Valley Uprising (2014) - full transcript

Why do people climb walls?

That's a really good question.

'Cause we're insane!

Can't be any other reason!

The beautiful thing about climbing
to me is you can't justify it.

It doesn't pretend to
be anything useful.

Some of us need to go up there,
forging into the unknown.

Your whole being is completely
absorbed in the experience.

A moving meditation.

Your sense of awareness
just opens up,

and you feel like you
could go on forever.



If you're a climber and you dedicate
your life to the pursuit of gravity

you have to make a
pilgrimage to Yosemite.

Here is the place.

There's only one Yosemite.

The proving ground.

The center of the universe.

The mecca of rock climbing.

This is where it all started,
where it really took off.

The history of rock climbing
is written on these walls.

It's a lineage. We all come to the valley
to stand on the shoulders of giants.

To push yourself and to push the
sport, and to see what's possible.

It's a bunch of mad men
doing crazy things...

Trying to leave their mark
and set new standards.

Pushing the limits and also
pissing off the status quo.



People living on the fringe.

Strange, scruffy nutcases.

Seekers, visionaries.

Weirdos.

Living that dirtbag existence.

Hiding out from the law.

And vigorously
following our dreams.

Life's pretty good here
in Yosemite Valley, baby!

Woo! Yeah!

Yosemite's rock climbing revolution began with a
generation of climbers who came of age in the 1950s

A time when America was feeling
anything but adventurous.

And so they joined the stream
of family life in the suburbs.

In the years following the Second World War, the
nation had settled into a safe, comfortable routine

of well-trimmed lawns and
newfangled kitchen appliances.

Stupid American 1950s dream

You're supposed to get married, have
kids immediately, buy a dishwasher.

Just look at those
gleaming dishes!

Just an absolute bland time.

In mainstream America, safety and
comfort were the primary values.

There wasn't any outlet for
the spirit of adventure.

But it was also a
time of change.

Out in California, the beatnik movement,
led by writers like Jack Kerouac,

called on young people to shake off the
conformity and explore other ways of life.

Many flocked to the coffee houses
and jazz clubs in the city.

Others hit the beach
to catch waves.

While an adventurous few, inspired by
Kerouac's vision of a rucksack revolution

headed for the hills. Where they would go
on to discover the world of rock climbing.

It started in small suburban crags outside
of San Francisco and Los Angeles.

When I first came across climbing
down there at Stoney Point,

I thought, "Wow,
this is wonderful!"

That danger, that
commitment and risk

We got hooked, frankly,
on the adrenaline of it.

Back then, rock climbing was mostly seen as practice for
mountaineering, with a conservative focus on safety.

Old fuddy-duddies had all these rules. Can't climb
a certain thing unless you're a qualified leader

But we wanted to have fun
and said, "Fuck this!"

We all started out, you know,
with tennis shoes basically.

Stole some ropes from
the telephone company.

No harnesses, you know, you just
put the rope around your waist.

It was character building.

In the hands of these young rebels climbing
would become a new adventure sport

that seemed to defy
gravity and common sense.

Rock climbing - that kind of intensity
was lacking in a lot of our lives

but also in the culture
at large in those days.

It was a counterculture sport and it
felt really good to be on the fringes.

On their quest for first ascents and virgin rock, the climbers
explored ever deeper into the mountains of California.

About 200 miles east of San Francisco lies one
of the great scenic wonders of the world.

Until they landed in Yosemite.

Yosemite National Park is centered
around a 15 mile long valley

bound by glacier carved
walls of vertical rock.

Just acres of beautiful granite,
absolutely smooth and steep.

Almost made a
believer out of me.

Must be a god who can
make something like that.

It was a place that we
could live out adventures.

Gathering in Yosemite Valley was a group of climbers who would
go on to etch their names in the history of these walls.

Guys like Royal Robbins

Yvon Chouinard

Tom Frost

Steve Roper

and Chuck Pratt.

We were a hardcore of
really devoted climbers

trying to raise the standards
and push themselves.

The primary vibration in the
air was one of high adventure.

Up until the 1950s, climbing in the
valley was led by John Salathe

an eccentric Swiss who foraged
for his dinner in the meadows

and established the first big
climbs on Yosemite's walls.

When we got to the Valley, the king of
Yosemite at that time was John Salathe.

He climbed with such imagination and
daring that we tried to emulate him.

Salathe would mentor this new group of
climbers in the rock craft of Yosemite.

Using steel wedges called pitons to ascend the
cracks, and plotting routes up the faces.

Balls out stuff, way
the hell up there!

Like you're going to
the moon or something.

The idea of devoting your life to
climbing didn't exist anywhere else.

We have a purpose. Climb
hard, put up good routes.

Only through climbing can you find
yourself, bullshit like that.

None of us expected
to ever have a job.

We were going to be
hobos, basically.

And we were going to climb forever,
and that was the extent of it.

The epicenter of the emerging
climbing scene was Camp 4.

A shady patch of the Valley floor, that became the
Sherwood Forrest for this band of merry mountaineers.

Living in Camp 4, instead of making money
the ideal was to reduce the overhead.

It wasn't the way
normal people lived.

One summer, I went to a damaged can store and
bought a bunch of damaged cans of cat food.

And that's what we ate.

I mean, it was a total
dirtbag existence.

Life in Camp 4 really took on an
anti-establishment, countercultural tone.

There was a whole revolution of attitudes
going on in our society at that time.

Climbing was just a
manifestation of that.

We were barbarians and vulgar.

We drank a lot, chased women
- tried to chase women.

Not very successfully,
I must say.

But the beatnik bacchanal in Camp 4 was at odds with a
very different set of values in Yosemite National Park.

Yosemite was a park for tourists, designed for people from
the suburbs to enjoy nature without sacrificing comfort.

Young and old alike are intrigued by the
captivating loveliness of this waterfall.

Uh oh! Look at our ice cream.

The tourists did not like us because of
our raunchy language and loud parties.

Everybody was inebriated,
just raucous.

Some poor camper would come over and
say, "Can you guys tone this down?"

You know, "You're
offending my family."

The rangers would come
and break it all up.

We hated authority.

I still hate authority.

Climbing in those days was not a
respectable activity to be doing.

It was an outlaw activity.

They did not like these
strange, scruffy, abnormal

human beings coming in and using their
facilities and disrupting the decent people.

LIZ I was working at
the Ahwahnee Hotel.

The Yosemite management
was very conservative.

Climbers, they weren't popular because they
would go in and eat off other people's plates.

I was not supposed to
associate with climbers.

We were actually told that
we would lose our jobs.

Which made it really even
more interesting to do.

The first time I went to Camp 4,
there was a party in the woods.

A climber was sitting
directly opposite me.

He just stared at me and said,

"You are a beautiful woman."

My first thought was, "This is
certainly an intense person."

The man across the campfire was Royal
Robbins, a climbing legend in the making.

Even to this day, I consider myself
a climber, first and foremost.

Whenever I get on the rock, I feel
it's something that makes me whole.

LIZ It was always about climbing. It was
his life. He didn't think beyond it.

Royal was very competitive
with everybody.

Robbins was a driven person.

ROBBINS: To earn the respect of your
peers, you had to raise the ante.

And I remember wanting to do something
better than what's been done.

Robbins was emerging as a leader in Camp 4 at
a pivotal moment in rock climbing history.

The gear had evolved, the
techniques were in place.

The rock climbers had matured to the point where they
are up to tackling the great challenges of the sport.

But the great challenges
remain undone.

Robbins set his sights on a wall far bigger and
steeper than anything that had been attempted.

