Guidebook XIV—Policy Spotlight

Photo by AAC member Kennedy Carey.

EXPLORE—An Act and The Act

By AAC Advocacy Director Byron Harvison
Photos by AAC member Kennedy Carey

Act

1. A thing done; a deed.
2. A written ordinance of Congress, or another legislative body; a statute.
3. A main division of a play, ballet, or opera.

Drama

1. A play for theater, radio, or television.
2. An enticing, emotional, or unexpected series of events or set of circumstances.

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EXPLORE, in the waning days of the 118th Congress, met every definition of the words “drama” and “act” as it made its way into becoming law. As I sat at my computer watching Senator Joe Manchin ask for unanimous consent of the bill on the Senate floor, it was not lost on me that years of work, by hundreds of organizations, teetered on the edge of achievement. And it passed in a most glorious fashion. But let me back up just a bit...

Act 1, Scene 1

Not too long ago, in early December of 2024, the AAC policy team traveled to Washington, DC, and met up with the Access Fund and American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA). The mission was clear—examine and pursue all avenues to get the EXPLORE Act passed. At that time, attachment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was still on the table, as was the possibility of being bundled in with the Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government funded. Additionally, there was the less probable route of the bill going “stand-alone” for a unanimous consent vote on the Senate floor, but we sensed that there wasn’t enough floor time, especially given the need to end the lame-duck session of Congress, and the condition that a unanimous consent vote had to actually be unanimous without a single dissenting vote.

Photo by AAC member Kennedy Carey.

It was an all-hands-on-deck moment for recreation-based organizations—Outdoor Alliance, Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, Surfrider, The Mountaineers, IMBA, Outdoor Industry Association, organizations representing hunting and fishing interests and RV interests, and many, many more orgs, all working simultaneously in an effort to see this historic recreation bill package passed.

Our small team focused a lot of effort on speaking with the bipartisan group of 16 senators that submitted a joint letter to the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior expressing the appropriateness of fixed anchors in Wilderness and wanting a report on the status of the agencies’ respective proposed fixed anchor regulations. The Protecting America’s Rock Climbing (PARC) Act, a component of the EXPLORE Act that serves to recognize recreational climbing (including the use, placement, and maintenance of fixed anchors) as an appropriate use within the National Wilderness Preservation System, further emphasized the intent of those senators, and of Congress more broadly, to preserve the historical and well-precedented practice of fixed anchor utilization in Wilderness.

Scene 2

It is no secret that the waning days of the 118th Congress were fairly chaotic. Characterized by the forthcoming change of administrations, few clear “unified” priorities, and the pending departure of several longtime members of Congress, the landscape was hard to navigate. We left DC understanding the potential pathways to passage of EXPLORE, but still not certain which vehicle would get it across the finish line. The following week we saw it miss the cut for the NDAA Manager’s Amendment and concentrated on advocating for its inclusion in the CR. As the days drew closer to a potential government shutdown, we came to understand that the CR was likely going to be relatively tight compared to previous iterations, and would probably not allow for bills such as EXPLORE to ride on it. The CR was out for us. That is when we heard that Senator Joe Manchin (I-WV) was considering introducing EXPLORE as a stand-alone bill.

Photo by AAC member Kennedy Carey.

This was INCREDIBLE news. However, we had some concerns as we knew that the Senate was working off of the House-passed version, which had been passed via unanimous consent (UC) in April of 2024, stewarded by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR). We understood that the Senate wanted the House to address some issues in the bill, but that would require the bill to be sent back to the House for consideration and a vote...which would require time. And there wasn’t any.

On the morning of December 19, we heard that Senator Manchin was planning to introduce the House version of EXPLORE on the Senate floor for a UC vote. For those tuning into the live broadcast, we had no idea what time the possible introduction would occur. It was observable that Senator Manchin was talking to a group of senators and then left the floor. A few hours later Senator Manchin appeared and presented the EXPLORE Act for consideration via a UC vote. During his introduction, he emphasized that the EXPLORE Act was “...something that we all agree on” and that “the House and Senate are in agreement,” and that there were some changes that needed to be made but could be accomplished during the next Congress. Now keep in mind, in order to pass via UC there cannot be a single vote of dissent.

Scene 3

After Senator Manchin teed the bill up for a vote, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) stepped up to the podium. He began by reserving his right to object until the end of his speech. This is to say that no one knew whether he would be objecting and opposing the UC of EXPLORE or allowing it to pass. He spoke to his TAKE IT DOWN Act, which is a bill seeking to protect victims of deepfake pornography. The years of work on all the bills associated with EXPLORE hung in the balance—all the work on SOAR, BOLT, VIP, and Recreation Not Red Tape, on the precipice of passage. You can imagine all the breaths that were being held while Senator Cruz spoke.

“I do not object.”

Those words, spoken as a favor to retiring Senator Manchin and Rep. Westerman, provided true theater drama that we are generally accustomed to watching in a much different environment. The historic EXPLORE Act was passed, via unanimous consent through the Senate, and was on its way to the president. On January 4, 2025, President Biden signed the EXPLORE Act into law, and it became Public Law Number 118-234.

Act 1, Scene 3, complete.

