Stone Walls, Stout Hearts

In climbing areas today; the sound of a hammer bonging a piton into the rock is met with angry shouts by other climbers. Nowadays climbers prefer devices called chocks—aluminum blocks, varying from fingertip-to fist-sized with holes for ropes—and runners, or nylon slings. The chocks can be wedged into natural cracks in the rock, the runners are looped over rock nubs; both of them anchor the nylon safety rope via a carabiner, which is an aluminum clip shaped like a giant safety pin.

The leader of a climbing party places the chocks for protection, and the last man on the rope removes them as he follows; thus the face of the rock is left unscarred, and there will be no trace of any previous climbing activity to deflate the spirit of the next party. The use of chocks instead of pitons is called clean climbing. (The British, especially Scotsmen, who were active in rock climbing long before Americans, are passionate believers in climbing clean.) While considered as secure as pitons, chocks seem to generate more thoughtful climbing because they demand greater awareness of rock textures. The climber must face reality; he can't hammer himself into security. It is sometimes said of a climber who carries pitons, even as a backup, "He carries his courage in a rucksack."

Pitons, as well as chocks with names like rurps and bugaboos, may be used on aid climbs, along with all sorts of specialized contrivances, strange bits of ironmongery called jumars, blobies, smashies, bashies, skyhooks, cliffhangers and copperheads. Virtually all the big walls—roughly defined as those requiring more than one day to climb—are aid climbs, so the best climbers are experienced at aid climbing as well as free climbing.

Still, since a difficult aid climb often turns out to be more of an engineering than a mental or physical exercise, aid climbing is looked upon as somewhat impure. It would be accurate enough to say that aid climbing begins where free climbing leaves off, but it would not be entirely fair. It would be like saying bicycle riding begins where running leaves off. Royal Robbins, the preeminent Yosemite big-wall climber of the '60s, puts the ethical dilemma of aid climbing into perspective in his book Advanced Rockcraft. "Technology in climbing is both a blessing and a curse," he writes. "It expands the limits of the possible but robs us of adventure. Since it is technology which makes anything in rock climbing possible, it is technology which we must selectively reject in order to have limits to the possible, for without limits there is no game."

Yvon Chouinard, an American climber renowned for his brilliance in developing and inventing climbing tools, quotes Albert Einstein, who, though speaking on a different subject, touched on the same ethical issue: "A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem."

Some climbers, especially older ones, are as disciplined in their style as they are in rejecting the temptations of technical aids. It is not always enough to get to the top, the climb should be made with grace and with adherence to an unwritten—and sometimes confusing—climbing ethos. It's very much like high diving: anyone with enough courage and coordination can dive from a 10-meter platform, but executing a graceful swan dive from that platform is far more difficult—and rewarding. Climbers are always striving for the graceful. Royal Robbins, who is also legendary for his unshakable self-control in scary situations and for his uncompromising approach to style, says, "The only kind of climbing that is ultimately worthwhile demands a spiritual effort that is sometimes agonizing.... Just getting up a route is nothing; the way it is done is everything."

A sloppy climber is not taken seriously by his peers, and contrary to the popular conception, muscling one's way up a rock with one's arms and shoulders is the trait of a sloppy climber. It is much more smooth and efficient to push the body up with the legs. Although climbers often have physiques like gymnasts, with great upper-body strength, it is the legs that give a clue to their style. A climber with big biceps and only average-sized calves will most likely be awkward on the rock; the best climbers have clearly defined calf muscles.

Women generally have better bodies for climbing than men, and are often more natural climbers because they must rely on technique rather than brute strength. And their suppleness is an asset; the most common climbing injury is a dislocated shoulder, a result of the contorted positions a climber often finds himself in. The ideal body for a rock climber would be that of a 14-year-old girl, about 5'8" tall, with the shoulders of a channel swimmer and the legs of a hurdler.

One of the best women climbers—some say the very best—is Beverly Johnson. At 18, Johnson was a debutante in Arlington, Va., a fact she never volunteers and only concedes with an embarrassed roll of the eyes—the expression people adopt when they recall the silly things they did when they were young. She was a fire fighter in Yosemite for three seasons, a job she took to be near the big walls.

Johnson, who is now 30, led the first all-woman ascent of Yosemite's intimidating El Capitan. She has seen two men die attempting that wall: one, climbing above her, almost hit her when he fell; on another occasion, she helped carry down the body of a climber who was killed. She has also lost a female friend climbing. In 1975 Diana Hunter—an excellent climber who was a perfect example of ability through grace rather than strength—was killed in a fall in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park.