The North West
face of Half Dome.

Arguably the most photographed
feature in the world.

Massive and intimidating.

More than just another rock climb, this
iconic formation - 2,000 feet tall

would require an expedition
into the vertical.

Going up on a wall, something that's 2,000 feet,
you're up there for multiple days in a row.

No one knew if they had the skills and the equipment,
and the technique to survive that long on a wall.

It was big, it was scary.

The face of Half Dome just stood there
and said, "Try me if you dare!"

Early one spring morning, Robbins
gathered up a small arsenal of gear,

and with a team of three, set off
to make history on Half Dome.

The team would follow a trail of cracks upwards, moving slowly
as they drove in pitons and hauled their gear and water.

Nights were spent tethered to the side of the
wall, and days climbing higher and higher.

Until retreat to the
ground became impossible

and the only way off Half
Dome was over the summit.

This is one of the great acts of committing to the
unknown, just sort of lighting out into mystery.

We felt like we entered a different
world then. This was a vertical world.

The five day ascent of Half Dome
set a new standard of difficulty

and cemented Robbins' status as
America's first climbing icon.

When you picture Royal...

That crazy name, Royal Robbins.
The King already, I mean, my god.

Picture a proto-beatnik intellectual,
hard at work reading the classics.

A very serious, earnest man, absolutely determined
to prove himself as a great Yosemite climber.

You want to be the first,
you want to be the best.

It's natural.

But there was one man vying for Royal's
title as King of the Big Walls:

Warren Harding. An impish road surveyor
with his own appetite for glory.

His mother had named him after a president, but
in his thirties he was still living at home,

boozing heavily, and curing his hangovers
with the adrenaline rush of climbing.

When you picture Harding, you're picturing a hardhat
construction worker with a serious drinking problem,

and a penchant for a lot of women, radical
sports cars, a really childish sense of humor.

Our personalities
were quite different.

They're opposites. They're
personality opposites.

DUANE: The clash between Royal Robbins and Warren
Harding is a clash of the titans in climbing lore.

Both men had long
coveted Half Dome.

And when Robbins snagged the first ascent, Harding went
for the one cliff in Yosemite that was even bigger:

El Capitan.

Take the Empire State Building.

Stack it up three times

And you've got the biggest
wall in Yosemite Valley.

A thousand feet taller than Half Dome, El Cap was
beyond the imagination of even Royal Robbins.

El Capitan was impossible.

We all knew that. We
didn't even consider it.

I mean, the thing is so huge. You'd
be on it for the rest of your life.

El Cap was the realm of the absurd.
It was futuristic.

But not for Harding.

For Harding, it was just the only way
he could beat Royal's big achievement.

Selecting a route up the
Wall's central prow,

known as the El Cap Nose

That Nose sticking out
there, it's magnificent.

Harding rallied a group
of wide-eyed youngsters

and embarked on a climb that was
both engineering project...

Thousands of feet of rope, carts
with wheels for ferrying supplies.

And gastronomic orgy.

He would just take all sorts
of food, and wine, and brandy.

His mother had baked
a turkey for us.

We pulled it up in the dolt cart and
had Thanksgiving dinner on the ledge.

While most climbs were done in a single push from
bottom to top, Harding had a different idea.

As his team climbed, they left ropes fixed to the
wall, which allowed them to shuttle up supplies,

descend to the ground
for extended R & R,

and then head back up to push
the ropes and little higher.

Go ahead!

It's just this sort of wholesale
team siege of the mountain.

As month dragged into
month into years,

Harding's team had had enough.

It got to the point where it
was just taking too long.

This is too much. Forget it!

What the hell am I doing here?

I hated the entire
time up there.

I couldn't handle the exposure.

With his team members ready to
quit, Warren Harding soldiered on.

Finally, after nearly two years
of going up and down the wall,

Harding inched over the
summit of El Capitan.

Oh my god, El Cap is climbable.

Unquestionably, the single biggest rock
climb in American history at the time.

When Harding is standing
on the top of El Cap,

that's the moment when the competitive
side of Royal Robbins wakes up

and the tension between
them crystallizes.

After Half Dome, Harding's ascent
of the Nose was a darn good move.

In fact, a move on the Yosemite chess board. And
whoever makes the best moves is going to win.

Royal's response is to go back with a
team of four guys and do the Nose right.

No fixed ropes, no
going up and down.

A route that took 18 months to establish in the
first ascent took them one week to repeat.

Royal was seizing
the lead again.

Throughout the 1960s, as America
explored the reaches beyond our earth

and the civil rights movement
clamored for justice,

Royal Robbins was at the vanguard of a
big wall climbing boom in Yosemite.

After the Nose had been done, Royal followed
up with his first new route on El Cap:

The Salathe Wall.

The wall is unspeakably
massive and mysterious.

And anybody who repeats that climb, to this
day, feels a kind of awe for Royal Robbins.

By the late 60s, he'd done
every single route on El Cap.

Put up three routes on
the face of Half Dome.

If you were on a climb with him, you could
be absolutely sure you'd get up the climb.

I don't think he ever
retreated from anything.

One wall after another.

I mean he was the kingpin of
the Golden Age of Yosemite.

With a series of impressive
ascents to his name,

Royal Robbins began to articulate
a bold philosophy of climbing.

For Robbins, climbing was an
elevated, almost spiritual endeavor.

Ant therefore should be conducted
in the purest manner possible.

Getting to the top is nothing.

The way you do it is everything.

Robbins was a fanatic
about style.

How you get up there
is what's important.

Drawing on John Salathe's example
of boldness and self-reliance,

Robbins and his crew laid out a set of rules for
how they felt Yosemite's walls should be climbed.

Robbins criticized Warren
Harding's tactics on the Nose,

Like using fixed ropes to
travel up and down the wall.

You get on a climb, you stay on it, you
get to the top. That's the adventure.

You don't make it certain by using these
umbilical cords leading us to the ground.

He reserved particular scorn for
Harding's reliance on expansion bolts,

permanent anchors that can be placed anywhere as
a means of ascending blank stretches of rock.

If you put a bolt in the rock anywhere you
want, you're going to get to the top.

I hate to see anything take away from that part of climbing,
which you have to overcome with what's inside of you.

Royal, he's the guy who dreamed up and wrote
down the rules of the game the rest of us play.

Nobody would ever think of going up on a climb
and not try to do it in the Robbins style,

Except for...

Warren Harding, of course.

DON Harding did most of his
philosophizing in the bar,

Harding himself was ticking
off a list of hard climbs

with little regard for
Robbins' rulebook.

Harding was drilling bolts
all over the place.

And a refined sense
of the absurd.

He would describe climbs he
was doing as a great farce.

Really ridiculous.

Every climb I do is a
farce, so why not have fun?

He founded the Lower Sierra Eating,
Drinking and Farcing Society

Devoted to gluttony and sloth.

It was a reaction against the whole
high-minded ideals of climbing

He often describe Royal
Robbins as way too serious

and he always considered
Robbins and his people to be

The Valley Christians.

The Valley Christians expected everyone
to climb exactly as they climb.

Does that annoy me? Did it? Yes.

Yes, that was a
derisive comment.

To be Royal and to have
this vulgar nutcase

trying to undermine this beautiful
world you're trying to create.

It must have been
deeply annoying.

And for Harding, to have
this buzzed-headed square

with his little crew of acolytes,
this rule and that rule.

They must have driven
each other crazy.

Oh yeah, they were just
at each others' throats.

