconGuides as editor for a new edition of Layton Kor’s long-out-of-print classic book Beyond the Vertical. I’ve read the book line by line a half-dozen times and every time there are sections that make me laugh out loud. The book reflects Layton’s zest for adventure as well as his madcap adventures both on and off the rocks and his larger than life zeal and personality. Layton was known for fast driving and fast climbing. If you weren’t climbing quick enough, you would feel the rope begin to tug at your waist, a reminder that climbing time was wasting.Layton Kor was a big man, standing six-foot four-inches tall and looking more like an NBA basketball player than a rock climber. His hands, like other lifetime climbers, were massive, partly from a lifetime of laying bricks. With those strong hands and sinewy forearms, Layton could weld a piton into a crack. Even in his early 70s, Layton pounded pitons deep and hard. On the 2009 first ascent of Bloody Butte AKA Kor’s Kastle in the Arizona desert, Layton led the first pitch of a new route. As he climbed a narrow corner, he hammered four angle pitons into cracks and then tapped a thin wafer piton to protect a short traverse. It was a fine sound to hear the rising, ringing sound of the pitons as the master pounded them. “Pitons!” Layton shouted down. “I love pitons!”Layton Kor, born in Canby, Minnesota in 1938, died on Sunday evening, April 21, 2013 in Kingman, Arizona at age 74 after a long illness. Over his last years, Layton maintained a sense of dignity and composure and was always ready with a joke, pun, and laugh. Despite having dialysis three times a week and suffering breathing problems, he never gave up the fight and continued to make plans to get well and go climbing again in the Dolomites and diving off Hawaii. Layton was the real deal—a man’s man, a lifetime adventurer, a badass rock climber, a diver, and a fisherman. He was also a kind and generous man who loved his family, friends, and two cats Nim and Berry.Last evening, Jimmie Dunn, another climbing legend, called me from southern Arizona to talk. “Layton and Harvey Carter are probably talking about climbing back in the sixties right now,” Jimmie said. “They’re probably hanging out on some other planet. I hope there are good rocks out there for those guys. They’re gonna have a lot of fun.” Amen Jimmie. Rest in peace Big Daddy—you’ll always be the best.Layton Kor rappelling off Kor's Kastle after it's first ascent in April, 2009. Photograph @ Stewart M. Green

Kasha Katuwe: A Persuasion of Rocks

Dance of rocks at Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument in central New Mexico. Photograph @ Stewart M. GreenThere's something about the Western land that attracts my eye and sensibility. The land is elemental, defined by a storm of sunlight, armadas of cloud shadows, the quick beat of summer rain, and the strange and brooding shapes of all persuasions of rocks. I like the bare bones land, the empty places seldom seen or sped past in bullet cars. Places like barren buttes towering over treeless plains or shale badlands sculpted in soft yet harsh forms. And then there are the improbable places--hoodoos that defy gravity and imagination, dry salt pans shimmering with watery mirages, endless cliff bands that recede to a red horizon.Such a place is Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument in central New Mexico. The parkland, managed jointly by the BLM and Cochiti Pueblo on tribal land, is filled with strange forms chiseled from soft volcanic tuff by wind and water and time.Unfortunately, Kasha-Katuwe, meaning "white rocks" in the Cochiti tongue, has been discovered. The monument though has a carrying capacity equal only to the number of vehicles parked in small juniper-shaded lots. When the spots are filled, no one can enter the park until a car leaves. This approach certainly keeps Tent Rocks from being overrun.The park also takes preservation seriously. The only way to see the park is on its 3 trails and no cross-country hiking is allowed. Dogs are also banned from the park. Totally banned. Meaning Fido can't even ride into the park and wait in your vehicle while you hike. Fines for bringing a dog range from $350 to $1000 plus jail time.I was at Kasha-Katuwe on Monday to update a hiking guidebook to Albuquerque, one of my summer projects, and shot this photograph of the tent rocks in an upper canyon. A host of images came to mind as I studied these rock formations--a parade of dunces, an army of soft-twist ice cream cones, a half-painted Christmas tree farm, an encampment of boy scout tents...

