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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 clamoured 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.

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
dischord 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.

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,
Royal 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 on to.

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, spread 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,

And you just have to go for it.

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.

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.

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 rockjocks 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."

"Fill it up! Climb it up!"

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.

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,

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 miniscule 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 2½ 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.

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 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 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.

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!