Yosemite Falls Trail, 1972

So it came to pass that in June of 1972, we embarked on our second summer-long western US road trip. Our first had been in 1970, from Miami to Boston, where I was to be a graduate student, then up to Maine and beyond in New Brunswick, then west through Canada, re-entering the States at International Falls, and then seeing much of the US West. I saw my first "real" mountains when we got to the Tetons in Wyoming, and my interest in mountains and mountaineering was born. Fortunately, Vicki has always shared, even encouraged, that interest. Anyhow, it grew, and by the spring of 1972, we were hoping to become serious backpackers and climber. We read all of Colin Fletcher and Mountaineering: the Freedom of the Hills and Royal Robbins, and Orrin Bonney, and were trying to learn the elements of "clean" climbing then emanating from Ventura, California. Our plan was to drive our camper from Columbus, Ohio, where we now lived, to the Tetons, and for me to do the week-long mountaineering school, then to backpack and climb there and all over everywhere else within reach. Maybe even the remote Wind River Mountains, which we had heard of but not seen. Alas, when we got to Jenny Lake in later June, the Tetons were still buried in snow, and, rather than hang around for weeks and wait for it to melt, we heeded the advice of no less than Glenn Exum and headed for the Yosemite climbing school in sunny California. Indeed, we spent much of the rest of the summer camping, backpacking, and climbing, and the next several posts will convey some of the high-lights.

Yes, these are all nearly forty year-old pix from my on-going (never-ending?) digitization project, but, hey, mountains and scenery don't really change all that much in four decades.

En route to the Tetons

Our rig at Jenny Lake campground, a couple years before anavalanche off
Teewinot wrecked what has always been one of our favorite places; the rig
was a 1968 Dodge van, with camper interior and a fiberglass roof, which we
had bought in Miami in 1970

On Yosemite Creek, novice backpackers; we parked the van near Tuolomne
Meadows and then hiked down to Yosemite Valley, via...

Yosemite Creek, and...

Yosemite Falls

The Aesthete; hey, I was a philosophy student; red was a very in color that season
(seriously)

You can see the switch-backs of the Falls trail in the
shadow to the left; it was a miserable descent, in
100 degree heat; anyhow, we tented for a week at
Camp IV, seeing the Valley sights, and then headed
back up to Tuolomne via bus for mountaineering school

Thus; me on a practice climb above Tenaya Lake; the
climbing was clean, but climbers, duh, were only
beginning to think about wearing helmets...