Rock Climbing Questions from Tourists at the Garden of the Gods

Tourists watch climbers on White Twin Spire in The Gateway at the Garden of the Gods on a busy summer afternoon. Photo @ Stewart M. GreenOne of the chapters in a book of climbing stories, tentatively called Life on the Edge, I've been writing is called "Fear of Heights." It's about tourists and climbing esoterica at the Garden of the Gods, called one of the best city parks in the world. The Garden, one of America's oldest technical rock climbing areas, has over five-million visitors annually now, many of them from the flatlands of Kansas or Texas where the tallest mountain is a grain silo. Anyone who regularly climbs at the Garden of the Gods. one of Colorado's most popular natural attractions, becomes an expert at answering tourist questions. Here's a brief dialogue from the chapter and a photo of a busy summer weekend below White Twin Spire:“How do you get the rope up there?” asks the nice man from Toledo, Ohio. “We climb the rock.” “Oh, I wouldn’t want to do that,” says his buxom wife. “Does it break your nails?” “No, I chew mine down.” “Well, I’m glad you’re doing it,” the man wheezes, “so we can watch.” His five-year-old son wanders over to a boulder and touches the sandstone. “You get back over here now. Don’t you be climbing that rock.” It’s Labor Day weekend. Lots of tourists are milling as I sit on a rock wall below Red and White. My friends Mike and Allie are climbing the South Ridge of White. A white man, thirtyish and clad in a white t-shirt that says KCVU on the back, checkered shorts, and tennis shoes, is trying to climb on the base of Red Twin Spire in white Nikes. He says to his young son watching him. “Daddy’s thinking about climbing.” The kid says, “I don’t know how you’re going to get down.” “Oh my goodness, don’t do anything to get hurt,” says his chubby wife. “Daddy? Can I climb the rock?” asks the boy. “When I get down.” A slender woman walks by and looks up at Mike placing a cam. “Oooh, look at that.” Then a man with a stout paunch filling a gray t-shirt, sits down next to me, “Ya going up or coming down?”Children clamber around a belayer and an expert explains the details of climbing to his wife. Photo @ Stewart M. Green

Climbing in the 1970s: Winter Days at the Garden of the Gods

I was thinking this morning about climbing in the 1970s. A couple days ago I was talking with my friend and climbing partner Brian Shelton about today's scene. He had just returned from a few days climbing at Red Rocks near Las Vegas and remarked at the crowds at the crags. There were queues at the base of popular routes and on one popular 5.7 2-pitch routes the conga line was 7 deep and a couple parties were leading and stickclipping almost every bolt.I told Brian, that's why it's good here in the Springs...it's easy to get away and have a wilderness experience and see no one. It's still like climbing in the seventies.Back then the world was our oyster. There were first ascents everywhere and new crags and climbing areas wanting to be discovered. Shelf Road, Wall Street, Rifle, Wild Iris, and any other sport climbing area didn't exist.And there were few climbers around. I knew everyone local who climbed and the outer network was broad. If we went over to the desert around Moab and ran into another group of climbers, chances were good that we either knew each other or had heard about each other.I was also thinking this morning about how few climbers I see at the Garden of the Gods now in the winter. Back then there would be at least 4 or 5 parties on a warm winter day, cranking classics or doing new routes. Now when I go out there on a sunny 55-degree day I might see a single party on Montezuma Tower or West Point Crack or no one. I figure they're all in the rock gym training.Here's a 1970s shot of Mack Johnson belaying Steve Hong on Dust to Dust on a winter's day in early 1977. Mack and Steve both attended Colorado College at that time, along with Ed Webster. Dust to Dust, a runout 5.10 route on the upper Finger Face, is rarely done now. In fact, I don't think I've seen a party on it since I last climbed it in 2001.Mack Johnson belays Steve Hong at the Garden of the Gods in 1977. Photograph @ Stewart M. Green

