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“Long overdue anthology highlights women in Yosemite climbing history.” –- Climbing Magazine
Women Writing the West WILLA Literary Award Finalist
Independent Publisher Book Award Silver Winner
Banff Mountain Book Competition Climbing Literature Winner
Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist
Contributors include Lynn Hill, Steph Davis, Liz Robbins, Beth Rodden, Kate Rutherford, Katie Brown and moreIntroduction by Mari GingeryAuthor is deeply connected with the Valley community through her work with Yosemite Search and Rescue (YOSAR) Though long overlooked, women have always been at the center of Yosemite–climbing, crafting equipment, and establishing new routes. In Valley of Giants, editor and climber Lauren DeLaunay Miller pulls together journal excerpts, original essays, interviews, archival materials, and memorable firsts that span the past century of climbing in the Valley.
This first-ever collection of both famed and untold stories from women at the heart of Yosemite climbing gathers almost 40 contributors, from Bea Vogel who forged her own pitons to Molly Higgins who participated in the first all-female ascent of the Nose on El Capitan to Liz Robbins who established routes in Yosemite Valley during the Golden Age. Astonishing Stonemasters like Lynn Hill, as well as many other notable climbers, including Steph Davis, Kate Rutherford, Beth Rodden, Chelsea Griffie, Libby Sauter, and more share their recollections of the exhilaration they felt up on the wall and the determination it took to get there. As Mari Gingery, one of the first women to climb the Shield on El Cap, writes in the foreword, “the stories feature a medley of intrepid female characters” who “offer fresh perspectives.”
Organized into five distinct eras in Yosemite climbing history, this groundbreaking anthology captures a range of stories from heartbreaking losses to soaring joys, trip reports of significant ascents to moments that convey the larger essence of the Valley–and what it means to call this iconic place “home.”
From the Publisher
Photo: Josie McKee keeps her cool while demonstrating keen Yosemite finesse on The Crucifix on Higher Cathedral Rock (Photo by Drew Smith)
EXCERPT FROM “IS IT WORTH IT?” BY JOSIE MCKEE
This, here and now, is where I’m supposed to be. It wasn’t so much a thought as the sense that every part of my being was perfectly connected, focused on my movement through this space. My lungs burned, but I kept my breathing calm. Heart rate down. Movement controlled, precise. Each foot perfectly placed, hands settling into the undulations of stone, each move execu*ed as choreographed: the dance up the stone.
I put my hand into the last perfect jam of the hundreds of feet of perfect hand crack that make up the Stovelegs on the Nose of El Capitan. I moved left, my next hold a thinner crack. Then I reached and grabbed the cam. Perfect, I thought briefly, this being my tenth time climbing the route. The cam was right where I had asked her to leave it to make that move just a little easier, more fluid, so I didn’t have to stop moving.
Somewhere above, Quinn continued swiftly, just a little less than the full 200 feet of our rope between us. I kept pace with her (barely!), moving up as she moved. The extra loop of rope was a buffer for moments when I needed to pause while she was moving. Everything was done with that same level of precision. She was not leaving much gear to protect a fall. Any mistake could be catastrophic. I could not risk slipping or accidentally pulling on her.
Farther up, I paused. She was moving more slowly, somewhere in the chimney, beyond several ledges. I had a moment to think: If I remove this cam now, there won’t be any gear between us. But no matter, there are ledges. Surely a fall wouldn’t pull us completely off the side of El Cap.
I suppose it wasn’t about being where I was meant to be. It was about the fact that in that moment, I could not be anywhere else, because if my mind strayed, it could cause the whole system to fail. It wasn’t that we were being reckless; it was just that our values had shaped our decisions. We put more value on experiencing these moments of fluid, continuous movement, more value on the speed of our ascent, than on our safety.
We wanted to know: How fast can we climb the Nose? Right then and there, about one-third of the way up a 3,000-foot face of granite, my choices were fueled by this curiosity. Decisively, I pulled the last cam out and kept moving. The best I’ve ever moved. Fingers in the familiar crack, in just the right position, toe on this crystal, core tight, reach to the next hold, sensing each grain of rock. Focused, present, in flow. Perfect. Fast.
I WONDER WHAT IT’S ACTUALLY LIKE TO BE UP THERE. I WAS EIGHTEEN. MY climbing partner and I were on our way from my home on the central coast of California to go sport climbing in the Eastern Sierra. We drove into the Valley, stopping in El Cap Meadow to take in the view. The last light faded from the sky, and headlamps were beginning to wink on, high up the face— big-wall climbers making their beds for the evening. The top of the giant monolith shone white in the light of the rising full moon.