Act 2

As EXPLORE was being teed up for a vote in the Senate, the National Park Service quietly announced that it was withdrawing its proposed fixed anchor guidance. This gesture suggests a new window of opportunity for climbing organizations, as well as other interested recreation and search and rescue organizations, to work in collaboration with land agencies to develop sound fixed anchor policies that reflect the direction of Congress and their passing of the PARC Act.

The AAC Policy Team and the Executive Director have visited DC over the last two months, working carefully with our partner organizations in these quickly evolving times to support the implementation of EXPLORE, discuss impacts on our public lands as a result of the federal reductions in force, and address other issues.

Stay tuned on the AAC’s digital platforms to learn more about the status of public lands policies, and how they impact, or may impact, climbers.

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Guidebook XIV—An Interview with Dougald MacDonald

Photo by AAC staff Foster Denney.

How would you describe the scope of the work that goes into making the American Alpine Journal (AAJ)?

Dougald MacDonald: Producing the AA J is a year-round effort that involves literally hundreds of people. The actual “staff” of the AAJ (who are all part-timers and volunteers) includes more than 15 people, and each year we work with roughly 300 individual climbers and photographers to share their stories.

The book goes to press in late April, so the peak of the cycle is in March and April. But the work on the following year’s edition starts immediately, plus we prepare and upload online stories all year round. AND we produce The Cutting Edge podcast and the monthly Line newsletter.

What’s the history of the AAJ? How has it changed over the years?

DM: The AAJ is coming up on its 100th birthday, and unsurprisingly it has changed quite a lot over the years. It started out as much more of a Club publication, telling the stories of AAC members’ adventures. In the 1950s, with the rise of Himalayan climbing, the book started to become much more international. But it was really Ad Carter—who edited the AAJ for 35 years, starting in the 1960s—who created the wide-ranging, international publication it is today. We no longer focus mostly on the activities of AAC members—though we’re very happy to tell those stories when we can—but instead try to document all significant long routes and mountain exploration anywhere in the world, by climbers from every country.

For both the AAJ and Accidents in North American Climbing (ANAC), the most significant changes of the last 10 to 15 years have been 1) the introduction of color photography throughout both books and 2) the launch of the searchable online database of every AAJ and ANAC article ever published.

Dougald questing off in Lumpy Ridge, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO. Land of the Cheyenne people. Photo by AAC member and former AAJ senior editor Kelly Cordes.

What’s an example of a unique challenge the editors have to deal with when making the AAJ?

DM: One challenge is that we come out so long after many of the climbs actually happened. So, readers may have seen something about any given climb several times, in news reports and social media posts and even video productions. But the AAJ has never been in the breaking news business. Instead, we aim to provide perspective and context. Perspective in that we don’t have any vested interest that might slant a story one way or another, and context on the history and geography that helps readers really understand the significance of a climb, how it relates to what’s been done before, and what other opportunities might be out there. Another big challenge is language barriers, since we work with people from all over the world. We’re fortunate to work in English, which so many people around the world use these days. We also use skilled translators for some stories, and online translation tools have improved dramatically in recent years. But there’s still a lot of back-and-forth with authors to ensure we’re getting everything just right.

What’s an example report that was really exciting for you to edit from the last few years?

DM: For me, personally, the coolest stories are the ones that teach me about an area of the world—or a moment in climbing history—that I knew nothing about before starting to work on a story. In the upcoming book, for example, we have stories about winter climbing in Greece (who knew?) and a mountain range in Venezuela that’s gorgeous and has peaks over 16,000 feet. Unfortunately, that range is rapidly losing its snow cover and its small glaciers. AAJ senior editor Lindsay Griffin, who is editing the story, did some cool climbs in the range in 1985, and the difference between his photos and those from today is shocking.

Are there any big differences in process between making the AAJ and ANAC?

DM: The biggest differences are just the scale and scope of the two books: The AAJ is a nearly 400-page book that tries to cover the entire world, and ANAC averages 128 pages and focuses on North America. There’s also a sense of starting from scratch on lots of AAJ reports, since the mountain or area in question may be entirely unfamiliar to the editor handling a story, whereas most of the accident types are all too familiar. Still, there’s always something new to learn in both books, and that makes the work very interesting and rewarding.

What emotions are you wrestling with when you ultimately send off this book to the printer?

DM: One word: relief! But also a lot of pride for what we accomplish.

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By joining Friends of the AAJ and Accidents, you ensure these essential educational tools continue to inform and inspire climbers everywhere.

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Guidebook XIV—Member Spotlight

Photo courtesy of the Grunsfeld Collection.

No Mountain High Enough

The Intersections between Space Travel and High-Altitude Mountaineering

Member Spotlight: Dr. John Grunsfeld, Astronaut
By Hannah Provost

Spacewalking outside the Hubble Space Telescope, John Grunsfeld wasn’t that much closer to the stars than when he was back on the surface of Earth, but it certainly felt that way. The sensation of spacewalking, of constantly being in freefall, but orbiting Earth fast enough that it felt like weightlessness, was more of a thrill than terrifying. Looking out to the vaster universe, seeing the moon in its proximity, the giant body of the sun, stole his breath away. Grunsfeld was experiencing a sense of exploration that very few humans get to. It was deeply moving, a sensation he also got in the high glaciated ranges when he’d look around and be surrounded by crevasses and granite walls of rock and ice. Throughout his life, he couldn’t help but seek out the most inhospitable places on the planet, and even beyond.