Candlemas: Winter's Warm Midpoint

Yesterday was Candlemas, the ancient festival of lights marking the midpoint of winter between the shortest day of the year on the winter solstice and the spring equinox in late March.It's an important marker for me since I welcome and venerate the return of the sun from the depths of darkness. Every day for the past month I've been watching where the sun sets on the Front Range mountains, seeing it slowly creep north along the escarpment, spreading more light and warmth. Today in Colorado Springs there are 10 hours 17 minutes of daylight.Candlemas, a time for Christians to bless candles and have candle-lit processions before mass, is rooted in pagan wisdom as well as rites celebrating the Roman and Etruscan God Februus, a god of purification, riches, and death. Februrarius is the holy month of Februus, a time of spring cleaning, purification, and preparing for the new year, especially since February was the last month of the year for the Romans.Another pagan custom on Candlemas is predicting the weather, a tradition that started in Germany with badgers removed from their dens. Early Pennsylvania Dutch settlers, originally from Germany, used groundhogs, hence Groundhog Day.If you're in Colorado this weekend, get out and celebrate the halfway point of winter in warm sunlight. It's completely clear across the state today and the temperature here in Colorado Springs will be a mild 60 degrees...I'm going climbing!Here is a photograph I shot of layered clouds at sunset over the Front Range in February 1977, on Kodachrome 64 film with a Canon F-1 and 400mm lens. Photograph @ Stewart M. Green

Colorado Springs & Pikes Peak Avenue: 1890 and Now

Pikes Peak towers beyond Pikes Peak Avenue in downtown Colorado Springs in October 2018. Photograph @ Stewart M. GreenOne of my many projects is recreating the modern scenes of old photographs of Colorado Springs. So much of the city's storied ambiance and architecture has vanished under the guise of urban renewal. Like in the mid-1970s when much of the downtown area was decimated, destroyed, and razed to make way for new and exciting buildings...which were never built. Many former building sites remain as parking lots.One of the architectural gems to fall was the old Chief Theater, which opened in 1912 as the Burns Opera House. The theater boasted plush green velvet seatings, broad balconies, and a soaring ceiling painted with angelic cherubs. This local jewel was deemed too expensive to renovate so it was torn down for a drive-up bank, which it remains today. Next door the Out West Building was razed and its site remains as a parking lot in the center of downtown. No respect for the past in the '70s. Fortunately, many historic buildings are now preserved and repurposed for new businesses.These two photographs depict Pikes Peak Avenue, the downtown's main east-west street. The avenue lies directly east of Pikes Peak's summit. The historic image was made by pioneer photographer William Henry Jackson in 1890, while I shot the current photograph on an early October morning.Pikes Peak looms over Pikes Peak Avenue in 1890. Note the dirt street, streetcar tracks and tram, the old Antler's Hotel at the west end of the avenue, and the carriages and buggies. Photograph by William Henry Jackson.

