Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
By Jenna Herzog
harlie Tree seems an unlikely mentor with his collection of home-made, airbrushed T-shirts and the
occasional puff-puff from the joint that emerges from his shorts pocket from time to time. My friends and I
dont seem to care that Charlie is pot-smoking hippie with a rather unorthodox take on climbing,
drifting around the crags the same way he drifts through life. It doesnt seem to matter to Charlie that he is about
as old as all of our dads, and has been scaling cliffs in Yosem for longer than any of us have been alive.
A few months after meeting him, my friends and I took Charlie up on his offer to join him in Yosem with the
promise of exploring some of the best climbs in granite-lovers paradise. We dropped our college lives for a
three-day weekend and entered Charlies world: a world of five-star climbs, illegal camping in the Valley, and his
fantastical stories of the past.
Charlies showing us the old-school approach to the sport: get yourself dragged into it and learn on the fly while
youre up on the rock. In an age where most people get their first taste of climbing by grabbing colorful plastic
handholds screwed into artificial walls at the gym, the rock still hosts real adventure for those who want it.
Inside the gym, theres a sense of security and control. Outside, you put your trust in the friends and unlikely
guides that show you the way, and put value in exploring the capabilities of man in nature.
Not many people climb like this nowadays: climbing for the adventure, for the fun hiding in the unknown.
Climbing for the thrill, not the number taped on the wall. Climbing is about discovery, about being pulled to
new places, new rocks, and opening your mind to new challenges. Teachers, mentors, coaches, friendscall
them what you wantbut at the end of the day no one is gonna climb the rock for you. Real rock climbing
means going out on a limb; its about commitment to the unknown.
On the surface, what we did sounds crazy. Stupid. Strange. But to us, it was normal. When a near-stranger with a
full rack of gear and decades of experience invites you on an adventure to climb in one of the worlds best granite
playgrounds, you say yes. This is a story about saying yes.
He tells us in his slow drawl that he found the bulk of his trad
climbing equipment on routes left behind by climbers who gave
up on dislodging them from the cracks. He makes his final gear
selection and hooks them onto the loops of his seasoned harness,
jangling against one another as he shuffles up to the base of the
climb.
Dom steps up to the plate, swiftly looping the other end of Charlies rope through his belay device and resting
his hand on the loose end, ready to squeeze and pull down in case Charlie falls.
Five pairs of eyes follow Charlies every move as he scales up the beginning chimney section of the route. All is
silent, aside from sound of Charlies cams and quickdraws clattering together. Charlie explains that he has lead
this climb, a ten-pitch route called Free Blast, over 50 times. Wedging himself up the chimney, he calls down to
us to offer instruction on what to do when our turns come. We wonder if hes talking to himself or narrating for
our benefit.
In less than eight minutes, Charlie cruises his way up the entire 160-foot, 5.10c-graded climb without so much
as a slip, moving hand over hand and foot over foot up the crack at a steady pace. The whole way up he narrates
his moves. He knows this route like the back of his scratched up hands.
Mr. Tree
Hes buddies with just about everyone that has claimed a first
ascent in the area, written a climbing guidebook, or been
photographed for a guidebook of Castle. He will make buddies
with anybody he comes across that he wants to climb with, and
may or may not remember them the next time he sees them.
Charlie himself has made some appearances in various editions of
Castle Rock guidebooks, and even has a route sport named after
him, Charlies Angel, to which he gives the raving review that it
sucks.
But for Charlieand any rock climber for that matternothing
beats the granite walls of Yosemite. In the rock climbing world,
Yosem is paramount. The Center of the Universe. The Mecca.
Just under 200 miles from the Bay Area, Charlie has made the Valley his second home over the course of his
climbing years.
I met people at Castle and then wed start coming to Yosemite and doing routes. We were getting on routes we
had no business even being on. Just super hard, like, death climbs.
Fueled by his granite compulsion, Charlie has spent weeks to months at a time camping out in the Valley
despite park regulations that limit visitors to seven camping days per year. Coming into the Valley as a climber,
the infamous Camp 4 is the place to be. Nestled between Yosemite Falls and the base of El Capitan, and located
just a short walk from the Yosemite Lodge, Camp 4 has gained notoriety as the spot for rock jocks since the
1950s. For decades this camp was the breeding grounds for an anti-establishment, counter-culture, boozeguzzling, weed-puffing crowd of rock addicts where climbers practiced on the nearby boulders and rested before
and after big wall climbs.
Nowadays Camp 4 is abuzz with a misfit crowd of everyone from first-time campers to seasoned rock climbers.