You might think that there is nothing similar between climbing and spacewalking. But when you ask John Grunsfeld, former astronaut and NASA Chief Scientist—and an AAC member since 1996—about the similarities, the connections are potent.

The focus required of spacewalking and climbing is very much the same, Grunsfeld says. Just like you can’t perform at your best on the moves of a climb high above the ground without intense focus on the next move and the currents of balance in your body, so, too, suited up in the 300-pound spacesuit, with 4.3 pounds per square inch of oxygen, and 11 layers of protective cloth insulation, you still have to be careful not to bump the space shuttle, station, or telescope as you go about the work of repairing and updating such technology—the job of the mission in the first place. Outside the astronaut’s suit is a vacuum, and Grunsfeld is not shy about the stakes. “Humans survive seconds when vacuum-exposed,” he says. With such high risks, it’s a shame that the AAC rescue benefit doesn’t work in space.

Not only is spacewalking, like climbing, inherently dangerous, it also requires intense focus, and it can be a lot like redpointing. Grunsfeld reflects that “it’s very highly scripted. Every task that you’re going to do is laid out long before we go to space. We practice extensively.” In Grunsfeld’s three missions to the Hubble Space Telescope, his spacewalks were a race against the clock—the battery life and limited oxygen that the suit supplied versus the many highly technical tasks he had to perform to update the Hubble instruments and repair various electronic systems. It’s about flow, focus, and execution—skills and a sequence of moves that he had practiced again and again on Earth before coming to space. Similarly, tether management is critical. Body positioning, and not getting tangled in the tether, is important in order to not break something—say, kick a radiator and cause a leak that destroys Hubble and his fellow astronauts inside. But to Grunsfeld, the risk is worth it. The Hubble Space Telescope is “the world’s most significant scientific instrument and worth billions of dollars. Thousands of people are counting on that work.”

Indeed, perhaps a little more is at stake than a send or a summit.

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Grunsfeld climbing at Devil’s Lake, WI. Land of the Myaamia and Peoria people. Photo by AAC member Tom Loeff.

Growing up in Chicago, Grunsfeld’s mind first alighted on the world of science and adventure through the National Geographic magazines he devoured, and a school project that had an outsized effect. Grunsfeld’s peers were assigned to write a brief biography of people like George Washington and Babe Ruth. Rather than these more familiar figures, Grunsfeld was assigned to research the life of Enrico Fermi—a nuclear physicist who was instrumental in the Manhattan Project, the creator of the world’s first artificial nuclear reactor, and a lifelong mountaineer. Suddenly, science and the alpine seemed deeply intertwined.

Grunsfeld started climbing as a teenager, top-roping in Devil’s Lake, back when the cutting edge of gear innovation meant climbing by wrapping the rope around your waist and tying it with a bowline. Attending a NOLS trip to the Wind River Range and further expanding on his rope and survivor skills truly cemented his love of climbing in wild spaces. Throughout the years, climbing was a steady beat in his life, a resource for joy. He would climb in Lumpy Ridge, the Sierra, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Tahquitz, Peru, Bolivia, and many other places with his wife, Carol, his daughter, and close friends like Tom Loeff, another AAC member.

If climbing was a steady beat, his fascination with space and astrophysics would be a starburst. At first, his application to become a NASA astronaut was denied, but in 1992, Grunsfeld joined the NASA Astronaut Corps. It would shape the rest of his life’s work. Between 1995 and 2009, Grunsfeld completed five space shuttle flights, three of which were to the Hubble Space Telescope—which many consider to be one of the most impactful scientific tools of modernity, because of how its 24/7 explorations of space have informed astronomy. On these missions, Grunsfeld performed eight spacewalks to service and upgrade Hubble’s instruments and infrastructure. Over the course of his career, he has also served as the Associate Administrator for Science at NASA and the Chief Scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. His own research is in the field of planetary science and the search for life beyond Earth.

Grunsfeld [left] and team on the summit of Denali (Mt. McKinley), Denali National Park, AK. Photo provided by Grunsfeld Collection.

But in 1999, even with two space missions under his belt, Grunsfeld couldn’t get the pull of high-altitude mountaineering out of his mind. He has an affinity for the adventure of exploring some of the most adverse places humans have ever explored. He was ready for his next great adventure. He wanted to climb Denali (Mt. McKinley).

Many aspects of Grunsfeld’s Denali saga are familiar. Various trips resulted in unsuccessful summit attempts: from a rope team he didn’t fully trust, to eight days at the 17,000-foot high camp with bad weather. On his 2000 attempt, he was followed around by cameras for a PBS special that never came to fruition, and he attempted an experiment about core temperatures in high-altitude terrain using NASA technology. Ultimately the expedition came back empty-handed—without a summit and with a faulty premise for their measurements of core temperature. When he returned in 2004 with a team of NASA colleagues, Grunsfeld was able to stand atop Denali and take in the jagged peaks all around him.