Haunted Tunnels: Chasing Ghosts on Colorado's Gold Camp Road

An eerie October twilight settles over Tunnel 1, one of the haunted tunnels on the Gold Camp Road near Colorado Springs. Photograph © Stewart M. GreenRestless spirits have long haunted the Pikes Peak region. Cripple Creek, an 1890s gold mining town on the west side of Pikes Peak, is reputedly the most haunted place in America. Its restless spirits roam among gaunt head frames, crumbling cabins, hallways in old hotels, and in the Lampman Building, where the clipped footsteps and lilting soprano voice of ghostly Maggie is sometimes heard.Emma Crawford's Eerie SpecterColorado Springs and neighboring Manitou Springs also host spectral phenomena and strange doings. The ghosts of Manitou include voices and bumps in the night at the Red Crags bed and breakfast inn; mysterious lights, mists, and sounds in Cave of the Winds; and 19-year-old Emma Crawford, a tubercular patient buried atop Red Mountain. Her coffin later washed down the mountainside before being reinterred at the cemetery. Some say her spirit still stalks the mountain.Ghosts of Colorado SpringsColorado Springs has a plethora of strange phenomena like two ghosts that sit in the back row of the Peak Theater, the ghoul of a murder victim in the Pioneer’s Museum, the ghost of a pioneer boy striding down the hallway of the Pediatric Ward at the former Penrose Community Hospital, and the presence of mining magnate Winfield Scott Stratton in his downtown Mining Exchange Building. Other spine-tingling sites include both Evergreen Cemetery, the city's old burying ground, and a roadside phantom along highway 115 in Deadman Canyon. This ghost is the shade of William Harkins, who was murdered with an axe to the forehead by the crazy Espinosa brothers in 1863.Haunted Tunnels on the Gold Camp RoadThree railroad tunnels on the Gold Camp Road above Colorado Springs are the site that’s gained the most traction among ghost hunters in the last 25 years. The tunnels lie along the old railbed of the Short Line Railroad, a twisting 31-mile rail line that ran between the two cities from 1901 to 1920. After the tracks were torn up in 1929, it was turned into a scenic dirt road that passed through seven tunnels, their ceilings still black with locomotive soot. In the 1980s, an eight-mile road section was closed because of the imminent collapse of Tunnel 3 above Silver Cascade Falls.Tunnels are Eerie PlacesTunnels are foreboding places that enter underground darkness. Tunnels across the United States are supposedly haunted by Tommyknockers or mining spirits, dead miners, and lost souls. The Gold Camp Road’s three troubled tunnels creep out our rational mind. By day they are innocent holes burrowed through ridges but at night they become echoing chambers filled with ghastly accident victims.Gold Camp Road HauntingsThe stories that people write on the Internet about their Gold Camp tunnel experiences seem like far-fetched, B-grade movie plots, especially since there are no stories before the mid-1990s about hauntings. Local urban myths recount how a school bus filled with children was crushed when now-closed Tunnel 3 collapsed on them in the 1980s, the shrill whistle of a ghost train rattling up vanished tracks, a walking specter inside Tunnel 2, and dusty handprints found on the outside of cars after exiting a tunnel.Satan Worshippers and Ghost VoicesOthers talk about black-robed Satan worshippers carrying torches and chanting as they walked through the tunnels in the 1970s and 1980s. One account noted that his father witnessed this ritual twice as a teenager, while sipping illicit beers. Tunnel 2 is supposedly the most active site, with people saying they were hit and groped and they heard strange voices echoing off its walls. Sometimes, they report, the figure of a lone man appears at the end of the tunnel before, of course, vanishing into thin air.Giggling Children in Tunnel 3The closed 115-year-old third tunnel is also spooky. Both sides of the tunnel are shuttered with heavy iron fencing. Some accounts note the sounds of children giggling in the darkness. When people left the tunnel they felt tugs on their clothes and were sometimes slapped. Outside they saw small handprints on their car.Collapsing Closed TunnelThe only problem with this fanciful story is that the tunnel never collapsed on a bus, so no children ever died. Tunnel 3 is on the closed section of Gold Camp Road, making it impossible to drive a car to the entrance. The U.S. Forest Service actually shut the tunnel to traffic in 1987 after rotting timbers were found inside it. The stout iron fencing at both entrances keeps visitors outside the tunnel, since a 2006 fire in the tunnel destroyed most of the remaining supports.Gold Camp Road Auto AccidentsThe other peculiar happenings are not so easily explained, except that a fertile imagination can run wild on dark and stormy nights. Many auto accidents have occurred along lower Gold Camp Road. Local authorities say 11 wrecked cars still rest below the road, most from forgotten accidents. The curvy section before Point Sublime, now protected by a sturdy guardrail, was notoriously dangerous with numerous fatalities caused by vehicles plummeting off the narrow road down gravel slopes. A recent accident was in March, 2015 when a Geo Tracker drove off the road at 3 in the morning, plunging 400 feet and killing a Virginia man.Haunted Tales Connect Us Ghost stories connect the unknown and mysterious to our waking world. They let us attach a tangible form and voice to our deepest fears and anxieties. Certainly the creepy Tunnel legends have been embellished with every new telling, but the question remains: Are they haunted by departed spirits, ghosts, and ghouls? Experience the Ghosts of Past LivesBelieve the stories told by a teenager who imbibed a six-pack if you want or, like me, take your own drive up to Tunnels 1 and 2 on a moonless night and walk down them alone in the dark. You’ll feel railroad history, the deaths of accident victims, and the cool hand of a late night. Ghost stories are just stories, but your own eerie experience, now that’s a different matter.