Charlie only recommends staying there if you like the ever-present campfire smoke that make the whole place
smell like hotdogs, noisy parties that go on late into the night, and loud snoring from your neighbors. Not to
mention the pesky registration process or filling out your name and vehicle information, and the springtime
park service policing that Charlie likens to a Gestapo state.
About 15 years after discovering his passion for rock climbing, Charlie purchased five acres of land for $39,000
in Mariposa, 30 miles southwest of Yosemite National Park, for the main purpose of having easy access to the
granite walls of the Valley. He splits his time roughly half and half between the home hes made for himself in
Mariposa and his rental place in the Saratoga hills.
Charlie has picked a common money-making job for old-school climbers: tree trimming. Working as a selfemployed arborist pays the bills, keeps him in shape for climbing, and allows him the flexibility to escape to
Mariposa for weeks or months at a time. His wife, a Brazilian woman named D, mostly stays in the Bay Area
working as a babysitter and occasionally joins Charlie in Mariposa on weekends.
In his third decade as a climber, Charlie complains that wives, old age, and busy lives have kept many of his
contemporaries away from the rock in recent years. But not Charlie. Hes confident that he will die climbing, at
least he hopes. His one request is that he doesnt hit anything on the way down during his final plunge from El
Capitan, because he prefers to enjoy the fall.
You know a lot of times, Ill go up there without a partner and, you know, Ill just find somebody to climb with.
If Im lucky Ill have somebody to climb with already, but I go up there a lot and I dont have partners. And Ill
just kinda look around and try to find somebody. You know, Im not gonna climb with just anybody.
Trekking around in the Valley with Charlie, its easy to see why he has met so many climbers: he talks to
everybody with a rope or a crash pad who crosses his path.
But you know, Ill meet people and theyre just usually climbing in some kinda really easy area, and Im like,
hey, you wanna go check out something cool? And Ill take em over to some classics, like five-star climbs.
And I dont know how many times Ive done that. So many times. You know, of all those people, I wouldnt be
surprised if that was the best climb of their life. Its fun, you know. Like better than Disneyland.
Charlie doesnt climb with wankers, which he defines as people who dont know what theyre doing. The kind
of people who climb outside with Planet Granite belay certifications on their harness and dont know how to
rappel. He explains that he has saved the lives of countless wankers by pointing out to them the errors of their
ways.
e must not be wankers, since Mr. Tree decided to invite us to come kick it with him in Yosem. He threw
out the idea the first day Addison and I met him, and then again the second time that Nick, Dom,
Addison and I crossed paths with him at Castle Rock. He told us he would be hanging out for his birthday at his
Mariposa property over Presidents Day weekend, and that we could join him. This time we said yes.
At that point, what I knew of Charlie was that he didnt own a cell phone, he used to live out of a trailer, and that
his rental place in Saratoga lacked Internet connection.
Finally out of the Friday afternoon traffic, we speed up and down the rolling hills of 152-East, speculating what
Charlies property will be like.
What if its actually a manor with perfectly tailored lawns?
I was kind of imagining more of a shack in the middle of nowhere.
Driving down the bumpy dirt road and out of cell service range, we stumble upon Charlies abode a few hours
after dark. He welcomes us to park anywhere, and explains that since buying the land he has been on a solo
mission to eradicate his property of poison oak, run water and electricity to the place, and build a two-story
house.
The first floor of his Mariposa home has all the amenities: a washer and dryer, a bitching stereo system, shelves
stocked with canned fruit, potatoes, and cooking oil, a George Foreman grill, a pull-out futon with a plain
white sheet, and a sweet drum set. The second floor holds all his construction, tree trimming, and climbing
equipment, plus a makeshift easel for air brushing his T-shirt designs.
Sitting on the stone seats in Charlies yard, we polish off our beers as he finishes another Styrofoam cup of red
wine. We kick back around the campfire that he keeps pumping with firewood and stories until 12:30 a.m.
before we eventually crawl into our tents to get some sleep for the next day.
Yeah, its cool to get some company up here. I come up here and a lot of times Im just up here myself, Charlie
laughs.
We all look up at the stars and notice how many more we can see here than in the Bay Area.
You guys are gonna love tomorrow, lemme tell ya. Yeah, you guys will be stoked. Im gonna be stoked.
The streaks of color look like they were left by people dropping full cans of paint from the top of the granite
behemoth, allowing the colors to fall in long, straight lines all the way down the 3,000-foot face. The angle of
El Caps Nose meeting the remaining vertical face of granite creates a dizzying optical illusion, making the wall
look like its stretching down towards me, rather than me climbing up it. At this moment, Im glad I turned
down Charlies offer to take a hit from his joint before roping in for the climb, because this sea of rock is playing
enough tricks on me as it is.