After more than a decade of
discord and one-upmanship

the final confrontation
between Robbins

and his archrival,
Warren Harding,

came in 1970.

Robbins has been running the show, doing one
sensational, important climb after another.

Harding was itching to do
another big El Cap route.

Harding's eyes were drawn to the only stretch
of El Capitan that Robbins had never climbed.

The last major, big,
blank area on El Cap.

The Wall of the Early
Morning Light.

Or the Dawn Wall.

But for Yosemite's philosopher-in-chief,
the Dawn Wall was off limits.

It looked too blank. Like it
would require too many bolts.

Harding said, uh, "Fuck it, I'll do it my way,"
as usual. "Nobody's telling me what to do."

And with a bag of bolts in tow, Harding
commenced his attack on the Dawn Wall.

With everybody waiting
down below on the ground,

Harding is up there just
drilling one bolt after another.

Just drawing a line
up El Cap with bolts.

This is absolutely anathema to the
aesthetic sensibility of Royal Robbins.

I was rather disappointed, but I thought, "Well,
that's what you would expect from Warren."

But this time, Harding did take one
Page from the Robbins rulebook,

Using no fixed ropes to the ground and
climbing the wall in a single upward push

with his partner, Dean Caldwell.

Warren was pretty
excited about the idea

of just going as
light as we could.

And doing the whole
climb in one stretch.

They expected the trip
to last about 12 days

but by the end of the second week, they were only
halfway up the wall with their supplies dwindling

when storm clouds
began to gather.

And we figured, "Well, let's just
hang out until the storm comes."

And we'd opened up a
bottle of brandy.

We didn't realize how much
of a storm was coming.

Concern builds on the Valley floor that
these guys must be trapped up there

because they just haven't moved.

The Park Service became nervous

and the decision was made to put
everybody in place for a rescue.

Did they ask for a rescue? No.

We'd never though about a retreat.
Never even considered it.

The only thing we'd ever
considered was going to the top.

But the rescue
plan went forward,

without the consent of the
two climbers on the wall.

Harding essentially
screamed down,

"The hell with you guys. Get lost!
We don't want a rescue."

We finished the bottle of wine and
started making a battle plan.

We were going to fight
them off if they came.

A can came rattling down and
there was a message in it:

"A rescue is unwanted, unwarranted,
and will not be accepted."

And that called off the rescue.

The media just loved this.

Two climbers,

Warren Harding and
Dean Caldwell,

They've been climbing the
sheer face of the mountain

And waved off a helicopter
carrying would-be rescuers.

And the brought Harding's mother
along and she's underneath the wall,

and she says, "Oh, this is the longest
Warney's been away from home."

After a record-setting
28 days on the wall,

Harding made his final
push to the summit.

A lot of us thought that he
wasn't going to make it.

But he was just determined.

The iron man of Yosemite.

Even Royal couldn't
have done that.

Oh he did? They must be there.
Are they there?

They're standing up...
They did it.

Come on, yell! "Aaaaah!"

Awaiting their arrival atop El
Capitan was a mind-blowing sight.

Holy shit!

There was a whole army
of reporters on the top.

You would have thought the Beatles had just
shown up from England for the first time.

Why in God's green earth do
you guys climb mountains?

Because we're insane! Can't
be any other reason.

Harding becomes the most famous
climber in American history.

Climbing 3,000 feet.

Dean Caldwell and Warren Harding
are with me in the studio now.

What was the actual quote that you wound
up barking down to the would-be rescuers?

Well I don't think you want that
terminology at this particular time.

While Harding toured the country,
basking in the limelight,

Back in Camp 4, Robbins fumed.

Royal Robbins finds this
absolutely unbearable.

I believed that Harding was
not doing it the right way.

He was furious. The
number of bolts.

I think he placed
something like 300 bolts.

It was either up to me to do
something, or to keep my trap shut,

so I decided to act.

Royal started up the Dawn Wall.

With a chisel.

Determined to remove a blot
from the Yosemite landscape.

DON And he stops at the first
bolt and chops it off.

He stops at the next one,
he chops that one off.

And I said, "Royal,
what are you doing?"

He says, "Chopping the bolts.
That's the name of the game."

Royal trying to make a
tremendous statement, obviously.

"Harding, you better never ever do that kind of shit
again, or I'll go up the day after you get down

and I'll chop every
fucking bolt."

Royal's belief in his own sense of right and wrong
boiled over into a destructive act. A bitter act.

But an interesting
thing happens.

Which is that Royal gets
not very far up the climb

before the sort of undeniable beauty
of the climb seems to overwhelm him.

On the upper pitches of the Dawn Wall,
Robbins found that Warren Harding

didn't just rely on bolts.

It was bold, creative climbing.

He said, "You know, this route is a
lot more difficult than I imagined."

I was just pushed to my
limit to follow his leads

And I was overcome by admiration

for the level of expertise.

Warren Harding, he was
climbing at an inspired level.

And so I thought, "This doesn't make sense.
This doesn't feel right."

And so I stopped removing
them at that point.

And I decided to just go ahead and climb
it, leave the rest of the bolts in.

Royal, it was pretty hard for
him to come to humility,

but he finally did, and I think the Dawn
Wall was the turning point for him.

It's hard to admit it, but I have to say
that I think some of my reaction was

Harding was getting all the credit.
And I felt I should get some.

And that was a personal thing.

I suppose it was an ego thing.
Yeah.

The clash of egos on the Dawn Wall took
its toll on these two aging gladiators.

And neither Harding nor Robbins would ever
climb a major route in Yosemite again.

They both dropped out of climbing. A rivalry
which had gone on for 14 years came to an end.

Robbins and his wife, Liz, went on to found
a successful outdoor clothing company.

Meanwhile, Harding passed his days on the
porch with mom, drink always in hand.

Remember how we were on the Dawn
Wall on El Cap in Yosemite?

Yes. And I'm rich and famous.

Rich? Where's the rich?

As Yosemite's Golden
Age came to an end,

The cultural rift in
America was growing wider.

I mean we're talking
about the early 70s?

Jimmy Hendrix and Watergate

Vietnam was dribbling on

There was a lot of discontent.

There wasn't really
much to hold onto.

There was an alternative society sort of developing
that scared the hell out of the government

Because it was
changing the culture.

Even the national parks
felt the impact,

as raucous love-ins from the Bay Area
spilled over into the meadows of Yosemite.

It's just two cultures who
are really in conflict here.

It seemed like the Valley was
ripe for the next revolution.

In the early 1970s, a fresh crop of
climbers began to trickle into Yosemite.

Right around '73 or '74 we
started coming to the Valley.

In Camp 4 we started to
all connect as a group.

We were a little cocky tribe.

We just came on the scene.

The new group of hippie
athletes included

John Long

I was about that far away
from abject poverty.

Dale Bard

I didn't have any money,
any food, anything.

Dean Fidelman

What we had was a lot of
style and a lot of balls.

Ron Kauk

There's a feeling that
you get being here.

John Bachar

I climb on average
300 days a year.

And the promising
16-year-old, Lynn Hill.

It was definitely
a macho culture.

Lots of testosterone

You wanted to hang with these
guys, you had to climb hard.

The wise elder of this new
Valley clan was Jim Bridwell.

Bridwell, our leader

Ultimately the coolest
climber there is.

Amidst the grand events of the 1960s,
Bridwell was a young apprentice

to Robbins and Harding.

This brash kid, looked a little bit like Alfred
E. Newman, with big fucking ears sticking out.

But the scrawny kid at the picnic table would
soon grow into a leader of the Yosemite climbers.