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The connections between climbing and space travel aren’t limited to the physical demand, focus, and calm required. Both activities are inherently dangerous, and nobody participating in either of these activities has been left unscathed. Just like how many climbers have had a friend or an acquaintance experience a significant climbing accident, Grunsfeld knew the true danger of space travel. In 2003 while Grunsfeld was still in Houston, one of the most tragic space shuttle disasters in American space history occurred. On reentry into the atmosphere, the space shuttle Columbia experienced a catastrophic failure over East Texas. According to NASA’s website, the catastrophic failure was “due to a breach that occurred during launch when falling foam from the External Tank struck the Reinforced Carbon Carbon panels on the underside of the left wing.” Grunsfeld was the field lead for crew recovery—picking up the pieces of the disaster so as to bring the bodies of the lost crew members home. It’s no wonder that in other parts of his life and in his climbing, he is deeply committed to safety and disseminating as much climbing knowledge as possible about safety concerns.

After the Columbia disaster, Grunsfeld was often asked why he would consider going back to space when the risks were so high. On his final flight to the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009, Grunsfeld reports, there was a 62% probability that he and his team would come back alive. Those aren’t the most inspiring mathematical odds. But as a crew, and for the agency NASA, it was critical to update the technology on the Hubble Space Telescope at that time. He reflects: “It may seem crazy to fly with those odds, but in fact my earlier missions were much more risky, we just didn’t know it at the time.” In comparison, risk assessment in the mountains is considerably more individualized.

Space exploration and mountaineering also have a distinct investment in monitoring the state of our natural landscapes and environment. From space, it’s a lot easier to see how fragile and small Earth is, in the grand scheme of things. It’s also easier to see the changing climate and its impact across the planet. Putting on his scientist hat, Grunsfeld tried to capture the significance of space observations to climate research, saying, “Most of what we know about our changing climate is now from space observations, because we get to see the whole Earth all the time, and you really have to look at sea level not as a local phenomenon, but [look at] how does it change over a whole Earth for a variety of different reasons.”

From sea level rise to vanishing bodies of water, Grunsfeld has seen some dramatic changes to Earth’s surface from the first time he was in space, in 1995, to his last time in 2009. With his decades of exploration in the mountains, he’s also seen glaciers and once permanent snowfields disappear. You can tell from the passion in his voice that Grunsfeld has a keen awareness of what’s at stake as the climate changes—he’s seen it happening already.

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In addition to bringing Grunsfeld to incredible places, climbing also brought him into close connection with incredible people. Grunsfeld had originally met the famous photographer, and fellow AAC member, Brad Washburn through AAC annual meetings and at Boston’s Museum of Science, where Washburn was the director for many years. Their friendship would result in two incredibly rare moments for climbing, photography, and space exploration.

Photo provided by the Grunsfeld Collection.

Washburn, the raspy-voiced photographer who was excellent at pulling off the unbelievable, was working on a documentary recreating the famous journey of the explorer Ernest Shackleton when he called up Grunsfeld for a favor. For the film crew to cross the mountainous, cold, and deeply unfriendly landscape of South Georgia just like Shackleton did in 1916 was still an incredibly unlikely feat. Luckily, Grunsfeld had what you might call “pull.”

“I was able to get space shuttle photography from a classified DOD shuttle flight which flew over South Georgia and made these huge prints for Brad,” Grunsfeld says—ultimately giving Washburn and his team the information they needed to safely traverse this rugged terrain.

But that wasn’t the end of Grunsfeld and Washburn’s story. Grunsfeld was attempting Aconcagua in 2007 when Barbara Washburn called to share the news that her husband had passed away. When Grunsfeld landed back in the States and was able to connect with Barbara on the phone, he offered to do something to honor his relationship with Washburn. His 2009 space mission was coming up, and he could take something of Washburn’s along. In the end, Grunsfeld brought Washburn’s camera from the famous Lucania expedition on his last flight to the Hubble Space Telescope. The 80-year-old camera (at the time) was used to take photographs from Hubble, including an image of the Hubble Space Telescope with Earth’s rim in the background, as seen on the back cover of this Guidebook. Washburn’s camera and the prints of the photos that Grunsfeld took remain as some of the AAC Library’s most fascinating holdings in the climbing archives.

But in fact, Grunsfeld’s (and Washburn’s) story isn’t the first to connect the vastly different fields of astrophysics and mountaineering. Lyman Spitzer, a longtime AAC member and supporter of the Club, and a prolific mountaineer, is credited for the idea that led to the Hubble Space Telescope. It almost makes Grunsfeld’s life’s work seem written in the stars.

Surprisingly, Grunsfeld reflects that there is little time for fear in space travel. Take launch, for example. The astronauts in the space shuttle are sitting on “four and half million pounds of explosive fuel,” says Grunsfeld, ticking down the seconds until they are launched into space. The launch mechanics are so powerful that within eight and a half minutes, the shuttle is traveling 17,500 miles per hour, orbiting Earth. Grunsfeld recalls that on his first mission, sitting in the flight deck of space shuttle Endeavor, at 30 seconds to launch, he heard the final instructions over the intercom: Close your visor, turn your oxygen on, and have a good flight. Was this the point he was supposed to get scared? There was no turning back, no getting off, no stopping the ride. So he didn’t let fear in. There was no use for it. And at the same time, there was so much awe that despite the risk, he felt deeply alive. It was a lot like the calm that comes with executing in the face of danger when climbing or in the mountains. In the face of danger, utter clarity.