Dateline 1978: Climbers at The Cobbler in Colorado Springs

Back in the late 1970s, the local climbers in Colorado Springs would congregate every day at the Cobbler Mountain Shop at 10 South 25th Street. The Cobbler originally started as a boot and climbing shoe repair shop by Steve Cheyney, a long-time area climber. His first place was a 6-foot-wide hole-in-the-wall storefront on West Colorado Avenue. He later partnered up with Dennis Jackson about 1977 and they moved to the 25th Street location in Old Colorado City. Bryan Becker boulders outside The Cobbler's back door with Dennis Jackson and Earl Wiggins. Colorado Springs, Colorado. 1978. Photograph © Stewart M. GreenWe local climbers hung out at The Cob, as we affectionately called it, catching up on gossip; recording new routes in the Golden Book of Bullshit, a loose-leaf notebook; sipping cold beers, usually Dos Equis; and indulging in climber's games like darts and bottles, which required balancing hands on two beer bottles, then seeing who could place one bottle the furthest while balancing on one hand and arm on the other bottle.Afterward in the evening, we would parade across Colorado Avenue to Henri's Mexican Restaurant and Emilio, the host and Henri's brother in law, would show us to a big booth in the back where we always ate bottomless bowls of chips and salsa and order smothered green chili burritos and Tecates with lime. That was the routine almost every day.I usually brought my Canon F-1 camera and shot black and white photographs of the goings-on and characters at The Cob. Here's a photo I shot of Bryan Becker working on the hard backdoor boulder problem while Earl Wiggins does a casual hand-in-pocket spot and looks up the alley outside the shop with Dennis Jackson at whatever mischief was happening.

ROCK ART: My Newest Book Released! #1 Bestseller in Mythology and Folklore

Last Friday, September 28, Falcon Guides released my newest book Rock Art: The Meanings and Myths Behind Ancient Ruins in the Southwest and Beyond.The 208-page book, available on Amazonand Barnes & Noble, explores the fascinating history of ancient human-made markings on stone canvases that have puzzled historians, archaeologists, and hikers alike for centuries. What is rock art, and who created these mysterious symbols, and why are so many pieces of artwork similar across disparate and long-forgotten cultures? How was rock art made—and, more importantly, why? These questions and more are addressed in this comprehensive guide to rock art, complete with full-color images and travel listings. Look inside to find:Prehistories and histories of the cultures who created these images and etchings.Detailed descriptions of the tools, techniques, and methods used to create rock art.Best practices and techniques for photographing these alluring rock images.Extensive list of rock art sites across the United States.Whether you’re fascinated by the wondrous ancient imagery imprinted on the landscape or just curious about the markings alongside your favorite hiking trail, Rock Art is the only guide you need to better understand this mysterious and beautiful art form.Buy Rock Art on-line at Amazonor Barnes & Noble or visit your friendly local bookstore for a copy and learn all about prehistoric rock art around the world as well as the role of art in both ancient and aboriginal cultures. ROCK ART PHOTO EXHIBIT OPENING!At 3:00 p.m. on October 21, Sunday, an exhibit of my Rock Art photographs will open at Art Etc. Gallery at 18 East Rio Grande in south downtown Colorado Springs. Come on down and check out the exquisite and gorgeous photographs.