He had climbed with Robbins,
he had climbed with everyone.

That passion and commitment

was something that
we were looking for.

Bridwell drove routes into stretches of El
Capitan where Robbins and Harding never dared.

Jim Bridwell was some kind
of new force, if you will.

New routes on El Cap.
Bold dangerous stuff.

For me, it was mainly a thing about,
you know, how far you could push it.

Exploring, not only my environment,
but myself at the same time.

While blazing trails
on the big walls,

Bridwell gave the culture of climbing
a strong dose of the Aquarian Age.

That was back when we had good
drugs, you know, psychedelics.

There's a definite fearlessness that comes
with that liberation of the personality.

Bridwell, in that period, created
this sort of social tribe.

He had become this
almost cult figure.

Bridwell was the high lama.
That's who he was.

The man was brilliant, okay. He could pick a
line, he knew what it was going to entail,

and then he would go
down and pick his team.

It was a badge of honor when Bridwell
decided he wanted to climb with you.

But going up on the wall with Jim Bridwell
could be a terrifying rite of passage.

If you're in your teen years, to take
off on a route that you don't know,

who knows what's
going to happen.

You didn't know what the fuck you were going
to find when you went out on these big things.

You look down and
it's not pretty.

Your mind comes up with all
the worst possible scenarios.

We knew that we were getting into some
serious climbing with serious potential

for falling and dying.

I'd look back on it and go,
"What were you thinking, man?"

We escaped by the
skin of our teeth.

You're up there putting up a new line
with Bridwell, guy's frying on acid.

Bridwell did drugs on the wall.
He's fucked up!

And I go, "Whatever, he's tied in.
If he wants to do it, okay."

It's a fine line between
boldness and stupidity.

I may have been right
on the edge of it.

In 1975, Bridwell devised
a plan to attempt a feat

that only a few years earlier
would have been a fantasy.

Bridwell came up with the idea: we'll
climb the Nose on El Capitan in a day.

Yosemite's most iconic
route, the Nose,

had taken Warren Harding
nearly two years to complete

and Royal Robbins almost a week.

Now Bridwell aimed to climb all
3,000 feet in a single day.

Are you kidding me?

Leaving behind the food, water, and
equipment for a multi-day climb,

he chose to go fast and light
in a mad dash for the summit.

By evening, Bridwell and his
team stood atop El Capitan.

I think the important thing was to
get down before the bar closed.

Leaving no doubt that Yosemite's new
crew intended to leave their mark.

Take no prisoners and get
out of the fucking way.

Here we are.

Before long, Bridwell's disciples were
becoming masters in their own right.

We were running on adrenaline
and uncontainable ambition.

We wanted to set new standards.

Every time that we went climbing,
it wasn't just to raise the bar.

The idea was to blow the whole paradigm away
and replace it with an entirely new game.

A new way to climb.

The breakthrough for our
generation was free climbing.

Free climbing
revolutionized the sport.

What can we do just with
our hands and feet?

In the previous generation,
aid climbing was the norm,

with climbers relying on their equipment to hold
their body weight as they ascended a cliff.

Put a nail in the rock, put a nylon ladder to
it, climb the ladder and repeat that process.

Getting direct assistance
from the gear.

Free climbing
changed everything.

Now, climbers hung directly by their
fingertips in a strenuous vertical dance.

When you're free climbing, you're using
your hands and feet on the rock.

You have to stuff your fingers
in the cracks, smear your toes,

periodically placing protection.

Only use your rope to catch
you if you fell off.

You're looking up at small holds and not
sure if you really have the strength.

Burning forearms, your
fingers starting to open,

[Watch me, Beth!]

And you just have to go for it.

[Falling!]

[I'm okay.]

Free climbing demanded a
new level of athleticism,

which the Valley climbers honed
on steep cliffs and boulders.

Bridwell's crew, these guys
were dynamite athletes,

pushing the physical limits of
Yosemite climbing in their era.

All we did was
eat, sleep, climb.

That's it, okay? And train.

Worked out like fiends.

Always trying to get stronger.

You had to have fingers
of steel, zero body fat.

But even more than that was
the mental aspect of it.

[Let me know when you're
going to cut loose!]

It was really a bold era.

Camera rolling: Ron Kauk

Pushing the level of free
climbing became a real focus.

Leader never falls, man. Because
you're going to feel it.

Using the crack as a
step, he pushes up.

And then, the rock breaks off.

[ Rock! ]

[You okay?]

[Yeah, just a
little loose hold.]

[ God! Scared me to death!]

Our focus was to find out what
was possible for ourselves.

That's what took our
imaginations more than anything.

United around the new free climbing movement,
this core group of rock jocks soon had a name:

The Stonemasters.

Yeah, dude. The Stonemasters.

Being a Stonemaster meant that you had to
climb like it's your last day on earth.

And you had to smoke
lots of weed.

The name "Stonemasters" came out of a bong session
in the basement of Richard Harrison's house.

Some people would say "Stoned...
Masters."

We were young, wild, and
we felt we were the best.

These new guys coming in and
claiming they're better than us.

Jim Bridwell had a
boom box at his camp,

whereas, we old-timers thought
that that was not appropriate.

"Hey, you're supposed to be communing with nature like John
Muir, or some goddamn, instead of a fucking boom box."

Well, I think they were doing the
right thing. I was pretty stoked.

They were pushing the limits and also really
pissing off the entrenched status quo.

Sex, drugs, rock and roll

climbing.

Living on the naked
brink of society

of sanity.

Camp 4 was a dirty,
filthy mud hole.

It was paradise.

We camped together, we trained
together, we climbed together.

Our little group moving through the
boulders with our little tape deck playing.

Somehow we came to this beautiful
place and it connected us.

Kind of a magical, real special
time to be in Yosemite climbing.

We were in utopia.

We were basically the
kings of utopia.

The climbers had it in their mind
that Yosemite had evolved for them.

It wasn't to have this proliferation of
cafeterias and tourist things, this - no, man,

The main feature about Yosemite was the rocks.
And who was utilizing those rocks? It was us!

That place was for us.

But that's not how the
National Park saw things.

Back in 1970, at the height of
protests over the Vietnam War,

thousands of hippies from the Bay Area
crowded into Yosemite for a raucous love-in.

When the National Park rangers
moved to shut it down,

the situation got out of hand.

It's an angry crowd.

It's now a wholesale riot. The
mace is burning in my eyes.

Ever since then, park rangers were given
firearms and a strict law enforcement mandate.

Long-haired bums
causing trouble,

and I'm delighted to see the police here kicking
them out. They have no right to be here at all.

While few, if any, climbers
were involved in the riots,

their long hair and rebel attitude put
them in the crossfire of the culture war.

The people involved in the riots,
I don't think any were climbers.

But, you know, the climbers were
never really welcome after that.

As time went on, more and more control
went on in the whole Camp 4 scene.

There was a real battle
between climbers and rangers.

We were getting cracked down on.
They'd come through in sweeps,

get all the out-of-bounds campers,
sneak up on our guys smoking pot.

Disorderly conduct, traffic
violations, camping out-of-bounds.

I've had my run-ins. I've been arrested.
All of that.

Law enforcement was always kind of looking for
you or trying to kick you out of the park.

And so we became the outlaws.

The rangers, some of them
really looked down on us.

You know, you're a freeloader.
You're living here for nothing,

and you're taking advantage
of the resources.

Because climbers are so free, you know. Live out
of their cars, or wherever, and just enjoy life.

Most climbers are pretty fit, right, so they
tended to have their pick of the girls.