With the focus and body awareness and rehearsal, the firsthand witnessing of our changing climate and its impacts, the risks involved and the utter sense of awe, space-walking and climbing are not as different as they might at first seem. And for Grunsfeld, one adventure could fuel another. In his downtime floating within Hubble, one of his favorite activities used to be looking back down on Earth, using a camera with a long lens to zoom in on various alpine regions—and scout the next mountain to climb.

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Guidebook XIV—Rewind the Climb

David Hauthon on Directissima (5.9), The Trapps, Shawangunks, New York. Land of the Mohican and Munsee Lenape people. Photo by AAC member Francois Lebeau.

Setting the Standard

By the Editors

Before there were 8a.nu leaderboards and Mountain Project ticklists, before there were beta videos and newspaper articles for every cutting-edge ascent, there was a word-of-mouth understanding of who was setting the standard of the day.

Pushing the standard of climbing at the Gunks has proven to be key in the history of climbing in the United States, and any connoisseur of climbing history will know the names of Fritz Wiessner, Hans Kraus, Jim McCarthy, John Stannard, Steve Wunsch, and John Bragg—all AAC members by the way. But what often gets overlooked in the whispers of rowdy Vulgarian parties, naked climbing antics, and strict leader qualifications that swirl around Gunks history are the distinct contributions of women to Gunks climbing. A central figure in this story is the unique character Bonnie Prudden.

First, we must set the scene. Prudden was most active climbing in the Gunks in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when climbing on rock was done in sneakers with a hemp rope. Rather than boldness, a strict no-falls attitude pre-vailed, and good judgment was prized over achieving the next cutting-edge grade. Pitons and aid climbing were status quo, and without a priority on pushing the limits of the sport, the time period was considered non-competitive. While Wiessner, Kraus, Prudden, and others were climbing 5.7s (even occasionally 5.8), most climbers stuck to routes rated 5.2–5.4.

Climbing in the Gunks started with Fritz Wiessner, who went on a developing tear starting in 1935. He and Hans Kraus would be the leading developers of the area until the late 1950s, collectively establishing 56 of the 58 multi-pitch climbs put up in that period. In 30 of those first ascents, Prudden played a role, and she wasn’t just tagging along.

With competition on the back burner, the significance of leading was murky. Some of the climbers at the time proclaimed that there wasn’t a big difference between leading and following. However, the great tension and division that would characterize the Gunks’ history— between the Appalachian Mountain Club climbers (Appies) and the rebel Vulgarians that opposed their rules—came down to the question of regulating leading. The Appies, the dominant climbing force in the Gunks until the Vulgarians and other rabble-rousers splintered the scene in the 1960s, created a lead qualification system, determining who could lead at any given level. Alternatively, some climbers were designated as “unlimited leaders,” who didn’t need approval to lead specific routes.

Although they were painted as control freaks by the Vulgarians, the truth behind why the Appie crowd was so invested in regulating leading (and minimizing the risk inherent in climbing) was because they were keenly aware of the generosity of the Smileys, the landowners who looked the other way as climbers galavanted around on the excellent stone of the Trapps and Sky Top.

Bonnie Prudden was lucky enough to rise above all of the drama. As a close friend and frequent climbing partner of Hans Kraus’s (who was obviously an “unlimited leader,” being one of the first, and much-exalted, developers of the area), Prudden had frequent access to new, difficult climbs. In interviews with researcher Laura Waterman, Prudden relayed that in the early years, while climbing with her then husband, Dick Hirschland, she always led because of their significant weight difference. Later she took the lead simply because of her skill, tutored by Kraus and Wiessner.

Shelma Jun on Harvest Moon (5.11a). Photo by AAC member Chris Vultaggio.

Prudden took her first leader fall on the 5.6 Madame G (Madame Grunnebaum’s Wulst) and recalls catching a fall from Kraus only four times. At the time, 5.7 and 5.8 was the very top of the scale, and Prudden was keeping up—and sometimes showing off.

The story of the first ascent of Bonnie’s Roof, now free climbed at 5.9, is often held up as proof of Prudden’s talent, and rightfully so. But the gaps in the story and the fuzziness of Prudden’s memory of it might reveal more than the accomplishment itself.

On that day in 1952, Prudden thought the intimidating roof “looked like the bottom of a boat jutting out from the cliff,” as she wrote in an article about the climb in Alpinist 14, published in 2005.

Overhanging climbing was still a frontier to explore, but Kraus was a man on the hunt for exposure, rather than difficulty. It just so happened that the massive overlapping tiers of Bonnie’s Roof would provide both.

Prudden wrote about the first ascent: “I don’t remember who took what pitch since by then we were swinging leads. But I do remember quite well reaching the Roof’s nose. This airy feature was the reason for the climb. Getting to it had been one thing; getting over it would be something else.” The very fact that she couldn’t remember the precise order of leads indicates how commonplace this was for her—how comfortable she felt on the sharp end.