Climbing Fashion in the Stoned Age: Those 1970s Rock Climbing Clothes

The 1970s were a momentous time in not only American history but also rock climbing fashion. It was a time of sweeping out the stogy fashions of mom and dad and the post-war 1950s and embracing the late 1960s hippie ethic with bright clothes, headbands, painter pants, and rugby shirts.In the 1970s, climbers dropped the old climbing style of protecting routes with archaic piton pounding from the 1950s and 1960s, which destroyed the rock and cracks. Instead, climbers embraced a new rock ethic that emphasized climbing free and clean, slotting nuts like Hexentrics and Stoppers in cracks and attempting to do routes all free, without resorting to aid climbing and gear trickery, to get from the cliff base to the top, all without damaging the rock surface. Eric Bjornstad and Ken Wyrick in a clash of climbing clothes styles on the summit of Echo Tower near Moab after its first ascent about 1970. Photograph courtesy Eric Bjornstad1970s Climbing Clothes: Freedom of Movement Climbing clothes in the 1970s were all about freedom of movement and really, just plain freedom from tradition and blah. If you look at photos of rock jocks in Yosemite Valley, a crew which included Jim Bridwell, John Long, and John Bacher, they are usually wearing short gym shorts and muscle shirts or no shirts at all. They look more like surf bums than the sixties climbing bums. That surfing free-and-easy lifestyle was in fact part of the seventies climbing scene. As gear guru and 1960s master climber Yvon Chouinard once said, “If we weren’t climbers, we would all be surfers.”Yvon Chouinard (right) and Chuck Pratt, Royal Robbins, and Tom Frost after the first ascent of the North American Wall on El Capitan in 1964 wearing traditional Sixties climbing clothes. Photograph courtesy Tom Frost/WikipediaYvon Chouinard Brings Style to the SeventiesSpeaking of Yvon Chouinard, the man, who was an icon of Yosemite climbing in the sixties, also left his claw marks on climbing equipment and clothing. It was Chouinard who started Great Pacific Ironworks in the 1960s to make durable chrome-moly pitons and then in the early 1970s the Hexentric and Stopper nuts, which are still made, sold, and used today. But it was Chouinard who introduced fashion to climbing in the 1970s. Prior to then, climbers wore plain functional clothes, often scarfed up from Army surplus stores, like cut-off chinos, military khaki pants, and white cotton and flannel shirts.Jimmie Dunn wears a rugby shirt, painter's paints, and headband in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in 1977. Photograph courtesy Dennis JacksonRugby Shirts, Cagoules, and Stand-Up PantsIn 1970 Chouinard bought some colorful rugby shirts on a climbing trip to Scotland and his buds back in California liked their style and durability so he began importing them under a new clothing division of his business, which he simply called Chouinard Equipment, which later became Patagonia. He also began selling waterproof cagoules and anoraks, reversible knitted hats called “schizos,” and the famed stand-up pants and shorts made of sturdy canvas with double seat and knees for crack climbing and big walls. One of Chouinard’s catalogues called their rugby shirts “the most practical shirts we have found for rock climbing.” Climbing punks hang out at The Cobbler Mountain Shop in Colorado Springs n 1978. From left to right: Dennis Jackson, Brian Delaney, Leonard Coyne, and Pete Williams. Photograph @ Stewart M. GreenClimbing, Surfing, Skateboarding, and PunksA lot of climbing fashion as well as the climbing dirt-bag culture that manifested in the 1970s sprang from not only the pot-smoking freedom of late 1960s hippie culture and the California surfer subculture but also from skateboarding, which began in the mid-seventies after a long drought in California left swimming pools empty. A bunch of surfers called the Z-Boys crew from Santa Monica began concrete surfing the dry pools on their wheeled boards, creating modern skateboarding. Their restlessness, coupled with the burgeoning urban Punk movement from boredom and anger with mainstream culture and the greedy bourgeoisie, pushed a lot of disaffected young people into nature, away from society and into their own social hierarchy of rock climbing. Marty Karabin, collector of antique climbing gear and clothes, models my 1970s Chouinard rugby shirt, Whillans harness, and assortment of old climbing nuts and cams at Camelback Mountain in Phoenix. Photograph @ Stewart M. GreenThe Dirt-Bag Climbing CultureClimbing fashion in the 1970s more or less came from the dirt-bag climbing culture. A lot of climbers escaped home, mom and dad, university, and work by heading out into the world and staying for months at a time at places like Joshua Tree National Park and Yosemite Valley, doing, as my friend Dennis Jackson says, “climbing your brains out!” The climbing lifestyle was about making do with what cash you had or could earn by working as a guide, part-time dishwasher at Curry Village, or selling pot collected from a crashed Mexican drug-plane in the Yosemite backcountry and living for months in a tent or ’69 VW bus. Life was about freedom, nonconformity, friendship, and, of course, climbing. Henry Barber, one of the best 1970s free climbers, sports a flat-top cap and painter's pants at Turkey Rock in 1979. Photograph @ Stewart M. GreenUtilitarian Climbing Clothes: Painter's Pants & BandanasClimbing clothes were a reflection of that dirt-bag, climb-all-the-time ethic. Clothes were utilitarian, like white painters pants and cool t-shirts, either plain or with designs, and, of course, the ubiquitous bandana tied around the head. There were few specialty climbing clothes except those sold by Chouinard Equipment. The big outdoor manufacturers like North Face and others simply didn’t see a market in making and selling sport-specific clothes to poor climbers. That really didn’t begin to happen until the 1990s with the advent of climbing gyms and the promotion of rock climbing as a more mainstream sport rather than the arcane and esoteric brotherhood and sisterhood that it was in the 1970s.