I think there was a lot of jealousy. A lot
of these rangers were pretty pissed off

that they had to work and we didn't
have to do anything except go have fun.

100 years from now, nobody's going
to remember that ranger at all,

but they are going to
remember Jim Bridwell.

They'll going to remember what the climbers of
that generation did because that was history,

and the rangers knew that,

and that used to piss them off.

In the winter of 1977, a mysterious
cargo plane flying under the radar

crashed in the high country of Yosemite,
killing both people on board.

There was a plane coming back from Colombia.
It crashed into a lake, Lower Merced Lake.

The climber had a girlfriend who
worked on the switchboard at the time.

And she had eavesdropped in on a conversation
about the plane and what was on the plane.

Climbers heard about it. And they hiked
up there to see what was going on.

They just look out
onto the lake.

The nose of the plane was
sticking up out of the ice.

And they could see some black
shapes underneath the ice.

And they managed to
break through the ice.

And there was a bale with a
big marijuana leaf on it.

They open it up, and
he goes, "Oh my God."

"It's pot!!!"

High-grade, red-haired
Colombian weed.

But there's hundreds
of these bales, okay.

And then the frenzy began.

Guys running up there in the
dead of night with chainsaws.

Cutting the ice, pulling bales
of dope out of the water.

You know, what stated out as a
trickle, just turned into a stampede.

Climbers went back up there, looted the
plane of every last reefer of marijuana.

And the gold rush was on.

Suddenly you started smelling
this stuff in people's tents.

It had an interesting
odor to it.

The pot was drenched in
gasoline from the crash.

Take a big hit.

All of a sudden, poof,
there was this explosion.

It had some airplane fuel on it.

It singed my eyebrows!

It had a little burst of flame
to it and people enjoyed it.

Climbers going down to Berkeley and Los
Angeles and cashing all this weed in

and returning with, you
know, fistfuls of cash.

We made a lot of money.
A lot of money!

Suddenly, climbers had new cars

eating in the restaurants.

Liquor flowing, steak
dinners all around.

Leaving hundred dollar tips.

People built houses.

You know, the rangers, they didn't find out
about the plane until it was all gone.

By that time, quite a bit of marijuana had
been taken out by quite a number of climbers.

These were high times for the Stonemasters, who
had fistfuls of cash and a growing reputation

as Yosemite took center stage
in the world of rock climbing.

If you were going to
be a Yosemite climber,

you wanted to absolutely represent to
the world that we were the top-dogs.

Twenty year old, Lynn Hill, proved that
a woman is a match for any mountain.

A woman might feel that she doesn't
need to be as good as a man,

but for me that's not true. I
push myself as far as I can go.

It was like a little revolution.

Ron Kauk of Yosemite, an
American climbing legend.

All of these strong, talented climbers created healthy
competition that keeps pushing you to the next level.

But perhaps no Stonemaster shone brighter than
the Southern California hot-shot, John Bachar.

When we first met John Bachar, we could tell real
quick this guy was serious about getting good.

When it comes to climbing and training, I've
never seen anybody even close. Not even close.

Bachar quickly became known as a specialist in the
simplest, yet most dangerous form of climbing:

Free solo.

When John Bachar climbs, he literally
suspends his life from his fingertips.

No ropes, no pitons, just hands, shoes, and a
bag of chalk for grip. This is free soloing.

Leave the rope behind.
Just you and the rock.

The idea of climbing
without a rope?

The slightest mistake,
a slip of a foot,

no margin for error.

If you fall, you fall down the face
and you hit the ground and you die.

There's no second chance.

It only takes that one little split
second of loss of concentration.

But for John, free soloing was the
ultimate mastery of rock climbing.

I'm working on the dance.

You have to unite your mind
and body to do it right.

I look at it as, yeah,
becoming one with the rock.

He was slightly unapproachable
and could be a little arrogant.

A lot of people say, you know, I'm just
- I'm suicidal.

They don't understand
what I'm doing.

They have no idea. As far as I'm concerned, there
is no risk, because I'm not going to fall.

Everything he did was just
methodical and perfect.

He put the master
into Stonemaster.

He started getting famous.
Really famous.

Get ready to meet John Bachar!

John Bachar is considered to be the
best solo free climber in the world!

Bachar just took off.
Completely in his own sphere.

What we're going to show you gives new meaning
to the phrase, "Hanging on by your fingernails!"

The essence of
climbing: John Bachar.

You've got to know the
rock, every inch of it.

The essence of shaving.

By the early 1980s, Bachar and the Stonemasters
were plunged in to the mainstream.

But for the once scruffy crew from
Camp 4, it was an abrupt change.

Champion rock climber, Ron Kauk, knows the thrills
and difficulties of conquering rugged mountains.

That's why he likes
a Ford Bronco II.

When we came in, it wasn't like we thought
we were going to make a bunch of money

or we're going to get, you know, famous.
That's where the changes started happening.

The lifestyle sort of evolved from,
"Hey, we're just having fun."

To "Hey, I need to make
a living at this."

I'm thinking, what's the possibility of making
a little dollar here, a little dollar there.

It's hard, when you're young, to
keep all that stuff in perspective.

When you become famous, let all
those people put you on a pedestal,

if you start believing in your own myth.
That can mess you up.

The Stonemaster group started developing
these professional rivalries.

The International Sport
Climbing Championship.

Many of the Stonemasters embraced the
emerging trend of sport climbing,

which involved competitions
on artificial walls.

And out on the rocks, power drills were
used to place bolts on overhanging cliffs.

Creating physically demanding
climbs with minimal risk.

For many of us, sport climbing
was a natural evolution.

These techniques allowed us to do harder and harder
climbs on the most outrageous faces imaginable.

But John Bachar, who had become an icon for his feats of
solo climbing, was a harsh critic of the sport's direction.

You know, here come the guys who are just going
to do anything to get their name in the book.

I'm just going for a lunge!

I just look at it and go, "Aw
man, that's ridiculous."

There's more weenies out there now than
ever. So that just makes me look better.

He spoke his mind about people who didn't live up to
a standard that basically only he could maintain.

Bachar was like Royal Robbins.
He was a purist.

Really philosophical about climbing.
It meant everything to him.

When his fellow Stonemasters brought sport climbing's bolting
tactics to the hallowed walls of Yosemite, Bachar cried foul.

Bachar would go up
and chop bolts.

It really did enflame passions with people.
And it got ugly.

Bachar chopped some of my bolts on a route
we put in. And I was pissed about it.

And I told him, "If you go chopping my
bolts again I'm gonna kick your ass."

He baited me, egged me on.

I punched him.

Chapman punched
Bachar in the face.

The Stonemasters, we were
fighting with ourselves.

I always wanted to be
the big, happy family.

That was my family. That's who I grew up
with. Fuck dude, I have to take a side?

When we came in, we were like-minded in our ability to live
simply, to go climbing together, to do walls together.

Certain things start to happen where you just
can't relate. You just go your own ways.

There was no more bond.

We were no longer
that same community.

It's sad because, I mean,
we were really close.

Meanwhile, the valley that once united
the Stonemaster tribe had also changed.

Ten years later, the whole place
had gone sort of corporate.

There's a parking lot, there were
fees, there were camping spots.

It just became more and more constricted,
more refined, more controlled.

And in 1978, an estimated two and a half
million people visited Yosemite National Park.

The Stonemasters
fit what it was.

Stonemasters didn't
fit what it became.

By 1980, '81, I think, the reign
of the Stonemasters was over.

It was the end of an era.