Kraus struggled for a long time to find a place for a piton over the roof, and ultimately backed down in a huff, ceding the lead to Prudden. As she started up on the sharp end to see if she could locate the next hold that Kraus could not, she quickly found a hole over the lip that would take gear, a massive positive jug that was hard to see from below. She nailed in the piton without weighting it, pulled over the lip with ease, and ultimately climbed the pitch with only one point of aid. It seems that she “floated it,” as we might say today. Rather than the giddy breathlessness one might imagine upon pulling a strenuous lip encounter and succeeding where Kraus could not, Prudden’s first ascent seemed to get a shrug of the shoulders. This was just the usual business, and her telling of it reveals just how blasé climbing at the top of the standard was for Prudden.

Carmen Magee on Tulip, (5.10a). Photo by AAC member Chris Vultaggio.

Prudden’s involvement in 30 first ascents, including several at the highest difficulty of the day, had her setting the standard of the time. But researcher and historian Laura Waterman has uncovered a weird quirk to Gunks climbing history that should be noted. Women were involved in over half of the FAs during the 1940s, but decreasingly so in later decades. For example, between 1960 and 1970, only 5% of first ascents involved women.

Indeed, many female climbers of the later decades note a cultural sentiment about the frailty of women regarding sports, as an AAC Legacy Series interview with Elaine Matthews, iconic Vulgarian during the 1960s and 1970s, reveals. According to Matthews and others, there was a perception that women and girls “might hurt their reproductive organs” if they ran or did other forms of athletics. Women would not be climbing at the top of the standard in the Gunks again until the late 1970s.

Funnily enough, though she had an outsized effect on early first ascents of multi-pitch Gunks classics, none of these climbs were included in her climbing résumé when Prudden (then going by her married name, Hirschland) applied for AAC membership. Though she was accepted as the 652nd member of the AAC in 1951 on the merit of the mountains she’d climbed, today her legacy is much more tied to first ascents like Bonnie’s Roof, Something Interesting, Oblique Twique, Hans Puss, and Dry Martini.

For the women who came after her, perhaps the shrug at the Bonnie’s Roof belay is more important than the first ascent.

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The Gunks: A Climbing Timeline

The Time of the Appalachian Mountain Club or “Appies”

• 1935
  European Fritz Wiessner discovers the Gunks’ climbing potential and begins opening up new routes in the 5.2–5.5 range.

• 1940
  Hans Kraus, another European climber, arrives in the Gunks. By 1950, Kraus and Wiessner would be responsible for putting up 56 of the 58 multi-pitch climbs in the Gunks. Twenty-three of the FAs went to Wiessner, 26 to Kraus, and seven to them both.

• 1941
  AAC members Kraus and Wiessner put up High Exposure (5.6), a Gunks classic.

• 1945
  The “Appies,” or members of the Appalachian Mountain Club, are regularly climbing at the Gunks on weekends. Due to safety concerns and fears of stepping on the toes of the private landowners, the Smileys, the Appies soon adopt a strict set of regulations, including requiring registration to come on climbing trips, designating rope teams and climbs, and creating restrictions on who is qualified to lead and at what level.

Bootleggers

• Early 1950s
  The Bootleggers, largely consisting of Kraus’s climbing circle of friends, sidestep the restrictions of the Appies and often climb the hardest routes of the time.

• 1952
  AAC member Bonnie Prudden leads the intimidating roof of what would become Bonnie’s Roof, with one point of aid, when her climbing partner, Kraus, can’t figure out the roof move (now climbed at 5.8+ or 5.9).

• 1957
  AAC member Jim McCarthy puts up the hardest rock climb in the Northeast with Yellow Belly (5.8 or 5.9), through a steep roof, ushering in a culture of pushing the standard.

The Vulgarians

• 1957
  Art Gran splits with the Appies. The Vulgarians are born when he joins and mentors some college party kids who begin resisting the leader regulations upheld by the Appies.

• Late 1950s
  Rich Goldstone and AAC member Dick Williams establish boulders now graded up to V6 and V7 in the Trapps, though bouldering is mostly considered a training tool at this time.

• 1960
  Jim McCarthy introduces the first solid 5.9 at the Gunks with his ascent of MF.

• 1967
  AAC member John Stannard climbs the iconic Foops, ushering in 5.11 using repeated falls and rehearsal tactics.

• 1970
  The first Vulgarian Digest is published; “blame” goes to Joe Kelsey.

The Clean Climbing Era Begins

• 1972
  The clean climbing movement, largely spearheaded by John Stannard in the region, overhauls the old ways.

• 1973
  Standard and AAC members Steve Wunsch and John Bragg usher in 5.12 while trying to free old aid lines. Of particular note are Kansas City (5.12-) and Open Cockpit (5.11+ PG13).

• 1974
  Wunsch frees Supercrack, probably the hardest climb in North America, possibly even the world, at the time.

• 1977
  Barbara Devine reestablishes the women’s standard (after an extensive lull), climbing Kansas City and desperate 5.11s like Open Cockpit, To Have or Have Not, and Wasp Stop, among others. In 1983 she does the first female ascent of Supercrack.

The Great Debate on Ethics and Style

• 1983
  AAC member Lynn Hill makes a splash as one of four Gunks climbers to master Vandals, the Gunks’ first 5.13.

• 1986
  “The Great Debate” is held at an AAC member meeting, attended by many Gunks legends, fleshing out questions about rap-bolting, hangdogging, and other modern climbing tactics versus the traditional style of ground-up development and ascent.

