Jeff Smoot - Hangdog Days: Conflict, Change, and the Race for 5.14

PRAISE FOR

Well-researched and fun with flashes of neonSmoots Hangdog Days captures all the wild color of climbing in the late 70s through the 80s.

Lynn Hill

In Hangdog Days, Jeff Smoot offers an enlightening behind-the-scenes perspective on this fantastic era and its memorable characters. I was climbing in the areas he describes where and while these scenes were playing out. He captures them vividly.

Hans Florine

Hangdog Days recalls the colorful personalities and ethical struggles that spurred a revolution in rock climbing. This fun trip back in time will motivate you to climb harder.

Paul Piana

Powerful, moving, compelling, outrageous, fascinatingHangdog Days captures eighties climbing perfectly. If youre a climber and you can read, this books for you.

Cam Burns

Full of Homeric characters, epic struggles, heroes and heartbreaks, all played out on an international stagefans of adventure narratives cant do much better than Hangdog Days.

John Long

JEFF SMOOT

MOUNTAINEERS BOOKS is dedicated to the exploration, preservation, and enjoyment of outdoor and wilderness areas. www.mountaineersbooks.org

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Copyright 2019 by Jeff Smoot

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Copyeditor: Laura Case Larson

Design and layout: Jen Grable

Photographs: Front cover, upper right: Todd Skinner and Robin Jones resting between attempts on Never Never, Icicle Creek Canyon, 1983; front cover, lower left: Alan Watts contemplating Rude Boys (5.13c), Smith Rock, 1985; back cover: Todd Skinner and crew, including Geoff Weigand and Kim Carrigan, at the base of The Stigma, Yosemite, 1985 (Photo by Bill Hatcher); frontispiece: Alan Watts hiking in to Crooked River Gorge, Smith Rock, 1985; p. 268: Todd Skinner and Paul Piana on the Free Salath (VI, 5.13b), Yosemite Valley, 1988 (Photo by Bill Hatcher)

All photos by author, unless otherwise indicated.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file for this title.

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Printed on recycled paper

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-68051-232-8

ISBN (ebook): 978-1-68051-233-5

For Todd

Hey Pilgrim!

... Allow me to sway you with this plan of a trip down the road of fame, glory and the pursuit of the American dollar: I have just taken a few steps toward the goal at the end of that road and will extend to you now an invitation to come along on the tour of the season.... I think that you are going to dissolve if you have to spend another winter in Washington and so why dont you join me on all or at least part of the tour? No money? Absurd! No time? This is the only time of our lives when we dare spend all of our time....What Im trying to say is I need a partner for this rash tour and I want to know if you can leave your wife, children, dog, home, lawn and job for this short period on a quest for glory?... Im on my way to Tucson in 2 weeks and hope to hear from you before then on your plans. Keep dreamin, stay hungry and remember that there is no finish line!

Todd Skinner

At its heart, rock climbing is simply movement on rock. It is a balance of holding on and letting go, of pushing, pulling, and swinging your way upward, downward, or sideways as the features of the rock and your strength and skill allow. If you have ever climbed a tree, you understand the basics: grab a limb, throw your leg over, pull yourself up, repeat, and climb as high as you dare. Our prehensile limbs make us well suited to climbing. We can hang on to and toe in on edges; jam fingers, hands, and feet into cracks; and hook heels on flakes to pull ourselves skyward up a rock face. We can ascend to absurd heights, to our sheer delight or utter terror, depending on our particular disposition and what there is to hang onto.

Rock climbing is joyous, meditative motion, a sort of gravitational yoga on a vertical scale. Those able to master their innate fear of heights and rational aversion to falling great distances and being smashed into the talus come to enjoy a perverse sense of pleasure in dangling far above the ground. They push harder and higher in search of their physical and mental limits, hoping to survive, of course, but also to have fun.

While simple in theory, in practice rock climbing can be complicated. The climbing medium, the rock itself, is varied and defines the experience. Each type of rock has distinct features; each route is unique and may require specific combinations of athletic strength, gymnastic skill, and mental discipline. On a given route you might encounter cracks so thin that your fingertips barely fit in, or so wide that your fists, elbows, or knees scrape against the rock to maintain purchase; slabs so polished that your feet ooze off if you dont keep moving; or knife-edge flakes and glass-sharp crystals that rip fingertips to shreds if pulled on too hard. It is the flaws in the rock that give the climber something to hang on to and make climbing possiblethe cracks, flakes, and imperfect edges resulting from exfoliation, erosion, the freeze-thaw cycle, and other geologic forces, or from man-made defects caused by quarrying or misadventures with dynamite. The steeper or more flawless a rock wall, the more physically difficult it is to climb. The higher or less protected a climb is, the more mentally challenging it becomes. What you might climb readily a few feet off the forest duff can become a desperate affair with a thousand feet of open air beneath you, when your muscles are tired, your nerves are frayed, and every move upward is a push into the unknown.