After leaving the Valley, the Stonemasters
went in their own directions.

The old mentor, Jim Bridwell, took his wall
climbing skills to the high mountains,

establishing first ascents
from Alaska to Patagonia.

It was adventure, like that was
the only purpose in climbing.

Lionel Terray put it quite well when he
said, "Conquistadors of the useless."

Wall climbing was something
for young people to do.

You know, you wake up one day and you
realize you're not young anymore.

John Long, the Stonemasters
raconteur, went to Hollywood

spinning the fabled drug plane
crash in to a blockbuster.

Wrote a screenplay and got it
in Sylvestor Stallone's hands.

And so a greatly embellished version of the
whole thing ended up in the movie, Cliffhanger.

As for John Bachar, after his falling out with the
other Stonemasters, he lived outside the Valley.

Continuing to push the limits of
free soloing for another 20 years.

The thing about Bachar
is he never changed.

John stuck to his guns and
kept pushing the standards.

I think Bachar was one of the outstanding action
sports figures of the 20th century. Absolutely.

And then one day,
at the age of 52,

the master of the Stonemasters
fell from a climb and was gone.

But the Stonemasters
story did not end there.

When I left California in 1983, I traveled all over
the world and explored different types of climbing.

[Come on, Lynn!]

Won competitions,

Oh wonderful stuff. And Lynn
Hill takes the World Cup!

But Yosemite was always
in the back of my mind.

In the early 90s, Lynn Hill returned to her stomping
grounds in Yosemite with an audacious vision.

I wanted to be the first person to make an
all free ascent of the Nose on El Capitan.

It's the most historic, famous
big wall climb in the world.

And it seemed like the best culmination
of all of my skills as a climber.

Until now, every party that went up the
Nose, from Warren Harding to Jim Bridwell,

had aid climbed the route, hanging
on their gear to reach the top.

The next big step was: when was
it going to be free climbed?

A free ascent of the Nose would mark the ultimate
fulfillment of the free climbing revolution

launched by the
Stonemasters in the 70s.

Free climbing the
Nose was a prize.

All the most visionary climbers
kept trying it and going after it.

They wanted it. And here's
Lynn, and she crushes it.

Oh my God, El Cap can
be free climbed!

It was ground breaking, earth shattering.
And it was a woman.

It goes, boys!

Lynn Hill's Nose climb sent
shock waves around the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the
best rock climber in the world, Lynn Hill.

Hi! Nice to see you!

Are you all right there?

And was a catalyst for a new generation of
climbers to make the pilgrimage to Yosemite.

A lot of characters started coming
into Yosemite in the mid 90s.

The first time I came into
Yosemite I shat my pants.

You see El Cap, "Oh no!" It's ten
times bigger than you thought it was.

Yosemite was like the big, promised land.
This legendary place.

You come to Camp 4 having heard
of these larger than life people.

This pantheon of
Yosemite gods, you know?

Bachar and Kauk,
Robbins and Harding.

These are my heroes. These are the
people that you grow up reading about.

You're there to see if you
can make your own legends.

Soon, a critical mass of ambitious, young
climbers had revived the dormant Valley scene.

A group that, over the next 15 years, would keep
Yosemite on the cutting edge of modern climbing.

In homage to the previous generation, they
called themselves, "The Stone Monkeys."

It's going off now.

The new generation is just
bolder and the wildness is back.

The ranks of the Monkeys
include: wall-pirates,

full-time vagabonds,

[Oh, half a sandwich. Sweet]

and some of the best rock climbers
the world has ever known.

I mean, I've spent years
of my life up there.

Grabbing these minuscule edges, jumping
between holds, taking huge falls.

I don't know what's wrong with
me, but I love this shit.

The Stone Monkeys. They're world-class
athletes. Just pushing it.

But they're a right bunch
of misfits, basically.

Anybody that wants to go up on a big wall and shit
in a paper bag, is a particular kind of person.

It's the dirtbags,
it's the lifers.

They don't do well with
rules and regulations.

Problems with authority.

Near-death experiences

kind of on a daily basis.

In Bridwell's period it was the
Stonemasters, now it's the Monkeys.

These guys are really
carrying the torch.

That fire is still burning
in the heart of the Valley.

"The era of the Stone Monkeys began when a 6'5" New
Hampshire native, Dean Potter, stormed into the Valley.

Yeah, at first I was super intimidated. The
walls were so big and, you know, unattainable.

I was overwhelmed with just surviving here. Cleaning out
the underside of a boulder and making it into my home.

Camp 4 was filled with
people living on the fringe.

Oh my God! This is so scary!

Yeahhh! Wah!

It was just all about now. Enter
into the freak show and be free.

Dean started doing some of
these outrageous solos.

Dean was one of the
biggest risk takers.

He was willing to strip it down
further than anybody else.

Dean is a silverback Monkey.

He's kind of spearheaded
the revolution.

Up on the big walls, Potter pushed the boundaries in
the fast-paced, high-risk game of speed climbing.

3... 2... 1... Go!

Climbing these walls as
fast as humanly possible.

The speed record on the Nose of El Capitan has
long been a measure of climbing state of the art.

When the Monkeys joined the race,
records started dropping fast.

Until Potter, and his partner, Sean Leary, topped out
on the 3,000 foot route in a blistering 2 1/2 hours.

Just absolutely
running up the thing.

We barely squeaked it.

It was a call out that a bolder, more mad
generation had arrived in the Valley.

Next, Potter climbed both
El Capitan and Half Dome

in a day, alone.

Speed solo was this new way of climbing faster
and more efficiently than anybody else.

Speed climbing is like
a gladiator sport.

Doing whatever it takes, pulling on gear, by
any means get up the wall as fast as you can.

I have a little piece of rope with me,
but, primarily, I free solo the walls.

Dean was, for the first time in a while, really
taking Yosemite climbing in a new direction.

He was doing things that no
one had ever done before.

While Dean Potter was
making headlines,

an impressionable kid from Sacramento, named Alex Honnold,
was discovering the sport of climbing in an indoor gym.

As a kid in the gym, yeah, I guess
I was obsessed with climbing.

I mean, I wouldn't call it obsessed, it's just that
I just loved climbing more than anything else.

I would just read climbing magazines, watch videos. And as I was growing
up, the person that was making news at the time was Dean Potter.

Dean soloing the Nose and Half Dome in a day, it was, like,
one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen in climbing.

I dropped out, hit the road, and started coming to
Yosemite to test myself against previous generations,

to see what others have done and to see if I could do the
same, to see if I could be as good as, you know, Dean Potter.

When Alex first showed up in the Valley, he was like this lanky
kid, sort of hanging out in the shadows, unsure of what to do.

Just this dorky, awkward kid. You
know, big ears and a bad haircut.

Is that Dean Potter? Oh, God.
Someday, maybe.

The guy that looks mortified and doesn't know
what he's doing there? Yeah, that was me.

When you think of Yosemite
climbers you think of Dean.

Long hair, badass attitude.
Sort of this rebel.

And then you have Alex Honnold.

Clean cut, square.

This wasn't hero material.

But as soon as the guy puts on his climbing
shoes, it's like Clark Kent becoming Superman.

Unleashed on the Valley walls,
Honnold made an immediate impact.

FIDELMAN: This kid, Alex,
is really a step up.

He eats, sleeps, and
breathes climbing.

He's definitely a student of Yosemite history.
He wants to be a part of that lineage.

On the nose of El Cap, he teamed up with Dean Potter's long-time
speed climbing rival, Hans Florine, to smash Potter's record.

