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Warren Harding and his partner, Dean Caldwell, completed another epic climb on El Cap's Wall of the Early Morning Light. This multi-day climb required the placement of many bolts for protection, something that other climbers felt was not "pure climbing". The second ascent of the route was completed by Royal Robbins and his partner, Don Lauria. On the first several pitches, they chopped the bolts, figuring that Harding and Caldwell had exceeded the boundaries of clean climbing. After the first several pitches, however, Laruia claimed that they stopped chopping the bolts because the quality of aid climbing was so high. This is still a classic route on El Cap.
Rick Smith
Rick, your comments suggest that you don't consider that initial ascent a cut and dried example of unethical climbing. If that's your opinion, I agree with you. Harding and Caldwell put that route up in 1970 (spending 27 straight days on the wall) at a time when clean ("leave no trace") climbing was just starting to gain traction as an ethical requirement and the necessary gear lacked the variety and dependability that climbers take for granted today. Anyway, Harding was a crusty character who frankly didn't give a damn what other people thought of his methods, his gear, or just about anything else you care to name.
One small point, 50 years ago Warren Harding was not known as "Batso". This is a nickname supposedly ascribed to Warren sometime after the film "Midnight Cowboy" was released in 1969.
Owen Hoffman
Oak Ridge, TN 37830
I haven't heard that version before. The way I heard it is that Harding got the nickname Batso because he could hang from a rock wall "like a bat." The Dustin Hoffman character in the movie Midnight Cowboy went by the name "Ratso," which is phonetically similar. Can anybody out there clear this one up?
Bob,
Here is what I was able to find in writing online at http://www.climbing.com/exclusive/features/batso/index6.html
"The Life of Warren "Batso" Harding" by Burr Sneider (orignially published in the SF Examiner's Image Magazine, March 9, 1986):
".....Over Irish coffee he told us how the name “Batso” came about. When the film Midnight Cowboy came out, it seems, his friends decided that he bore an uncanny resemblance to the gritty Dustin Hoffman character, Ratso Rizzo. From that, combined with his penchant for hanging out on rock walls like a bat, came the moniker. And from Batso came B.A.T. – Basically Absurd Technology – Harding’s resolutely unprofitable mountain gear company, one of the products of which was the infamous “Bat tent,” designed to provide shelter on high walls."
When I met Warren Harding in Yosemite during the time I worked in the Valley as a park ranger-naturalist (1969-71), I only knew him only as Warren, not "Batso." I'm sure that nickname grew on him over time.
Owen Hoffman
Oak Ridge, TN 37830
Fascinating stuff, Owen. Thanks for clarification. I've tweaked the title and abstract.
My friend Sybille Hechtel, a "sandwich generation climber" (daughter of a Sierra climber and mother of an 18-year-old climber), has written about the El Cap reunion on http://funclimbsaroundtheworld.com/. Scroll down to her posts of Nov 7 thru Nov 13.
Claire Walter, http://travel-babel.blogspot.com
Claire: Thanks for putting us in touch with "Fun Climbs Around the World." It's a great website, and I very much enjoyed reading the posts you recommended. Older climbers fascinate me. How on earth have they managed to live that long?
Another fascinating look at the early days of climbing is in a book edited by Valerie Mendenhall Cohen entitled Woman on the Rocks: The Mountaineering Letters of Ruth Dyar Mendenhall. Mendenhall was one of the earliest and best American climbers who also happended to be a woman. Her letters are often chronicles of climbs by Sierra Club members up some of the most famous peaks in the Sierras. The introduction is by Royal Robbins, an indication of the stature of Ruth among those who came a bit after her. This is what he says in the intro: "Ruth was a good climber--competent, experienced and canny--but not a great one in the sense of leaving her mark on posterity through her first ascccents. Nervertheless, besides her eloquence, as unquestionably as Half Dome rises about Yosemite Valley, she had the heart of a mountaineer. Only an eloquent lady with the heart of a mountaineer could leave us with memorable phrases as 'I don't know how people get along without climbing mountains'. I've never heard it put better."
The editor of the collection, Valerie Cohen, is married to a first class climber and author, Michael Cohen. She was a seasonal ranger for years in Yosemite and the Tetons and is a significant artist. She is Ruth Dyar Mendenhall's daugter.
Rick Smith
CAMP 4 Recollections of a Yosemite Rockclimber by Steve Roper .. is a fun read!