Since Ive never crack climbed before, Im putting all my trust in the friction of the rock and Charlies
instructions to hand jam in order to keep moving up the wall. Make the move. I smear my right foot against the
sticky granite, untuck my left foot from its cozy spot in the crack, bend my arms to 90 degrees, and pull myself
up the rock, inserting my left foot once again into the safety of the crack. I didnt fall. Cheers to friction and
hand jams.
Wow Im actually shocked. I cant believe shes doing that part. Good job! Charlie shouts up to me from 110
feet below.
I respond with a sigh of relief, new-found confidence, and bliss.
Yeah, stay in that left crack with your feet but you can put your hand in the right one. Yeah, there you go, but
keep your feet in that little gully and walk up it, sort of.
I follow Charlies advice as if it were etched in the stone.
Fifty feet later, I step onto the ledge and stare at the bolt anchors, slightly in disbelief at my arrival to the end of
the pitch. I turn around and peer out over the Valley. The glacier-carved walls curve down into the peaceful El
Cap meadows. The tops of the pine trees dot the landscape on either side. I see my friends faces as they tilt they
heads up and squint into the sun beaming behind me. Laying down on a rock with his hands perched behind his
head, Charlie smiles his broad grin, the image of El Cap reflecting off his bright yellow sunglasses.
Dom, Nick, Addison, and Carson all take their turns on the Captain, finishing the route that Charlie lead for us.
Yeah, coming into the Valley looking to climb you wouldnt have been climbing that. That was a five-star,
Charlie tells us back at our cars along the road in El Cap meadows. If you werent with a local youd probably be
over at Swan Slab with all the wankers.
y Sunday all the climbers in the Valley have greasy hair. Day
2 in Yosem and Charlie is taking us to a crack where we will
really learn to hand jam, the most important technique for trad
climbing. After all, he did promise that we would be all cracked out
and maybe even crack addicts by the end of the weekend, bloody
knuckles and all.
Our procession follows Charlie across the bridge at the foot of
Yosemite Falls and off the paved tourist path onto a faint trail that
after a short, steep hike takes us to the base of our next climb: Jam
Crack. Charlie leans against a tree and begins the ritual of organizing
his gear and telling us how many times hes climbed this particular
route.
He rises to his feet and strides over to the granite face. Without
hesitation he sticks his tan, muscular forearm into the crack. Hes
climbed this route over 100 times, maybe even 200, he explains.
Hes got some serious old man strength, Nick notes as Charlie cruises up the crack.
Dom marvels that throughout his 10 years as a competitive sport climber and boulderer, he had never met
anyone like Charlie; someone who really spends his life climbing.
Its always been a fantasy, to be able to just stop everything and climb, Dom says with an air of whimsy. But, I
dont know, its always just felt so impractical, and that it is a fantasy, that I couldnt actually do that.
Why is it such a fantasy? I ask.
After a long pause, Dom replies, I dont know.
About to ascend Jam Crack for his 201st time, Charlie has awarded Dom the honor of belaying him once again.
But this time Doms belay is as pointless as any.
As Charlie sashays his way up the crack, his collection of cams and nuts jingle from his harness, and stay there.
Hes 60 feet above the ground, and he hasnt placed any safety yet. Charlie finishes the first pitch and tops out
onto the ledge of this 5.7-rated climbnot terribly hard, but mistakes can still happenwith the rope trailing
behind him, attached to nothing but Doms harness down at the base of the slab.
I really wish he wouldnt do this, Dom turns to me, concern on his face. This makes me really nervous. He
looks more terrified than nervous.
Well, he has been doing this for years, Nick responds.
Well you guys are all spoiled now, Charlie says. Its like, it will never be the same.
Not without Charlie! Carson chides.
You guys dont neeed me. Well, now you do. But now you can see what you kinda can work your way up to be
doing.
Finally, he turns to Dom.
And, yeah, well climb together too. I mean, Id like to climb with you. Even, maybe, go do some climbing some
time.
His gaze wanders up towards El Capitan, nothing but a black shadow in the night sky aside from the random
flicker from the headlamps of the few climbers preparing for their night on the wall. We all know full well that
he means for Dom to join him on the big walls of the Valley.
Yeah, for sure, Dom agrees.
Well, whatever, see you guys at Castle or keep in touch, Charlie says. You got my number. And maybe another
time you guys can come up and hang out and well do it again, or something. If nothing else, Ill see you at
Castle eventually.
And he walks away to his truck, giving a final honk good-bye as he pulls out of the parking lot.