And where Dean had climbed both El
Cap and Half Dome in a single day,

Alex would raise the stakes -
Adding the 2,200' Mt Watkins.

I definitely have an advantage coming after
Dean. He's already broken that ground.

The impossibility of it is gone. Once you
know it can be done, you just climb harder.

Climbing alone in a continuous
push through day and night

Alex Honnold scaled Yosemite's three
biggest walls in just 18 hours.

He's coming up just below us.

That's so sick.

Oh my god!

That was amazing!

Congratulations!

Yeah, you know. I had mixed feelings when Alex
came around, but that's the way it goes, you know.

When the next generation does come and
break the barriers, you welcome it.

Alex was really rattling Dean's
cage, challenging Dean's supremacy,

but that's required to push
the envelope of the possible.

Alex has made his most indelible
mark in the realm of free soloing

taking the ropeless discipline to
bigger and more difficult routes.

Alex Honnold is amazing. He's taken
free soloing to a whole new level.

He took what Bachar started and kept going with it. I
can't even believe some of the things that he solos.

I mean, he's soloing stuff that
Bachar never dreamed about soloing.

My soloing in Yosemite is an outgrowth
of what Dean was doing before me,

and what John Bachar
was doing before him.

Just a little bit harder
and a little bit bigger.

He's done things that really
make me uncomfortable watching.

But you've got to respect the
next generation's vision.

There's definitely a degree of mastery in soloing.
I mean it's definitely like the final exam.

Are you solid on this? Can you feel comfortable
in this position? Are you able to do this?

Part of the appeal of soloing is just the physical challenge. Like the
fact that you have to climb well to make sure that you don't fall off.

Then part of it is just being in the position of
being a tiny little dot on a huge ocean of rock.

You're totally by yourself.
On this big uncaring face.

The challenge is to feel in control enough, that even though
you're in a very dangerous position, you can enjoy the experience.

As Honnold continues to up
the ante in free-soloing,

Potter explores new ways to test the
boundaries of gravity and risk.

By taking the classic Camp 4
rest activity of slacklining...

Slacklining, you know in camp. Just walking on
one inch webbing and mastering our balance.

And elevating it into
death-defying aerial art form.

You know with everything I'm doing,
I'm trying to become more free.

With the highlining, I'm
not blocking out the fear.

I'm feeling the fear and, you know,
absorbing everything that's around me.

Trying to calm my heart, and not you know
hyperventilate, and uh keep it together.

Fuck!

Fuck!

I see what I do as a picture.

I look up at the wall or see the space between
the formations, and I want to enter that.

And I kind of get a flash or a picture.
And then I live it.

I'm trying to do something
completely different.

Be creative. Find new ways
to go towards my fears.

Wahooo!

Yosemite's such a power
spot, power place.

The perfect rock and the perfect
light and the huge walls.

It brings out the best in us. Like it brings
us beyond what we thought was possible.

The Stone Monkeys, we have
that one thing in common.

A love or a passion
for this place.

But the Monkeys are not the only
ones in love with Yosemite.

Hey! Maniac!

These days, around four million
tourists visit the park each year.

Yosemite Valley has grown
into a small city.

With hotels

restaurants

gift shops

a courtroom

and a jail.

All competing for space in a
valley less than a mile wide.

To address the population pressures, the Park Service adopted a new
policy which limits each visitor to a total of seven camping days a year.

From May 1st through September 15th, campers in
Yosemite Valley, regardless of where they're camping,

can only stay seven days.

For most tourists, a one week
visit is probably enough.

But for climbers, these camping
limits are an existential threat.

Seven days. You can barely get
your feet wet in seven days.

If you're going to do big things in Yosemite,
you have to be there for long amounts of time.

You've got to put years
into those walls.

If you want to be a Yosemite climber,
you have to break that one week rule.

Those who wish to stay longer must do so
illicitly, sleeping hidden among the boulders.

Because I can't stay in Camp Four for more than a
week, and I just want to climb here all the time,

this is my home. I just
live here in the boulders.

Their illegal status has put climbers and
rangers in conflict as never before.

Rangers enforce that regulation.

A lot of times
they're not lenient.

It's a cat and mouse game, rangers
hunting down the climbers.

The rangers have Tasers
and night-vision.

Two in the morning, a flashlight shining
in your eyes, you're getting kicked.

You're like, "Ah, what's happening?
What's going on?"

Oh, you know, the rangers have gone
from having a degree in Biology

No no young lady. Haven't you been told
that you shouldn't pick the wildflowers?

To having a degree
in marksmanship.

I mean that is bullshit.

I totally understand why the
Park Service needs their rules.

I don't want to come out
here and cut it down.

But I don't like it when I'm not free.
I get kind of in-your-face.

How are you?

Hi. How are you doing?

Turn off the camera.

Um, no thank you.

Turn off the car.

How come you're pulling me over?

You didn't yield right-of-way at
that intersection back there.

Uh, no I didn't sir. I
think you're harassing me.

The Stone Monkeys, they're trying
to live like we did 30 years ago.

And that's entirely at odds
with the laws or regulations.

The mentality that's completely taken over
Yosemite, I don't know how they do it.

In their efforts to
buck the system,

the Monkeys rallied around
an unlikely leader.

Charles Tucker, aka Chongo Chuck

He showed up here
like 20 years ago.

Just never really left.

Chongo is like a dirtbag
survival master.

He taught us how to easily
outmaneuver the rangers.

He taught us where to
sleep and not get caught

He was the one who showed you
could live under the radar.

I mean, Chongo is almost like
this adventure-Yoda or something.

The monkeys showed up, and I was teaching them all these tricks
about how to make it the richest adventure that you can.

It was Chongo who taught
newcomers about slacklining.

Chongo really is the
godfather of slacklining.

He would just say, "Ahh, if I can
slackline, you can slackline."

Whoa, that's a lot of trust
that you have there, Chongo.

He authored books on everything from big
wall climbing to theoretical physics.

This is my opus: The Homeless
Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.

And shared his secrets to a free
breakfast at the Yosemite Lodge.

Saltines, mustard
packets, and butter.

Ten butter packets on a piece of bread.
A thousand calories in butter.

Dirtbag survival 101: do these things and you won't
have to spend any money and you can stay here all year.

Rock climbing, slacklining. Those are paramount.
There's only one time that you're going to be young.

And get out there and do things that people wish they
would have done once they get too old to do them.

Because that's what life is about.
It's about living it!

Chongo was kind of our spiritual leader, in a sense. And
the rangers, they wanted to make an example out of him.

After dwelling in the shadows for years, the guru of the
dirtbags had worn out his welcome with park officials

who declared that Chongo Chuck had
lived in Yosemite long enough.

A whole team of rangers tasked
themselves with hunting Chongo.

Trying to convict Chongo
of something, anything.

They followed him.

They would stake him out at night.
They used infrared glasses.

There was nothing stealth about this guy.
And they could not catch him!

He's this shambling homeless
guy with like five backpacks

He would walk off into the woods so slowly, that you can't
follow someone going slow because then you're obvious.

Chongo was just sort of endlessly
slipping in and out of trees and bushes.

He would disappear.

So, the rangers, they
had the Chongo file.

And amassed hundreds of pages
of information on him.

I've looked at these police reports, and these guys crossed some
sort of freaky line in trying to bring Chongo Chuck to justice.

And the rangers said
he was like the,

"master of
counter-surveillance."

I mean, it was ridiculous!

After a year-long man-hunt, the park service built
a case against Chongo and brought him to court.

We had the entire courtroom packed,
every day of the trial, with dirtbags.

