The Climbing Life, from first to last
We had the unexpected pleasure of seeing Wall Rats, a family-friendly adventure film in the touring version of the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival. Produced in part by Yosemite’s colorful speed climber Hans Florine, the hour-long movie follows his attempt to take two young people – well, kids, actually – up the face of El Capitàn. Tori Allen is 13, and Scott Cory has just turned 11 when they tackle El Cap as their first granite wall climb – their previous experience has largely been confined to climbing walls in gyms.
Under Florine’s persistent yet not unsympathetic guidance, the two go through the full spectrum of a climber’s attitudes: attacking the wall first with the supreme confidence of youth, then facing the stomach-punch reality of the task, and finally attaining the tough get-it-done attitude as they near the summit. Director-writer Steve Edwards tells the story with humor and flair, and the two kids become heroes for us all. See it if you get a chance, and by all means take the kids. (The Wild & Scenic festival schedule is here.)
Speaking of climbing, one of Yosemite’s premiere big wall athletes fell to his death in the park last week. Todd Skinner, author of Modern Rock Climbing and the first to scale the 3,600-foot Salathe Wall on Yosemite's El Capitàn, in 1988, had converted his drive into motivational speaking and writing. His Beyond the Summit equates business success with reaching the top of a climb, perhaps self-evidently. But personally, we find his work as a participant on such projects The Hand of Fatima, the film about rock climbing in Mali’s Bandera Escarpment, closer to the beating heart of adventure.
Another recent passing was that of Eric Newby, a writer whose influence on today’s crowd of adventure journalists, from Tim Cahill and Bill Bryson to Bruce Chatwin and Redmond O’Hanlon, can’t be underestimated. Newby’s classic is A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, a wry yet inspiring account of his climbing trip in Afghanistan that ranks in the top 20 of National Geographic Adventure’s list of 100 adventure books.
Following that book’s success upon its 1959 publication, Newby continued traveling and writing with the same seamless meld of wit and authority that would be the envy of any writer, let alone those in the crowded travel field. His other travel titles included Slowly Down the Ganges and Round Ireland in Low Gear, along with reminiscences such as The Last Grain Race and Love and War in the Apennines. He died in England at the age of 86.
