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JOSEPH E. TAYLOR III ON CLIMBER, GRANITE, SKY

CLIMBER, GRANITE, SKY: The elements are ubiquitous in climbing imagery, clichés of modern marketing, yet it wasn't always so. Until recently mountain art favored peaks and vistas. From Vittorio Sella to Ansel Adams, photographers presented the mountaineer as a static figure; it was the mountain that evoked romantic grandeur. In the 1960s, however, climbing aesthetics rapidly evolved.1 The viewfinder zoomed in, framing grew more dynamic, and action suffused everything.2 The individual became as important as the scene, and selling adventure became a raison d'etre. The cover of the 1968 Ascent is not just emblematic of such changes; It was a moment of change, and through it we can comprehend important shifts in outdoor recreation and environmental culture. Official credit for the photo goes to Steve Roper, who captured his buddy Allen Steck on Liberty Cap in Yosemite National Park, yet the two still argue over who deserves credit, Roper for clicking the shutter or Steck for bringing the camera. Theirs is a familiar climbers' debate—who led, who helped—but how that image became a cover, and how Ascent became a cutting-edge journal, involves a more complex tale of how personal friendships and stylistic shifts converged with Sierra Club politics and generational ambitions to transform sport and environmentalism into what we recognize today.	1
Ascent represented both an evolution and revolution in climbing literature. London's Alpine Club invented the climbing journal in 1859 with Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers. Its successor, Alpine Journal, became the sport's template, recounting hard climbs for consumers of a marginal pastime. Some journals, such as La Montagne (Club Alpin Français) and American Alpine Journal (American Alpine Club), served national organizations, but most covered regional clubs. Fell and Rock, for example, charted the Fell and Rock Climbing Club of England's Lake District, while Appalachia reported on Boston's Appalachian Mountain Club.3 All shared two key traits. One was a tendency to portray adventure in gendered codes of imperialism. Authors perfected a style that understated while underscoring accomplishments for club and country, what Ian Cameron calls the "'and-so-we-climbed-to-the-top-of-the-hill' reminiscences."4 The other was a commitment to the sacred spaces of play. In the 1880s Alpine Journal railed against plans to build funicular railways up Swiss peaks, and the Mountain Club of South Africa formed to ensure access to hiking and climbing areas.5 In western North America the BC Mountaineers, Colorado Mountain Club, Seattle Mountaineers, and Portland Mazamas mixed pleasure with politics, but none more so than the Sierra Club. Established in 1892 by John Muir and 282 like-minded mountaineers, the club spent sixty years playing in and battling "to render accessible the mountain regions of the Pacific Coast." Only in 1951 did its charter change to "preserve the Sierra Nevada and other scenic resources of the United States."6	2
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