• Late 1980s
  AAC member Scott Franklin pushes Gunks standards to 5.14 with his ascent of Planet Claire, sometimes considered the world’s first traditional 5.14, despite the few bolts that protect the crux. Franklin also establishes modern testpieces like Survival of the Fittest (5.13a), which he later solos, and Cybernetic Wall (5.13d).

Resurgence of Bouldering

• 2006
  The Mohonk Preserve and the American Alpine Club (alongside the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation and the Palisades Interstate Park Commission) partner to create a campground within walking distance from some of the Gunks’ greatest crags.

• 2023
  William Moss establishes a 5.14d R at the Gunks with his first free ascent of Best Things in Life Are Free (BT).

• 2024
  Austin Hoyt puts up The Big Bad Wolf, the first V15 in the northeastern United States.

A huge thanks to Laura and Guy Waterman and Michael Wejchert, whose research and book Yankee Rock and Ice is the basis for much of this timeline.

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Guidebook XIV—Grant Spotlight

Photo by Charles Denton.

Ascending the Path

A Story from the Live Your Dream Grant

By Charles Denton
Photos by Charles Denton on land of the Yokuts people

We stared out at the treacherous somber surfaces, weathered by wind and storm. The mountains transformed in our minds, revealing an expanse impossible to comprehend. It is upon this sea of summits we desired to stand.

I was born in flatland central Wisconsin, and often biked with my childhood friend Devin Grdinic up the 1.56-billion-year-old, 1,924-foot prominent hill, Rib Mountain, located in our hometown. From the gouged rim of the hundred-foot quartzite quarry, we grew an affinity for mountains, dreaming of summits.

In our early 20s, ambitious and hell-bent, we drove from Minneapolis to Mt. Elbert in a day. Devin did the planning, and I went along. Knowing the importance of acclimatizing but lacking the time, we spent a night in the Never Summer Mountains. With a pound of venison strapped to my chest to prevent the blood from leaking in my bag, we set forth to high camp and shivered through the cold night. In the morning my appreciation of the mountains solidified as I opened the tent to the majestic view.

Over a cup of coffee at a wayside diner a few years later, Devin proposed another scheme—to tag Mt. Whitney, the tallest in the lower 48. Without hesitation, I said yes.

Photo by Charles Denton.

We descended into the smog of LAX and drove north to the Sierra Nevada. Finding residence in Mammoth Lakes, we improved our acclimatization period by visiting the ancient bristlecones of the White Mountains of California.

Parking late in the afternoon on October 7, 2008, we hit the Mt. Whitney Trail with heavy packs. Unbeknownst to us, our map remained in the back seat. We missed the creek crossing at Lower Boy Scout Lake and went off-trail, bushwhacking into the night. Panicked, we trudged over bush and boulders, reaching an icy ledge where my foot slipped and I hung by loosely fitted gloves. Devin instinctively reached with his hiking pole and hoisted me back up. Clearly, my intrepid aspirations were on a slippery slope.

Miraculously finding Upper Boy Scout camp in the dark, we shivered through the night with inadequate sleeping pads as winds battered our tent. In the warmth of the morning, we set off to climb the wrong mountain. Returning to camp, we planned one final attempt before we’d miss our flights. With little sleep, we set off before dawn, reaching Iceberg Lake as Whitney’s east face prominently glowed orange. At the base of the snow-filled Mountaineer’s Route gully, we realized we were a bit over our heads. With blistered feet and tired shoulders, we descended.

Over the next seven years, Devin and I summited Mt. Temple, Mt. Shasta, Mt. Baker, and Mt. Rainier together. In the years between doing Shasta and Baker, I was introduced to technical rock climbing by my close friend Ross Nueske, a serious square-jawed man who wore a mischievous plotting grin. Ross and I enjoyed climbing multi-pitch trad routes, but after a decade of rock climbing, something still felt unfinished. The memory of Whitney taunted me to return.

I purchased an entry permit for the summer of 2020.

While climbing at the North Shore of Minnesota that June, I received a message from Devin. He had been diagnosed with life-threatening leukemia. Complete devastation washed over everyone close to him. I recall sitting by Lake Superior, staring into the empty blue horizon, trying to process the news as waves lapped sorrowfully over the pebbled shore. Dreams of the future in jeopardy, one small dream being Whitney, the gravely worse one—losing my best friend. Life lingered in a fragile balance as we stayed in contact over Devin’s year-long struggle. Through multiple series of treatments that brought him to the brink of death, he ultimately survived, thanks to a miraculous bone-marrow transplant.

In 2023, I purchased another North Fork of Lone Pine entry pass. The new plan was for Ross and me to climb the East Buttress (1,000', 11 pitches, 5.7) on Mt.Whitney. Devin invited his older brother Marcel Grdinic, a chemistry teacher from Chicago, to join him in attempting the third-class Mountaineer's Route. Two months before the trip, I ruptured my right distal biceps tendon while bouldering. Orthopedic surgery was needed, followed by six months of nonuse: no climbing, no lifting, and the struggle to use my left hand for everything.

The trip still went on, albeit with a hiking-only itinerary. Clouds Rest, a famed trail in Yosemite National Park, gave everyone a magnificent view of the Valley.