I imagined sitting on a portaledge, legs dangling over 2,000 feet of air, 1,000 feet of silver-white granite still rising above me. My stomach flip- flopped. Someday, I vowed to myself. Someday, I would be one of those tiny lights up there on the wall. I will climb El Capitan. I really had to go be there, to experience it for myself.
At that time, I really had no idea what skills it would take or what equipment would be needed for such an endeavor. I had probably climbed three routes that were over 100 feet, but 3,000 feet? Pretty much unfathomable, the idea was merely a bucket list dream.
A couple of years later, I was beginning to learn to trad climb. A friend showed me photos of his recent climbing on El Cap. Seeing the look in my eyes and fueling my questions, he said, “Just go,” and told me what gear I would need for big-wall climbing.
So I showed up. I got beat down more than ever before. Tired, hungry, thirsty. I tested the limits of my body and mind. I lived in the tension of exposure, day and night. I epic-ed. I climbed a “small” wall. I bailed from a “small” wall. I learned. It was hard. The climbing was hard, finding wall partners, being in the heat . . . so I followed the summer season to Tuolumne Meadows.
THERE IS A LONG RIDGE OF GRANITE THAT RUNS LIKE A RIBBON ACROSS the alpine sky. Hiking below it, we traversed nearly a mile along its base. At the southern end, we put on our climbing shoes and moved upward to reverse the mile, this time climbing along the knife-edge of Matthes Crest. I followed behind, unsure, questioning my capacity to move across so much exposed terrain without a rope. My hands slotted precisely in the crack, feeling each grain of rock, a toe pressing on a crystal of quartz. Move up, reach, connect with the crack. One move more. One perfectly execu*ed move at a time, the ground began to fall away. Fifty feet, 100, 300 . . . Reaching the crest, we moved northward, hundreds of feet of air below to the east and west. Blue sky and the seemingly endless, sprawling alpine peaks, lakes, meadows in all directions. My breath was the only sound to be heard.
Moving this way demanded attention; it taught me awareness. Moving my body through this space created stillness in my mind. I was no longer concerned with the insecurity of wondering if I could do it. The question was laid out across the ridge, behind and in front of me. The answer was each move.
I felt the buzz of being fully awake for thousands of feet along this ridge. The next climb was planned by the time we walked into camp that evening. The summer strung together miles of granite, endless movement, scrambles and handjams across the Range of Light. Absolute freedom.
The possibilities were limitless. I began to explore with friends, then alone. I gained a deep understanding of my body’s movements and capabilities, an awareness of precision. I got scared, got into places I wished I hadn’t. And got out of those places, because I knew how. The Sierra alpine was my playground, and I felt that I could do anything.
But what could I do on the Valley’s big walls? Fueled by curiosity about what was possible, I set out again, this time with that bucket list goal: to climb El Cap. Wall climbing was still hard, but it got easier. And after a couple of routes on El Cap, the goal became to climb it in a day. Then, climb harder routes in a day. And, can I climb it solo? Solo in a day? How fast can I actually climb it?
THEN QUINN FELL ON THE NOSE. AT THIS POINT THERE WAS A BOLT between us, but it didn’t matter. She fell past me, hitting ledges and coming to a stop in the jumbled boulders at the bottom of the chimney. The rope never came tight. Perfection turned to catastrophe. I thought she was gone.
I moved to her to stabilize her and initiate the rescue. She survived something that most thought was unsurvivable. But her back was broken. Her spinal cord no longer communicates signals below her midback.
What is it actually like to be up there? Gorgeous. Awe-inspiring. Incredibly fun! Terrifying. Awful. Stupid.
As the weeks passed, I tried to climb again. I suffered from visions of falling. A body (her body, my body?) falling through the air. I cried while top-roping and could find zero motivation for climbing. What is the point of doing something so dangerous? I began to ask: Is it worth it? How could any of it be worth what happened to Quinn? I had never stopped to question if I should do these things or why I wanted to do these things. I just wanted to know what I was capable of. And I still wanted to know what I was capable of. The goals were still there, but the value was not. Somewhere along the way my values had become muddled with my goals and it was no longer obvious which stemmed from which. The chicken or the egg?
Several of our friends decided that it was not worth it for themselves. I found myself morally grappling. I had to climb. Didn’t I? But I felt like I could not say, “Yes, it is worth it,” because it wasn’t fair. What happened to Quinn did not happen to me. What happened to me was different. I felt only emptiness. Questioning if it is worth it was like pulling on bare threads. My sense of self was beginning to unravel. It felt like an impossible question.
Publisher : Mountaineers Books
Publication date : March 18, 2022
Language : English
Print length : 240 pages
ISBN-10 : 1680515144
ISBN-13 : 978-1680515145
Item Weight : 13.6 ounces
Dimensions : 6 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