It really was stinky in there!

They got a judge and
his words were these:

"Mr. Tucker, your tenure here in
Yosemite has come to an end."

I went from this beautiful world down to
the homeless scene in the state capitol,

living under a bridge. And what
a stark contrast that was.

To the rangers, Chongo was an eyesore. He's
dirty. But to us, he was our foundation.

The expulsion of Chongo Chuck was a clear sign that the
days of illicit freedom may be a thing of the past.

A lot of us younger climbers today are coming to terms with the fact
that it's just a different lifestyle than it was in the 60s and 70s.

When I see footage of the 70s here, it's like Never
Never Land or something. It's the Lost Boys.

I mean, I can see how that would be amazing, but, nowadays, we have to share
it with the other four million people who come to the park every year.

I mean, everybody gets their
turn to enjoy Yosemite.

And that's fine withe me, you know. I just drive out of the park
and sleep on the side of the road, outside of park boundaries.

Because that's what you have to do to stay legal.
And that's a compromise I'm willing to make.

Because the important thing to me is being able
to climb on the walls here as much as I can.

The rangers had a plan that if we take down the
leader we'll take down, you know, the whole tribe.

But, no way will they stop the dirtbags!
No way will they stop the Stone Monkeys!

Chongo, and the old dads that have come before me,
really showed that with the spark of the idea, and the

intention and the will power,
you can make it happen.

The next evolution on Yosemite's walls would
take climbers in a whole new direction, as Dean

and his fellow Monkeys took
up the sport of base jumping.

Ba-boom! See ya!

Base jumping is just
jumping off of objects

with a parachute.

The same dramatic formations that make Yosemite a
climbing paradise are also a base jumpers ideal.

You can't base jump on this level
anywhere else in the United States.

You got this big diving board sticking off of a
thousand-meter overhanging cliff. It's perfect!

Now, a lot of the climbers
are base jumpers.

It just makes sense. Climb to the
top of these walls and jump off!

All the monkeys have
become the flying monkeys.

Pretty much everybody I know base jumps now.
And, I mean, it's a great way to get down.

Not only do you climb the wall, but you
have the skill to fly your body off.

So many climbers see
the beauty in flying.

But base jumping is illegal in Yosemite National
Park, and the rule is strictly enforced.

The rangers stake us out
and hunt us base jumpers.

The maximum sentence is $5,000
and six months in jail.

The base jumping ban has led
to dozens of criminal charges.

You check in to the
Yosemite jail.

One incident of tasing.

Shooting the Tasers at me.

50,000 volts. Right in
the back of the neck.

And even a tragic death.

They chased him into a river and
they pursued him until he drowned.

But despite the risks, base
jumping in Yosemite continues.

If you were to go base jumping in Yosemite,
so I've heard, you would probably want to

do it just after dawn
or just before dusk.

Just got up to the top of Half Dome,
we're waiting for that sun to go down.

If there is ranger activity, you get a
heads up from eyes and ears on the ground.

Nothing too out of the ordinary right now.
Just gave them an all clear.

At the edge you're definitely freaked out,
like, "Holy cow. Am I going to die right now?"

Scary

Holy shit

Even if you know you can do the jump, you still
have this thing in the pit of your stomach.

What happens if there's someone waiting
for you in the trees down there for you?

Hold on. Maybe we should
wait for cars, dude.

Do you see any?

I hear some. Maybe I don't.

You're tripping out, bro.

I'm tripping out.

We're clear?
Alright, my friends.

You guys ready?

Three, two, one.

See ya!

Once you step off for that brief
moment, everything's perfect.

You're not thinking,
you're just flying.

All the tension that's been
built up in the air goes away.

Everybody thinks base jumping is
the scariest thing in the world.

No, it's the best fun ever.

It's a basic human
desire to want to fly.

Spreading your wings and
soaring with the birds.

It's one of the best
feelings on Earth.

Especially in
Yosemite, our home.

Going by something,
five feet to your side,

you really feel you're moving
a hundred miles an hour.

Scraping terrain all
over that entire valley.

But as soon as that
parachute opens,

I'm just scanning for rangers and
looking for my escape route.

Base jumper, El Cap, Meadow.

Keep quiet.

The rangers think the base jumpers are trying to rub it in
their faces that they can't catch us. But it's not that.

For me, it's just about doing
my art and being free.

And, unfortunately, it means
that I need to evade the law.

For Potter, base jumping would hold the
key to a futuristic new form of ascent.

I have been pursuing this vision of
parachute protected free solo climbing.

Climbing with a base rig
on my back for safety.

I call it "free base."

With the parachute, climbing ropeless is no
longer a game with zero margin for error,

and can be pushed closer
to the edge of falling.

Now, I can free-solo
at the limit.

Free base could be
kind of visionary.

It does have the potential to open up really
interesting walls for free soloing safely.

By practicing free base in Yosemite,
Dean rides a fine legal line.

If he slips off the wall and deploys his parachute,
he would be saving his life, but breaking the law.

This is a new style of climbing that flies
in the face of the laws in Yosemite Valley.

Basically, Dean does whatever he wants.
He just follows his vision.

I mean, that's some
outlaw shit right there.

Hello! Hello.

How're you guys doing today?
Good.

Would you like a map
and a newspaper?

No, thank you.

Want me to give you a good
smile for that camera? Yep?

Thanks.

Over the past 60 years, climbing has
evolved to a place that would be

unfathomable to the early
pioneers of these walls.

But that basic yearning for
adventure remains the same.

To step into the unknown and
go beyond the possible.

As when Alex Honnold walked up to the base
of Half Dome, the wall where it all began,

and started up the
2000 foot route.

With no equipment

but his climbing shoes

and a chalk bag.

Half Dome was first climbed in 1957, and it was
the first Big Wall ever climbed in the world.

51 years later, Alex Honnold comes along
with the idea of climbing it without a rope.

And that's sort of the ultimate
statement of what's going on right now.

The same thing that drew Royal Robbins to Half
Dome, is the same thing that drew me to Half Dome:

Just the awe-inspiring face. I mean, I don't know how
else to say it. Just how impressive the wall is.

Being by yourself on a huge big wall,
it just puts you in your place.

But you also feel a part
of something bigger.

This rich history of
climbing in Yosemite.

Alex coming along to free solo Half Dome shows
the arc of progress in Yosemite climbing.

Climbing in Yosemite, it's constantly evolving.
People come there to make a statement

People come there to make a statement about what's
possible with passion, and vision, and heart.

Yosemite will always be there for people that
have a free spirit and plenty of raw energy.

For the ones amongst us
who want to adventure

on a huge scale.

I'm Kristoff, and
I'm from Austria.

I'm from Switzerland.

And I am her for the El Cap.

Let's enjoy climbing!

My name is Taylor
Free Solo Rees.

My middle name is Free Solo because
of my hippie, rock-climbing mother.

My name is Sean O'Neill, and
I'm here to climb El Capitan.

500 pull-ups a day for a week.
I can't wait.

Yeah!

As the sport of climbing has matured, Yosemite climbers
have been making an effort to recast their outlaw image.

This is Yosemite Facelift, a clean-up
event that I started four years ago.

Climbers and rangers working
together to clean up the park.

PARK Even though there's always been that
friction between climbers and rangers,

I think the Park Service is recognizing
that climbers really love this place.

They want to protect Yosemite, and, when it comes
down to it, the mission is the same for both groups.

But in an era of
increasing good will,

there remains, at the heart of Yosemite
climbing, a spirit that's not so easily tamed.

WHOOO!