During my residency of healing, my aspiration for Whitney magnified, growing more prominent in my mind. I applied for the 2024 American Alpine Club Live Your Dream Grant, seeking to achieve this dream. Awarded the grant one year later, Ross and I flew from St. Paul to Reno and met Devin at Lake Tahoe. I held my breath in anticipation for the next complication, as we attempted to complete this chapter in our lives.

Photo by Charles Denton.

Three days were spent acclimatizing above 6,000 feet. Ross and I climbed at Lover’s Leap, completing: Surrealistic Pillar (270', 3 pitches, 5.7), Corrugation Corner (300', 3 pitches, 5.7), and Bear’s Reach (400', 3 pitches, 5.7).

The following day we bouldered a little in the Middle Bliss area. Marcel flew in from Chicago, and the next morning our assembly of four overloaded a rental car, making the rearview mirror pointless, and drove to Mammoth Lakes.

Early Wednesday, we drove to the Lone Pine ranger station, checked in, and completed our packing list with WAG bags. Nothing stood in our way. A phenomenal three-day weather window was ahead.

Hitting the trail at 11:25 a.m. with abnormally warm temps, Ross and I split the gear. We were equipped with a single rack of Black Diamond 0.2–#3 cams, two sets of nuts, a set of tri-cams, a dozen 90cm alpine draws, six 120cm slings, and a 60m rope.

A few hours uphill and navigating the class 3 Ebersbacher Ledges, we took lunch at Lower Boy Scout Lake. Devin and I laughed, reflecting upon our youthful selves, noting exactly where we went astray many years ago. It felt like I was an echo of my past self. Memories of those moments bounced back off the walls around us.

At 4 p.m., we passed the treeline and headed up slabs toward Upper Boy Scout Lake. A mirrorlike lake sat cupped in a vast bowl of mountains, reflecting the blue skies and gray peaks. Fish prodded the calm surface, wrinkling the perfect image.

Photo by Charles Denton.

We filtered water from the lake, made camp before dark, and relaxed into our tents. Night temps felt irregularly high in the lower 40s. Devin slept under the stars while Ross and I, sharing a tent, kept the doors open, allowing a soft breeze inside.

I woke at 4:30 a.m. with little sleep, partially due to Ross’s crinkling sleeping pad, and attempted to wake Devin and Marcel. They gave us an auditory acknowledgment and would be following an hour behind. With headlamps we navigated the remaining 1,000 feet to Iceberg Lake, forever burned into my mind from the first trip. We walked with the rising sun casting fire-orange across Mt. Whitney’s east face, illuminating our route.

An hour behind schedule, Ross and I scrambled the third-class slog from Iceberg to the base of the route. After roping up, I took the odd pitches, and together we navigated the buttress as the landscape below sank farther away. Massive boulders and the lake below became small reference specks lost in the vast gray landscape.

I started the third pitch, a crystalline slab that wouldn’t take much gear, past a smashed old piton and over a few traversing ridges to a cold shaded belay spot. The next couple of pitches took nearly the entirety of the 60m rope, sparing three to five feet. Climbing the ridgeline and passing the massive Peewee rock formation revealed epic views on both sides as the exposure dropped further away. I saw two specks of color ascending the Mountaineer’s Route gully. With my LYD Grant–funded Rocky Talkies, I radioed to Devin and Marcel to check in. They were a third of the way up.

The thin air above 13,000 feet caused us to slow down, stopping to catch our breath even though the climbing was easy and enjoyable. Devin and Marcel reached the summit by 2 p.m. With a celebratory shout, Devin looked over the edge and waved to us three pitches below. Ross took the last push, trying to link pitches as we simul-climbed the meandering bit, but rope drag became strenuous over the puzzle-like terrain. He built an anchor and brought me to the last 5.8 hand-crack roof move. The last few pitches of the East Buttress can range from fourth class, if you go left, to 5.6–5.10, depending on the chosen direction.

We crested the ridge with fist bumps and smiles. After years of chasing the elusive aspiration, my heart filled with satisfaction, achieving what was started so long ago, with so many U-turns along the way. Standing in that sea of peaks, I attempted to memorize the brief moment I had and everything that led up to it.

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Though Devin and I didn’t stand at 14,505 feet at the same moment, as he and Marcel had already started to descend, we each stood on the summit knowing what it took to be there, and that we accomplished the journey together. For all of us, it was a meaningful experience, and the summit felt more than just a physical place.

In the urgency of approaching night, Ross and I traversed the back side toward the notch and down the tumultuous scree of the Mountaineer’s Route. Two hours later we reached Iceberg Lake, where Devin and Marcel waited. We congratulated each other with a warm embrace and dusty smiles.

Back at camp, in the slow growth of darkness, under headlamps, I lay propped against a rock beside Devin, eating dinner. Slightly nauseous, I continued to sip water, staring at the star-filled sky, taking nibbles of couscous as we chatted. I felt the weight and length of our journey, the immense effort to finally return to this place together. In that moment, content after years of trying and struggle, and indeed with Devin’s survival now resolved, we reflected upon what brought us here, and how cherished it was to share.

In the morning, we broke camp and looked to the future of more dreams and peaks.

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